Ok guys and girls, I’m about to start building sum hull plugs/molds. Anyone with any info that can save me sum hardship that would be great. So if you have any info/picks that could help me I would appreciate it very much

Start here

http://www.usaca.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=476:new-a-cat-design-racer-x-is-back&catid=67:icon&Itemid=122

Tony's A Cat

awesome that's a good start!!!! thx

You might as well asked for a manual on world peace! It's a tricky, artful process to make molds on this scale on a normal person budget. I've made a few on a considerably smaller scale and you can see some of it here (you have to read from the bottom up since the posts are chronological).

http://www.teamseacats.com/category/other-projects/one-meter/page/11/

If I were doing it and intending to build only one boat, I would consider using a strip foam planking method like Ian did on his LR series of a-cats. The process would be the same for you - only the number of layers of fiber would need to increase and you probably need a little more structure in the hulls (including a sub-deck to help with spinnaker and forestay loads). I can't help with the exact lamination schedule but perhaps the Man Shed can shed some light relative to the trimaran he's building.

http://lindahlcompositedesign.weebly.com/lr4-build.html

http://www.themanshed.com/tms-20-trimaran.html

Plugs and molds....are you starting production as opposed to a one off?

we are thinking production but are not even close yet.

Hobie, Micky, and Phil started with two surfboard blanks. Hobie Alter shaped the original Hobie 14 by eye and simple tools.

CAD programs suffice for now

haha I hear u

ok who did the design? Do you have renderings?

What you making?

2 cats a f16 and also a open20

So you want a couple of prototypes before tooling up for a production

Thermoform foam [Corecell/airex] in female formers, skin the inside, fit bulkheads, pull from formers, join the halves and then laminate the outside. Fill, fair and paint

Sail it, then if you are happy with it - you have a plug for production molds.

yea that's about what i was planing on. Guess im heading in the right direction.

Why not an F-18 too?

dead class......





































Just kidding, wanted to jerk Dave's chain.

He's probably worried that he wont be able to make the boat heavy enough.

:-)

Worked with a guy we called "spoon", for good reason.

who has a good lead to foam core strips?

Buy sheets, rip the strips on the table saw, and use a router table to machine a radiused bull-nose on one edge and matching relief in the other side. This way they will pivot inside each other to reduce the amount of fairing you need to do and will increase the glued surface area.

anyone building a Farrier trimaran - start at f-boat.com