Monday, February 22, 2010
Jari machined these steel fin moulds for the PIKANTO over the weekend. The fin will be moulded with a clear glecoat, one 200g carbon layer as a surface layer, and one 250g/m2 UHM UD carbon layer. We are going to use either cnc-machined balsa cores, or a 2-component epoxy foam core. The bulb attaches with [...]
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The third production PIKANTO hull is red.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Elastosil M4503 is a condensation-curing soft white silicone I am now using for the PIKANTO bow bumpers. The RTV-615 I used earlier was an addition-curing silicone and cured in 60 minutes at +100C. This one will not cure faster at an elevated temperature. The datasheet suggests 24 h at room temperature, but I found 48 [...]
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Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The second PIKANTO production hull was taken out of the mould today. It's made with a clear gelcoat and will be painted later. I've created a PIKANTO-Page which will have details about the project and future sales.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Most model-yacht classes require a soft bow-bumper to be installed on the bow of the boat, to prevent serious damage when the inevitable collisions happen. We milled a bow-bumper mould for the PIKANTO a while back. A first test was made using the normal Frekote+wax release agent (which we use when moulding boats with epoxy+glassfiber) [...]
Our third PIKANTO hull, a.k.a. "Yellow Submarine" was taken out of the mould today. As expected, the yellow gelcoat doesn't cover very well which gives the boat a very "prototype" and/or "artsy" look I used a dremel with a cutting-wheel to cut off the extra glassfiber from the deck openings, and then a sharp knife [...]
Thursday, January 21, 2010
We are finding that different colour pastes result in gelcoats with widely different ability to cover and produce a nice finish. This means we'll have to do a bit of experimenting and then only produce boats with colours that are easy to work with. Hull nr. 3 "Yellow Submarine" was moulded last weekend and it [...]
Update: here is Jari's "fork" design for the mast-partner: The forward hole could be made a bit bigger so a 4mm acetal-rod with a small central hole for the jib-sheet will fit. There could be an M3 or M4 threaded hole added for the mast-ram, and finally some holes for a U-shaped bent wire which [...]
Here's another idea for the PIKANTO radio-installation. The yellow parts are 1.5 mm glassfiber boards (PCB-material) which are glued to the finbox and the mainsheet post. They would provide two or four mounting holes for M3 bolts that secure the main radio-plate (not shown) to the boat. If this is rigid enough I think no [...]
This jib-support part which goes into the bow of the boat has about three or four different purposes. First, it stiffens the forward deck to take the loads from the rig, second it provides a 6 mm i.d. tube for a dyneema-thread type no1 rig swivel, third it provides a 3mm wide slot for recessed [...]