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Not quite a fear exactly. Is it?......I guess I am skeerd.
I scratch built a vacuum forming machine coined by my wife as "Terry's Easy Bake Oven". I used to make hulls from ABS and polystyrene. Sold a few. Nothing crazy. Even pulled one out of clear PETG. Crazy looking thing. You could see all the innards. Ran fer crap. The toughest of the bunch is ABS but it's a pain in butt to form. You have to dehydrate that to heat it or it blisters. Ugh. Hated it. Might work as a skin. ABS is pretty solid until you heat it up. Works well for injection mold too.
Once we all went brushless, lipo, and crested 50mph I stopped making them. If they stuff at speed they tended to come apart. Sometimes the plastic ripped but usually the seems gave out. There's just no way to make rock solid seem up in the front of the hulls. It could well have been that the flexibility of the styrene made the joints eventually fail. Couple that uncertainty to the sheer dollars involved in the internals now......I just gave up on them. Still have the machine though....cuz I'm hoarder....apparently.
I'll snap a pic of the bottoms on these latest builds later tonight. I skinned the bottoms with G10. That's plastic.....sorta. Fiber reinforced plastic but still plastic. It's much heavier than simple ply with resin but it's also a ton stronger. Worth it? Meh. Probably not but I feel good so screw it. I also worried that the bond between the wood frames and the G10 is purely mechanical in that the resin doesn't actually soak across the joint and make the frame and the skin a single matrix. That really is a thing and adds strength to the joint. The first one I did with the G10 this way was my sons and he's hit everything but the neighbors cat with it. He's also difficult to beat with it. Not sure if its the boat or his skill. So far so good though. Boat hasn't exploded.
I scratch built a vacuum forming machine coined by my wife as "Terry's Easy Bake Oven". I used to make hulls from ABS and polystyrene. Sold a few. Nothing crazy. Even pulled one out of clear PETG. Crazy looking thing. You could see all the innards. Ran fer crap. The toughest of the bunch is ABS but it's a pain in butt to form. You have to dehydrate that to heat it or it blisters. Ugh. Hated it. Might work as a skin. ABS is pretty solid until you heat it up. Works well for injection mold too.
Once we all went brushless, lipo, and crested 50mph I stopped making them. If they stuff at speed they tended to come apart. Sometimes the plastic ripped but usually the seems gave out. There's just no way to make rock solid seem up in the front of the hulls. It could well have been that the flexibility of the styrene made the joints eventually fail. Couple that uncertainty to the sheer dollars involved in the internals now......I just gave up on them. Still have the machine though....cuz I'm hoarder....apparently.
I'll snap a pic of the bottoms on these latest builds later tonight. I skinned the bottoms with G10. That's plastic.....sorta. Fiber reinforced plastic but still plastic. It's much heavier than simple ply with resin but it's also a ton stronger. Worth it? Meh. Probably not but I feel good so screw it. I also worried that the bond between the wood frames and the G10 is purely mechanical in that the resin doesn't actually soak across the joint and make the frame and the skin a single matrix. That really is a thing and adds strength to the joint. The first one I did with the G10 this way was my sons and he's hit everything but the neighbors cat with it. He's also difficult to beat with it. Not sure if its the boat or his skill. So far so good though. Boat hasn't exploded.
I think the next size up from this is a better option. The 8s would fit in there and be nearly bullet proof.
:canada
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