Ben and I were in discussion a week or so ago and got on the topic of the new cats hes got out. He mentioned he had a 950 that needed completion and asked if Id perform the taks. "uhh, YEAH!" So it arrived Saturday. Its the only hull of the 950 lot that he got in Glecoat and not full carbon. Lay up is beautiful. It is a TFL hull measuring 37x11. The hull bottom is designed a lot like the PB Miss G, but the flat ride pads have a little angle on them, so its a combination of both. It arrived painted and with 99% of the hardware. The rudder mount and strut had already been mounted. He included one of his tricked out aluminum V-hull motor mounts that with some small modifications work well in the cat hull. And a bonus, its already got paint on it.
I first assembled the mount just to see it in its correct form. (last pic) Then it came apart, removed the esc plate and set aside, ground off the esc extension mount pieces that are on the motor mount portion and flip the mount upside down. Stick it all back together and its a thing of beauty. (first pic but its all upside down to show the grinding)
For now Ive just set it in a beed of epoxy layed down both sides of the tunnel and a beed along the contact point (bottom) of each mount support. I will reinforce it at a later point. It had to be placed w/in an inch or two front to back to clear the canopy. I put it in about the middle. I also did a little oblonging of the adjustment hole, mount support side, to raise the motor a bit in order to get a better angle down thru the hull. I also had to cut a hole in the rear mount support for the wires to pass thru. I plan on installing a rubber grommet to isolate the aluminum from the wires.
Once that had tacked, I moved on to the stuffing tube. Ben supplied me w/ a tube and inner liner for use with a 3/16 flex he had also included. The nose of the strut would have had to been modified (drilled larger) for the tube to be inserted. Rather than doing that, I decided to go for my second build against using teflon liner. More and more folks seem to be going that route. So I ran to the hardware store and grabbed a stick of 1/4" brass, cut it to length and bent it up. After a few tweaks, I acheived a happy bend, added a stuffing support in the hull which I tacked in place and then taped up and epoxied the stuffing tube into position. Once cured, I did something I hadnt really done yet. I really like how under the Proboat cats, thay have extra resin where the stuffing tube leaves the hull, like a built in wedge. I taped up the sides, inside etc etc to make sure there would be no run out, and filled the "wedge" with resin. Once given a light touch with sand paper and a little shape to the back, and a quick shot of white paint, its going to look real nice.
Thats about as far as I am as of now. Updates to soon follow as Im trying to have it done for this coming weekends Club meet. Ben asked if Id set it up for Q-offshore, which is perfect as Im currently working on my Q-offshore boat and wont have it back in the water by then. He also supplied me with a Tenshock CZ2760 4500w 8 pole 45 x 80mm motor at 1600KV to run 6S for the class. Should scream.
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