Its drying time............................

Yep its now time to get serious about getting the water out of the hull seeing as i want to potentially paint the hull at the end of the summer but first as has been the case all along with this project many hoops need to be jumped through.

Firstly i need to get the moisture levels in the wetted areas down to between 5 - 10 parts on the Tramex at present the bow and stern areas are around 7-10 whilst the underside area is still off the scale of the moisture meter.

I tried previously using carbon heat film which whilst proving successful in its implementation had reduced the levels insufficiently, i think there maybe a couple of reasons for this

Either the Tramex is faulty, (i'll need a calibration kit from nigel clegg to check the machine) or it may well be that the boat is still so sodden that it needs a lot of heat even with the vacuum process to vaporise the water trapped in the laminate.

My latest heat pad led me back to using a previously discarded heat element which comprises o f heat cable, i say previously discarded as when used before it was in an early design that weighed so much it would fall off the hull so thought it was part of the problem.

However after trying to destructively test the heating film to diagnose the lack of heat, it led me to conclude that there must be some kind of limiting mechanism on the film as i couldn't get it above 30 odd degrees.

When i tried the same process with the heat cable it went off the clock! all the way past 80 degrees at which point i bottled it fearing i'd bugger up either the cable of the thermostat controller so having seen what was possible with the heat cable option i built a lighter version of one of my first designs.

It is done, the keel stubs that is.

Yes the port side stub is finished too now and not before time, got it painted inside too check out the piccies. now its onto the outside and the engine bay, i've bought some mild steel tubing the same diameter as the prop shaft so i can start roughing out where the engine bearers are going.

in the meantime i've turned my attention to finishing off drying the hull out, the latest version of which is proving the best so far, lightweight, efficient and stable at higher temperatures and still only a couple of hundred quid to make.

i should point out to get to this stage i have spent a bit of money researching and building different ideas only to find out they didn't work for one reason or another but the one i have working on the hull at present seems to be doing the job.

I have this system on the hull which i intend to leave for 72 hours, (at time of writing i am half way through this) if the moisture readings are good i will then set up a bigger heating source to cover the entire bottom of the hull and provide details of how its done.

cheers roger