Tommygun

My Feedback: (2)

I was wondering if its possible to make your own boat out of fiberglass with a mold. I have an (very badly damaged) Acoms/MRC Welcraft Excalibur, and the inside of the outer hull is still good. and I was thinking of using it for a mold to lay up a new hull. First I'd lay some mold release, then brush in the gelcoat. Next would go a layer of unidirectional matting. All this bonded together with West Systems epoxy. I had to buy all the materials to do some glass work to my full scale boat, and now have a bunch of stuff I don't know if I'll use. Will it work?

Umi_Ryuzuki

Yes, it will work, However, what you should plan on creating, or what you would actually be creating is a fiberglass mold. This is because when you are done, and pull the fiberglass off of your existing boat hull, the inside will be really nice, and the outside will be rough, uneven, and need a lot of finishing.

What you should then do, is wax and coat the inside of fiberglass "mold" you took off of your Acoms/MRC Wellcraft Excalibur hull, with mold release. Then gel coat the inside of that mold a couple times, and apply fiberglass. The piece that then comes out will be clean on the outside, and need very little finishing.

You would just need to place a couple of stiffening frames, and build a top for the hull.[8D]

Be aware, that the resin may cause the original ABS plastic hull to warp.
We used the inside of an old traxass hull as a mold, and got two fiberglass hulls out of it before it started to deform. At the time, we were using polyester resins though. Epoxy resins may not be as caustic, or generate as much heat as the polyester did.

Good luck.

DONS BOAT WORKS

My Feedback: (3)

Use plaster aperies and make a female mode use mold release then apply your gel coat and then your fiberglass cloth.
Then apply more resin.

Tommygun

My Feedback: (2)

So the matting you can buy from West Marine is sufficient to make a boat, or did you guys use some other type of lay-up material for the laminate? As for the polyester, that's all gelcoat is. I painted the hull on the outside during a repair on the full scale just so I could get practice applying it. It didn't seem to deform or warp at all. But I plan to use epoxy for the laminate. A conventional wood transom and stringer assembly such as the full scale boats have should work well. Although this will probably be birch or Midwest ply instead of marine ply.