Got a chance to sail PIKANTO hull nr 3 today in Turku. After a bit of servo-programming to get the travel on the HiTec winch dialled in right it was on with the deck patches and onto the water. Turns out the balance is pretty darn good as we had gusty nr1 rig weather today [...]

Jari has added fittings, radio-installation, bulb, and foils to PIKANTO hull nr 3. Note the aluminium cnc-machined winch-drum for the HiTec winch-servo. While we have developed a good looking cnc-machined steel finmould, ruddermoulds, a bumper mould, etc. we are still not producing hulls in any larger numbers for sale due to various reasons. Stay tuned.

M4 thumb-wheels in aluminium for the mast-ram on the model yacht.

As I mentioned earlier, the flanges around the foredeck openings were very time-consuming to laminate around, and very hard to release from the mould. Here I’ve ground them down with a pneumatic dremel-type grinder, and then sandpapered a bit. Next I need to fix a few dents in the gelcoat, wet-sand, and polish. Then we [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

We’ve moulded the first PIKANTO hull! This is a bit of a prototype since it’s some time since Jari or myself moulded a boat, and also because these are brand new moulds and we have never made a boat in one-go like this before: closed mould with the hull, deck, mast/finbox, and ruddertube all attached [...]

The PIKANTO moulds were polished first with “Oskar’s buffing and polishing compund M-50″ and then with “Norpol Rubbing R-10″, both from Terpol (www.terpol.fi) in Turku.

After sanding with 1200-grit and a 10-15um particle-size fine paper it is time for polishing. We have two grades of polishing-compound. These pics show the coarse type which is polished with a spinning soft disk on a power-drill. After polishing follows release agents: first Frekote and then wax. It’s still possible we will mould a [...]

I hope to proceed with 800 grit and 1200 grit sanding during the week so that the Pikanto moulds would be ready for baking the first hull over the weekend before Christmas.