Aft bridge deck

Here is the center reinforcing rib that provides rigidity to the aft bridge deck floor. It's ready to pop out of the bag.

1500 Watts of power

The cold waters of the Columbia river turn huge hydroelectric turbines and the wind flowing across the ridges out east are spinning 300 ft. blades that combine to create electricity to cure my layup.

plastic pup tent

Since it's sort of cool tonight, I used a board turned on edge as a ridge pole to create an enclosure over my vac bag table.

about to close the bag on the aft bridge deck floor

Here's another shot of the bridge deck floor. I'm about to seal the top bag together down the middle to form an air tight bag.

A sample vac bag layup

Here's an example of my vacuum bag process. I'm using my 8ft. by 12ft. rubber sheathed vac platform to create the flat aft portion of the bridge deck. This particular section has an angled portion that transitions into the floor of the interior bridge deck so I've used a filler block to create a solid lower surface to vac bag against.

centerboard case sides

Finally.......all four centerboard case sides out basking in the yard.

The wide ones become the inboard case sides. Notice all the reinforcing ribs and high density top edging. I decided to use Luann Mahogany for the high density core edging along the top portion of the case sides.

infusing a portion of a centerboard case

Sometimes it's a toss up as to when to use the resin infusion process. In some cases, a controlled infusion of resin can be a good way to insure a strong part. Other times, it can turn out to be a big waste of time when the same thing can be accomplished with conventional wet layup w/ peel ply or vacuum bagging. One nice thing about the infusion process is that, if done properly, it can be a neat and clean operation.

Clamping things with clamps

a man can never have too many clamps......

center board cases

Here's on of four centerboard case sides being fitted with various high density edge cores and extra glass. I'm using a medium weight Luann mahogany for my "high density core material. This top case edging will be covered with 32 oz glass and vacuum infused.

Bagging the inner, port centerboard case side

Since my vac bag table spent the winter outside in the rain, I had to spend a little extra time preparing it to be used again.

This time, I screwed three full sheets of tongue and groove 3/4 in plywood to a framework of 2x4's and sheathed the whole thing with a 15 X 9 ft. sheet of thick rubber pond liner. My logic here is that I only have to use one sheet of vac bag every time I create a part because I am able to simply seal the top membrane to the lower rubber sheet and use it over and over again. By placing the entire platform up on a few sets of car jack stands, It also provides a nice comfortable , clean work surface.

In this photo, you can see the yellow rubber vac bag tape along the edges of the rectangular vacuum bag area. Also, here are a few more things to notice:

the vacuum manifold can be seen inside the bag on the left. To distribute the vacuum pressure, I use a 1/2 in piece of plastic cpvc pipe with lot's of holes drilled in it. This gets wrapped in breather material and insures that good uniform vacuum pressure is maintained along the entire part.

center board blanks

Time to shape some surf boards..... These things are almost 10 ft long. The upper board blank is still in the bag that I used to vac-bag all the foam pieces into one big board. If you look closely, you will notice cross cuts in the board stringers. These cuts were made to help me gage the thickness when I go to shape them down to size. ( before I bonded all the foam in place, I used a skil-saw set to the precise depth that corresponds to the thickness of the boards called out in the plans.)