Beam Bolt Recess Molds

With a day off for New Years, a sheet of 3/4" (19mm) MDF and a brand new Track Saw in hand it was time to build some Beam Bolt Recess Molds! I plan on building all four beams simultaneously to simplify the material cut-out and layup process. Since the beams are absolutely critical to the integrity of the boat, I'll also build a fifth "scratch" mold to use for layout training and sequencing. It'll also serve as an end result for testing and inspection.  I believe the extra time and materials invested into this will help to determine the best way of building the highest quality parts. I'm not so much concerned about all the carbon wraps on the outside, it's getting a high quality internal layup that I'm mostly concerned with. If you look back through my earlier posts, you'll find that I've already spent quite a bit of time trying to work out some of the intricacies of the materials layup within that part. From what I can tell, it appears to be the most complex part of the entire build. (Time will tell...)

Anyway, due to the number of dissimilar fabric layers and my overall inexperience, I won't be infusing the beams. I'm dreaming up some sort of modified Vacuum Bagging solution to make it all come together... I've got some ideas on how that might work, but we'll see if that works out or not.

In the meantime - some pictures of beam molds being built.

Notice the great cut quality on these pieces via the Track Saw:

Once all the pieces were cleaned up and positioned for folding on some painters tape, they were simply glued and folded into the correct shape. That part was easy... getting all the angles right was not!

I still have quite a bit of work to do on these, but for now the glue is curing.