Shipping costs!!

A rough week with a good ending.  I checked a previous quote for shipping the keel to Hawaii and the cost went up 3x.  I almost keeled over.  I checked further with other carriers and it only got worse.  With prices in the $600.00 range I settled myself by thinking that this is what they charge to ship me to Hawaii and I am self loading.  Things changed with some helpful input from a friend and I am going to ship the mold in a cardboard box, well wrapped.  The casting house said that is fine and that they can strap the finished piece to a pallet and send it off.  A quote for the return pallet came in at $250.00 so the show is on!   If anyone needs a really nice crate for storing a Flying Fifteen keel I have got a deal for you. 

California or Bust!

Finally ready to ship the keel plug to California for casting.  Plan is ship this to the casting house then have keel returned with plug lying on top in this crate.  There is just a bit of extra room.  I suppose someone in the future may need to make one of these so here it will rest for future generations/regattas.  Crate is reinforced across the bottom with oak strips to support 370lb load about its C.G.  Next stop:  California or Bust!

Time to start glassing the form.  I probably do not need to do that for a one time use form but I am looking for some practice before taking on the rudder job.

'It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to look good.'

Note:  Styrofoam melts a bit with Bondo.  Pour foam does fine.  I have now used 6 different materials filling the form before going to glass/epoxy covering.  These are: Pour Foam, can foam, styrofoam, spackle, drywall filler and Bondo.  Should have taken more time to setup alignment pins and back fill with spare wood blocks.  I ran out of pour foam but managed to empty my shelves of old materials from old projects.  Looking pretty good.  I think by next week I can prepare for a glassing.

A little bit of keel progress today while I try to ignore the good weather and strong winds on the bay.   I will start doing some measurement checks from the base board to get a best alignment between port and starboard halves then insert a pair of alignment pins.  So far all the measurements on the profile have come out fine.  I had a scare the other day thinking I had lost 5mm in stack height somewhere but it is all fine.  Just the sanding of the poly is going to be very messy.

May 5th:  A few days later I have started sanding, cutting and grinding the shape.  I am surprised how fast it is going but regret the use of 'can foam' as mentioned earlier.  It has very low stifness so I will depend on the fiberglass top layer for strnegth in any areas where it was used.  I also revise my opinion of the styrofoam which works very well along with the pour foam.  I will probably test an area of this soft can foam with fiberglass to see what surface pressure it can take so as not to impact the sand casting.  I was warned by Commercial Casting that the sand packing could deform too soft of an area.  After all this work as well I have about 1 oz each of parts A and B of the pour foam.  There are several voids that still need to be filled so I am looking for some other compatible filler before I switch to bondo.  

Followup on the plug work.  Do not use can foam or Styrofoam, even fine grade.  The pour foam is very controllable and manageable and cuts well for shaping.  The others are too soft and make a mess.

So I started on the Port side plug with current success and need to add alignment pins.

Keel work Starboard side:  The keel plug needs to separate along the center line for casting purposes so I have now switched from a 1/2" back board to a 1/4" requiring extra strips to stiffen it overall. The profiles were glued in place and foam added to fill the voids. It is a bit of an experiment and I hope one layer of 6 oz. glass fiber will suffice in the end to make a cast worthy plug. The can foam works quite well but is softer than the 2 part polystyrene pour foam. I use both at this point. I am scratching my head as to why I bought expensive Marine epoxy for this job but next in line (to build experience) is the rudder and that will use it appropriately. This work is getting ahead of itself. I am not sure what the casting house in California will charge but I am hoping for the best. If it falls through I know this thing will look great on top of my Honda Civic. Back to taxes, run silent, run deep.