Building Foam Composite Panels for the Hulls

Having gained some experience in the making of the flat panels under the hulls, I come to the most exciting part of the work so far...building COMPOSITE panels for the hulls. Normally when a boat maker wants to build a composite panel vacuum bags will be used. The air is sucked out at a few atmospheric pressure so that the FOAM bonds with the skin. Now, if I am mass producing boats that is the option to use but then I am only going to build one boat so a LOW Tech solution has to be made. Luckily I have bought Richard Woods' plans and he has given instructions for a low tech way of making hull laminates. Reasons why a Foam laminated hull is more superior is that it is light, Very strong, heat insulator and the foam does not burn. Of course it cost much more than solid fibreglass and wood but in the end it is worth the extra cost and work.This year's weather has not been normal....a lot of rain even during this "dry" period so I had to extend my tent workshop and buy extra canvas so that if it rains after I had laid a glass panel it will not be affected.These 16 mm thick melamine boards are the mould for the production of the composite panels. It had to be on a level floor and are joined together with cellotape. The dimensions as per the plans are drawn onto the hulls. Flanges, which are strips of 4 mm melamine wood are placed at the edges of the drawn hull shape. these flanges makes the joining of one panel to the next easier later on.After the shapes and flanges are ready, a layer of gelcoat is applied. It is laid to set for several hours.When the layer of gelcoat has almost cured, a layer of 600/225 biaxial matt is applied. I had requested my friend Robin Tan to come over and give me some hands on training on the making of these panels. Robin has magical hands and he has built several boats including a catamaran (24 ft) . He explained the correct technique of rolling the matts and how to minimise and get rid of air bubbles which are the natural enemies to the panels.These are the PVC Foams that I bought from DIAB Australia. DIAB has a branch in Thailand and I had to deal with the Thailand branch . Now listen very carefully.....if you have to deal with them, be very very careful. My plan calls for Grid Scored foams and my request from DIAB Thailand was Grid Scored Foam.Yes we have ..no problem we can sell..etc and they invoiced and delivered me the Plain Foam. The foam comes in sheets of 7 ft by 4 ft . Quick correspondence with Richard Woods the boat designer suggested the only way that I could use the plain foam is to cut it into 6 inch squares with a hole in the centre and paste the pieces together again so that a good laminate could be achieved. It is a real pain in the **se! What you see here is the amount of foam for one panel.The foams had to be bonded onto the layer of glass using a special paste Divilette 600. The paste is VERY expensive, had to be imported from DIAB Australia and is classified as a dangerous good so the handling charges are a lot! And even though DIAB has a regional office in Thailand, no stocks are kept in Thailand so each user had to individually import the stuff from Australia. It looks like poor business sense but the real reason is that these paste has a life of 90 days if stored at a room temp of less than 25 C. Of the 90 days, 30 days are spent at sea and wharehouse so that leaves me with only a month to work.I did a trial with a few pieces of foam on a small part of the panel and waited for it to cure to see if the method works. Once I established that it works, then the work work of tiling and gluing the foams began. It is a back breaking task and I had to work fast so that the bonding paste do not cure in the pot. Each foam had to be inspected for proper bonding.

After the layer of foam is ready, another layer of 600/225 matt is laid on top the foam. the foam is now "sandwiched" in the middle of the two glass skin. 600 mm strips are placed all around the panel for extra protection.There is only so much of mixing and working that one person can do so in the later panels i had engaged the services of my friend Yee who is a fisherman to help. I imparted whatever knowledge I had on the subject to him and he was of a great help.

The cured panels are then trimmed and stored. a total of 35 man hours is required to produce on of these panels so it took me about 5 weeks of free time to produce the 4 panels for then hulls.

We have got a litter of German Shepherd Puppies !

I have always thought that breeding quality pedigree dogs will be another form of passive income. After all I have a big compound and I do require the services of good guard dogs to deter undesirable elements from getting into our compound. I had been having Labrador Retrievers for many years but they are not guard dogs so I switched to German Shepherd the last few years. I found German Shepherd to be almost the perfect dog for the family. They are highly intelligent, loyal and obedient. Normally my dogs are gentle and socialise well. However , they can be very protective and in our absence very fierce!This is MATA our male dog . He is big, strong and friendly and also a very good guard dog. When our bitch CIKU was on heat last season, he was the hero and the champion for after several weeks we got a litter of beautiful puppies.On 7 July 2010, CIKu gave birth to a litter of 10 healthy puppies. I spoke to a professional dog breeder who had been my mentor on breeding dogs and he told me this is "beginner's luck"!. He told me it is extremely difficult to mate German Shepherds. I can vouch this for I had been trying to mate CIKU several times without success, each time paying a big sum of money. That is why I consider my dog MATA to be the champion! These puppies were very cute and I can see the big bones in them. This photo is taken at 2 days old .

At two weeks old these puppies are beginning to show their true colours..alert, intelligent and active.
Of course they still need their mother's protection. CIKU has been fiercely protective of her puppies. Even MATA gets bitten when he tries to get near the puppies.

However, CIKU does not mind anyone of us in the family to handle and play with her puppies.

This photograph is for CIKU's family album.

The puppies are offered for sale to good homes. Readers of my blog will get a discount if they quote my blog when coming to purchase a puppy. This is a chance for dog lovers to own a good dog with a long history of excellent temperaments and intelligence.

WE HAVE DECIDED THAT PART OF THE COLLECTION FROM THE SALE WILL GO TO AN ORPHANAGE.

Durian Season Again!

