: Way cool!

: On my Cormorant deck, I hot glued strips vertically from chine to sheer, and
: at the sheer, I gorilla glued horizontal strips between the opposite
: verticals. This was pretty tough, and held up well through the stripping.

Great tip, I'll keep that in mind for the future. A big problem for me was the transition from "foot hump" to flat foredeck. The strips wanted to pull up that particular form. I ended up strapping a board across, externally, to help keep the deck down.

: Did you go with the "cheap little sucker" instructions?

Yes. I used a compressor from a damaged air conditioner (condenser pinhole caused refrigerant loss.) I determined that the compressor was still turning, so I removed it to see if it would suck. It does, to the tune of 26"Hg! I rigged it with to the Cheap Little Sucker instructions, using an icemaker valve for a bleed, and a $6.00 vac gauge from the Grainger catalog. It seems to me that a compressor needs something to compress, so I plan on using the bleed line to regulate vacuum, and provide some flow. I think that I will add a drop of air tool oil into the bleed line from time to time. The discharge line terminates through the lid of a coffee can, to catch the oil.

For practice, last night I fabricated a channel to cut into padeyes. It was all vacuum clamping on-the-cheap. Bag sealing tape? Nope, masking. perf ply? nope, PE sheet poked with pinholes every half inch. Vacuum bag? Nope, more plastic sheet. Bleeder/breather? nope again...felt cloth leftovers. Fancy port? No, more masking tape! It was all very crude, but effective. I wet the cloth and squeegied it, then transferred the cloth strips to the tool, so the cloth was reasonably low in resin. But when the bag was assembled, and the vac was started, I saw excess resin coming through to the felt. This is a good sign, as the ratio of fiber to resin will improve.

I'm burning the midnight oil to get this boat to water. Mark and Becky Molina are coming to Rochester next weekend, and I want to use this boat for the two-day workshop!

Regards,

Dave