Beam Carbon Anchor blanks curing

A sticky messy job that took about three hours to complete.

The beams are super critical to the integrity of the boat and the instructions stress a nice tight wrap (no wrinkles) so I really put in a lot of effort pulling the fabric very tight as I completed the wraps. Once that was done, I hung them both on a rod to lay up the remainder of the fabric before wrapping with Peel Ply. Both blanks received an additional layer of carbon to remove all doubt regarding strength. My final thickness measurement ended up right in the middle of the required thickness, so I'm happy with that decision.

Both carbon blanks are now hanging around waiting for a full cure before cleanup and ripping down to produce the sixteen pieces required for the next step.

Peel Ply removed to check quality (No bare hands on these pieces)

Final Carbon UD thickness should be 6.6 - 8mm

Nailed it!

Hanging around to cure while I work on planking the inner starboard float hull

UFS housings done for now

I finally had some time to sit down and do the final sanding on all four of these pieces.
They are finally done now and can be marked off the "To Do" list.

These four pieces represent over 200 hours of labor, they took much longer than I thought.

I'll have to weigh them again before choosing which beam to put them in, but from what I remember, two of them came in right at 4.8kg, while the other two came in over 5kg.
They should certainly be lighter, but using Resin Infusion added several layers of fabric to make up the required thickness. I also added a few layers over the top to raise the height a bit to account for the use of thicker foam.

There are 110 layers of fabric from the outside of one cheek block to the outside of the other one!

Prepping for carbon anchor wrap

After moving the carton of foam up onto the foam loft, I took care of some UFS sanding. Those are getting really close to being completed, but I did need one more epoxy fill session on UFS #4 (as expected) to fill the small gap between the top of the cheek block and the final three layers of glass on the side. It's just a small filler amount needed for blending those areas together when sanding.

I should be able to finish the UFS housings over the weekend and post some photos.

With that mostly completed, I was finally able to clean off the work table and add some temporary extensions to create a 25' (7.62m) long laminating table. Then I measured and pre-cut the fiberglass and Carbon UNI in preparation for the Beam Carbon Anchor wrap.

I still need to cut out the additional pieces of carbon that complete the assembly, but I was tired and went in for the evening.

Carbon Anchor Blanks ready for a layer of Fiberglass layer followed by Eight wraps of Carbon UNI and then some additional pieces of Carbon over the pivot end

Fiberglass (upper left) and Carbon UNI pre-cut and ready for laminating

Rolled and Clamped some additional length of Carbon at one end so I can pull against it to make the wraps nice and tight.

UFS Housings nearing completion

I was supposed to be doing some dirt work this weekend, but we got enough rain to cancel those plans. Instead, I spent some time on the extra two layers of 12oz over the top and the final three layers of 18oz securing the cheek blocks.

I managed to get one of the four UFS housings mostly completed except for some final sanding and clean up. The second one has both cheek blocks completed but needs to cure a little longer before I can start shaping and sanding. The third one has one cheek block done and the last one needs some cleanup before I can proceed with the both cheek blocks.

The UFS housing assembly takes up one page of the build manual. You look at it and think a couple of weekends and you'll be moving on... Yeah, not so much. So far I've got over two months and close to 200 hours invested in them. But they are now close to completion and I'll be glad to move on to other things.

Wet layups. Yuck!

Waiting for cure time so I can clean up the lower edges of the cheek block in preparation for the final three layers of 18oz.

The near UFS has the extra two layers of 12oz over the top while the one in the back is just finally prepped to receive those two layers.

While cleaning up the shop I found this old mock up of a beam mold on a base.
Before tossing it in the fire I wanted to check the angle fit.

This is the last UFS housing. It still needs both cheek blocks done.