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What is scuffing and how do i do it?
People have recommended scuffing the bottom of my boat to get more speed and i wanted to know what exactly that means.
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Scuffing the bottom causes air bubbles to form along the hull and actually makes it slicker than the smooth painted fiberglass. It breaks the friction/suction that develops between the water and the hull. It's only really necessary for the last half of the bottom of the hull that was below the water line in operation.
Most use either a red Scotch-Brite pad or wet/dry sandpaper in a linear motion, bow to stern. I don't recall what grit# for the wet/dry paper though. -
Just take some 400 or 600 paper with water and knock the shine off anywhere that runs in the water...mainly just the bottom. decrease water tension on the hull and runs faster.Comment
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ok thanks for the infoComment
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Actually, air bubbles will not support a model boat and they do not reduce friction. When the shine is removed from a hull bottom - if done correctly - it allows the water to adhere firmly to the hull surface rather than just beading off. This reduces overall drag because there is less friction between water and water than there is between water and a solid 'dry' surface. This is why waxing a fast boat hull increases overall drag.Scuffing the bottom causes air bubbles to form along the hull and actually makes it slicker than the smooth painted fiberglass....
As Jeff stated, use 400 grit wet-or-dry to remove the shine - you still want a smooth surface. Depending on the surface, block-sanding works well.
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does it also reduce heat buildup?Stiletto tunnel,EPV135 (53") twin cat, CT06"Spirit of Qatar", FD 47" mono, Twin Mini Cat 23.5"Comment
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Actually it can, although the amount of heat reduction would probably be minimal. Anything which frees up a hull will allow the motor to unload, reducing amp draw and lowering heat buildup.Funny...
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I assume this will also be effective on an ABS hull? I am thinking about doing this on my SW 26 now...will it really make a difference?The Speeders
*PB SW 26 BL *PB Formula FASTech
The Cruiser
*CBM Marlin Cruiser
The Pool Toys
*Proboat Mini-C (x2) Comment
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After scuffing my sponson bottoms, they measured.000000000000000000000128 degrees cooler.
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The heat thingy depends on the speed of the boat. Some boats have to worry about ice buildup. Me - I'm somewhere in between ice and heat...........................................Comment
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Scubasteve95, Yes we all started "roughing" up the bottom after the "Secret" came out concerning Dennis Connor's boat when it won back the Americas Cup" in 1987. The "Secret" was a 3M milar that they developed for (I believe) Boeing to reduce drag on some plane Boeing was working on. 3M offered it to Dennis Conner to try on one of his many hulls he was preparing for the Americas Cup. In testing Connor's discovered that the hull with the milar was running up to three-quarters knots faster under all conditions. During the Americas Cup Connors kept the bottom of his hull covered much like the Australians did when they won the previous cup from the US.
It's kind of like when the Australian Wombly(sp?) set the 300mph on water and in one of the filmed documentary work they showed him tourching off three inches from his rudder to increase speed. Heck, we had boats in the Capitol RCers that wouldn't even turn after we all saw that and no one had a method to really measure whether or not we had gained any speed. (My MM's rudder is 4 and three-quater inches long......)
Bottom line, is yes I roughed up the bottom of my MM and tried by best to "blueprint" the bottom to make sure it was reasonalbly flat.Comment
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Just a note... I also use painters taper...blue stuff to tape off the bottom of the hull to form a nice "edge".... that way it doesn't take the nice look away from the whole bottom of the hull and it looks like it was meant to be that way.... kinda like a real boat...lol.Comment
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I thought about trying a coat of bed liner spray...it is rough but not sure how it would do.Comment
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