The season for the King of the Fruits is on again. I have "sufficient" fruits in my orchard this year to feed me, my family and guest.The short cut to my farm is by crossing a big river. This man here, En Bakar has been helping me in my orchard since the time when I bought the land in 1986 (a blog on that later). From the river we have a make shift jetty very cleverly constructed the Kampong style so that we do not have to wade through the mud during low tides.

My orchard is located on the banks of the Kemaman River and I take pride to maintain a clean outdoor park atmosphere in my orchard. You can almost play golf in my orchard.Most of my friends who followed me to my orchard gets excited by the fruits hanging from the trees. If they are lucky, some fruits will drop when they are around and we can have a feast of fresh durians.These are some of the designer type durians that I have. The variety at the time when I planted was supposed be the best but nowadays there are a lot of other very good variety.Not bad for day number 1 of this year's season!Most of the time I do not go by boat but drive in so that I do not have to carry the load of fruits up and down the boat. Easier to just throw in the boot!Being the orchard owner also mean I am the chief coolie..I have to open the fruits to serve my guest but money cannot buy the happiness in me when I see them enjoying my fruits. The extra fruits are hygenically packed into plastic containers and deep frozen. In this way, even after a few months we can have some fresh durians. Also those in other parts of the world can taste some kampong grown organic durians when they come home! Just too bad that my Mat Salleh friends do not know how to enjoy durians. One of them told me eating durian is like eating custard in public lavotary!

Building Flat Panels for the Catamaran Hull Bottoms

I am now in the second phase of building my Gypsy catamaran. This phase involves the construction of the hulls. I had chosen to build the hulls out of foam composites . The reason I had chosen Woods designed catamarans is that the hulls can be built from flat panels which is ideal for a "one off" boat. No expensive moulds are required. So, PVC foams had to be purchased from DIAB who has a branch in Thailand. What I cannot comprehend is that while they sell the foams in Thailand, they do not keep stock of the BONDING PASTE that is required to bond the PVC foams to the glass. After serious consideration I decided to get the bonding paste from DIAB in Australia instead of using substitute as the hull is a very important part of the boat and I do not want any delaminatons later on. However, I am still sore with this "Poor business practice" which resulted in me spending a lot of hard earned money for transporting the 3 pails of Divilette 600 bonding paste . Total weight is 60 kilos and it is classified as dangerous goods !

The mould for the flat panels are 16 mm melamine chipboards. These boards are 8 ft by 5 ft in size and I am building half a panel at a time. Catamaran length is 28 ft so 2 pieces of melamine board joined together is enough for half a hull length.

The dimensions of the bottom panels as per the plan are marked onto the melamine board using a water based marker pen.

The two small pieces of 3 mm melamine wood strips are added to make the flanges. This makes it easier to join up with other panels later on.The bottom panels of the catamaran does not call for any PVC foam or gelcoat. The layers are 300 gm CSM followed by 3 more layers of 600/225 biaxial mat. These materials are bonded together using polyester resin. I had purchased BQTN resins which does not have a layer of wax and is la ow Low Styrene laminating resin.

It takes me about 3 hours of work to get one panel ready. The panel is then left overnight for it to cure (solidify).

The manufactured panels are easily separated from the mould. I had finished building all the panels for the bottom of the Gypsy. It is a good experience and I will move on to building the panels for the hull which would be more interesting as this is where the PVC foam will be used.

A trip to Rainbow Waterfall in Sg Lembing

My partner in crime Cheong is around and we decided to make a trip to Sg Lembing , an abandoned mining town. There are many natural attractions in this sleepy town so we decided to take along two bicycles and camping equipments. We started late and arrived sleepy Sg Lembing in time for a good dinner at the only Chinese restaurant in town. After dinner we decided to head towards the river to set up camp for the night. On reaching the end of the road towards the river we decided to set up camp for the night.Equipped with folding camp beds we had a very good night's rest. The air was cool (about 18C) and after some bullshitting around the campfire we dosed off.Next morning at dawn we heard distant sounds coming towards us. We quickly got up and there was an approaching truck. Without us knowing, we had camped in the middle of the road!. The trucks would just drive through the river to cross the other side. Upon enquiring from the truck driver we were told of the Rainbow waterfall which is just over an hour's drive away. We decided to look for a safe place to park my car and ride our bicycles to the waterfall.My car was parked near this river and we cooked a good breakfast so that we have energy for the ride.The simple meal of canned tuna, eggs and rice tasted very good in a place like this.The ride in was undulating and there were a lot of stones on the road. I was not equipped for a ride like this so I had to dismount and ride on many stony sections or when it gets too muddy. We were feasted with views like this so there is no complaints about the ride. After all this is not a race so we took it easy and enjoyed the ride.

At the end of the bicycle ride it was a hike up to the waterfall. We had to cross a stream and hike parallel to the stream. I believe during the rainy season the water level must be high.
The hike up took us about 45 minutes. On some parts we had to go through the slippery rocks.
The were a lot of good pools along the way for a dip and a spa massage nature's way.Soon from a distance we could get a glimpse of the waterfall.But before reaching we have more slippery rocks to climb.And this is how the waterfall looks like . We could not catch the rainbow as we were late but because of the spray of water hitting the rocks at a certain part of the morning a hugh rainbow could be seen across the waterfall.

The water droplets acts as a prism which refracts the light into its 7 colour spectrum.It was a good outing and weekend. As usual, not much money was spent for the trip. With fuel for the truck and food, possibly only RM 50 was spent.

We had consumed a lot of fresh air and oxygen but most important we had left nothing except our foot prints and took nothing except photographs for the trip. The place is still clean and relatively unspoilt and is worth a go.