Super Hawaii questions

[norbique]

A friend has a Super Hawaii. He cut open the deck carefully, laid glass into the hull to reinforce it. Then glued the deck back on. Not only the bottom, but the sides are also glassed. Very durable now. The Original ABS was very weak. He's running 4S lipo with the big Keda motor from HobbyKing. The KD45L don't know the KV, sorry. The boat is really fun to run, not very fast, but unfortunately the Keda motor is an amp hog, as others say. Quite bad efficiency. It depletes the 4S 5Ah lipos quite quickly. He uses 200A ESC, and If I remember correctly the stock out-drive unit was replaced by totally submerged straight shaft with and smaller prop.

[Gexx99]

OK, from what I have been able to figure out reading this and other forums, I need to use fine sand paper on the inside of the hull of the boat. Make sure it is very clean after this. Then use 3m spray adhesive to get the fiberglass cloth to stick to the inside of the hull. After this, use epoxy mixed 1/3 between epoxy, hardener and rubbing alcohol, apply with a brush. If I am thinking about this right, the epoxy mix will seep into and past the cloth and bond to the ABS hull. The 3m spray is just to get the cloth to stick in place before I bond it to the hull.

I appreciate all of the input on this as I have never done this before.

[norbique]

I think you got it correctly.
Instead of thinning the epoxy, you might consider using laminating epoxy, which is more water like, it's thin and runs through the glass threads, soaking the glass cloth completely.

[Gexx99]

Well, I started the project today. I think that I am going in the right direction. I sanded the hull, sprayed it with Super 77 from 3m, and then laid the glass on top of that, making sure to push it down into the hull. (I used a pop cap to push the glass into the groves of the hull). After that, I mixed up some epoxy and added the alcohol. Brushed that on and it is drying right now. I did notice that it did not seep through as much as I thought it should, but I did a test piece and it did not pull up unless I really pried at it. What do you think?


I dont think that my pictures loaded right...

[Jabbo]

No your pictures did not upload.watching your build I have a brand new super hawaii in my basement just don't know what to do with it yet. Good luck on your build..

[Gexx99]

OK, Maybe this worked better.

[Jabbo]

Looks good how much of the hull are you going to reinforce?

[Gexx99]

Just what you see there. If it needs more in the future, or more likely I crash it and it needs more, I will tackle it from there. At that point I will know if I like it and how it drives and know if I want to spend more money on it. Then I can use a better drive for it too.

[Gexx99]

OK, I decided to add some more glass, just in case. I put it on the transom, and wrapped the same fiber to the bottom of the hull and on the sides of the boat. I figured this would give it even more strength. I thinned out the epoxy even more this time and it worked better than the first time. I am not using any sort of measuring system, just mixing until it gets thinner. I stopped by the local hobby shop yesterday and picked up some parts. I'm hopping to get this thing together pretty soon. The ice here is starting to melt, that will give me a chance to test!

[H2OCamel]

Any more progress?

[Gexx99]

Yes, it has been interesting. I had to try a few different drive options and then was waiting for weeks to get the current one in. I also ran into a bad hobby shop owner along the way who told me that the "hobby mafia" was out to ruin him. This past weekend I was able to throw it together and am ready for a test run. All I have to do is solder the battery leads in and she will be ready for a test. I will be posting pictures of the build soon. It is not as pretty as I would have liked, but I was working on my dinner table instead of in the garage. (I have a 1 1/2 yr old and 2 month old who shouldnt be out in the cold) yes, cold. There is snow on the ground again here, but no ice-at the moment! Hopefully tonight I will add pictures!

[H2OCamel]

cool looking forward to the pictures and update.
I modded a SH for a friend with a 775 and the stock drive spining a prather s230 water cooled ESC and motor brushes. I fiberglassed the inside like you did and gave it an aluminum transom cus his was cracked. pretty cool setup but the stock coupler ate itself up in about 10 runs. I then converted it to and inline strut and rudder from a cat I had lying around. I have a new CESSA in my garage I need to do the same mods to. Fun boats I just wish it didn't have the rocker bottom on it.

[Gexx99]

First I mounted the stock plastic motor mounting plate to the transom. I then mounted the stock out-drive to that to ensure that it would fit. Next to the motor mount...

Then what I ended up doing is taking a piece of aluminum that I had lying around and cut it in the general shape of the hull. Next I drilled a hole for the motor shaft to exit, and added motor mounting holes. I made a mistake on the motor shaft and had to start again. Not pretty but function-able.


Next I cut 2 blocks of wood to length and angled one side for the motor to mount. I placed them into the hull to make sure that they would fit and then drilled holes in the motor mounting plate. Then I screwed the plate to the blocks. After this I made sure everything lined up pretty straight and hot glued the blocks in place. I know that it may break loose, but I did not want to epoxy it if my out-drive will be shot in a few runs and have to figure out how to remove it. If it comes out, I have some 1 min epoxy in my box for a quick fix.



I ended up going with a spring like flex shaft. It was the only thing that I could find that went from the 5mm motor shaft to the 4mm out-drive. I originally was given a U-joint type connection from the first hobby shop that I was visiting. He told me to shim one side and drill the other to make it match up. It was hardened and when I attempted to drill it, the pieces cracked. So scrapped that idea, and hobby shop,(this is the shop that the owner said that the hobby Mafia was out to get him) and moved onto a different one. It was further from home, but much, much nicer. Greenfield News & Hobby if you are from the Milwaukee area. Anyway, they ordered the new flex shaft and I waited for 3 weeks to get it in-due to some shipping issues from their vendor. I squeezed the water pick-up line in the rear of the transom.


After that I needed to make a servo tray as mine was missing. I had an acrylic one going, but after breaking it, I settled for good ole wood. Figured if the thing runs good I can always make a new one, in the garage away from the kiddies. So I slapped that together, ran the wires, and water hoses. I still need to make a harness to run 2 nimh packs, but that will be easy. Likely later on tonight. I am attempting to seal the battery box off (there is a big hole for the power wires and tubing) and then its onto a test. I did weigh it without the 4 aa receiver batteries in it and it was almost 6lbs. I know alot of that is the battery weight so Lipos would help. For now, I plan on testing it and going from there. I was debating putting turn fins on, but have not as of yet.



If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, I am open. Like I said, there is snow on the ground here, but my brother is going to test his boat too, (its a gas V) and we will likely use his ski boat for retrieval missions. Should make it fun.

[H2OCamel]

So far it's looking good! On the Super Hawaii I modded it liked the heavier bateries better, being a plastic hull it bounces around pretty bad with lipos, at that time all i had has 3300mAh lipos very light compared to nimh. I used the same flex connection from motor to output shaft like you did just make sure to locktite the grub screws as mine backed out while running and almost carved through the bottom.

[Gexx99]

Did you use turn fins?