Herding Cats -- Cat Builder Co-op

[nimblemotors]

Originally Posted by Boatguy30

Mate, I'm doing it.

Your just think of abstractions and reasons why it might not work out that well for you unless you can come up with this super great scheme. If it takes 3000 hours to build a boat it take 3000 hours. I man 3000, 2 men 1500, 3 men 1000. I assume you can take the math from here.

Probably was a bunch of time managing it all if you have much more than 3 or 4.

Oh I see, you are not interesting in the cat build coop, but want to post here in this thread anyway. I don't like to repeat myself, but I will one more time,
and that is to say that having female molds speeds up building by a large degree, i.e. hours are NOT just hours, the kind of build process used makes a big difference. You don't seem to understand that, and therefore I will not further respond to your posts here.

[Boatguy30]

Sorry, this seemed mainly a theoretical exercise for you.

send me some pics of the boats when they're done.

[salticrak]

I am pretty sure if I had a helper especially in the early stages of my build I could have been done by now.The group buying thing is good, the whole idea could work if you can find like minded people, theres the rub.A production line model could be helpful.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by nimblemotors

Oh I see, you are not interesting in the cat build coop, but want to post here in this thread anyway. I don't like to repeat myself, but I will one more time,
and that is to say that having female molds speeds up building by a large degree, i.e. hours are NOT just hours, the kind of build process used makes a big difference. You don't seem to understand that, and therefore I will not further respond to your posts here.

True if you can buy or hire moulds. If you have to make moulds, then first you have to make a plug, then the mould, then the part. So by the time you make your first part, you've actually made "three" of them, which wouldn't be much faster than just making three in the first place.

[nimblemotors]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

True if you can buy or hire moulds. If you have to make moulds, then first you have to make a plug, then the mould, then the part. So by the time you make your first part, you've actually made "three" of them, which wouldn't be much faster than just making three in the first place.

No, the time consuming part is fairing a 40ft hull.
This is only done once on the buck before making the female mold, not three times. I have made many fiberglass parts for my cars. All the time is spent making sure the body panels are perfect before making the molds.
This mold making overhead is an expense in material cost if you make only one boat. They are so big the cost is significant.
This is the point of a coop and building three boats.
Also, I already have an existing 32ft hull for the starting point of a buck.

[sanssouci]

Originally Posted by nimblemotors

I have been planning on doing some cruising for about 5 years now.
About a year ago after looking for a long time, I bought a 34ft catamaran.
It was a big project boat, which is what I wanted.
I enjoy designing and building things.

I have been and continue to read and learn about boat building and it is very sobering
to see how long these projects take.
What is really clear is that having help makes the progress often 5x faster.
I also know from my experience that doing something the first time is 10x more difficult
than doing it a second time. This leads me to the idea of a boat build co-op.

The boat build co-op idea is to have say 2 others that want to build a boat also,
and work together to build all 3 of our boats.
If we believe the previous 5x and 10x speed improvements, building 3 boats together
should be 50x faster than building 3 boats individually.
And not just technical, but socially, working with 2 others keeps you motivated
to get it done and allows you to see more progress.

This approach has been taken in the past and has been successful.

Boat building is tough to justify with all the cheap used boats,
but this is not so much the case for big catamarans.

My view is that the biggest hurdle in this approach is getting 3 people
to agree on the boat to build. Everyone seems to want something different.
But for this to work, the boats need to share most of the primary structure,
at minimum the hulls, since I think the plan of multiple boats makes the overhead
of making molds worthwhile, and using molds is a major time saver.
My current boat is in a DIY boatyard in the Sac Delta
that is near the water and is very inexpensive, and has room to build 3 38ft cats.

So I'm looking for 2 maybe 3 others that want to join up.
I expect it may take a while to find the right people, but I'm not in a big hurry.

If this is something you might be intBeerested in please send me a PM,
we can get a mailing list to discuss the details.
And I'd appreciate help in getting the word out, I know there are many boat forums
and groups, and while I read many of them, I am not members of them.

I will probably create a website dedicated to this in the near future.

Curious, where on the delta is your yard located, anywhere near Bethel Island?

[nimblemotors]

Originally Posted by sanssouci

Curious, where on the delta is your yard located, anywhere near Bethel Island?

Walnut Grove

[djtopper]

I'd love to get involved with building a large cat. I've looked over lots of plans and have read several blogs about the time and man/hr complexities. Still, I think it could be done with a decent team in a semi-reasonable amount of time.

Sadly, I'm here on the east coast with no place to house or build such a project. Also, I'd be much more interested in building a really large one, on the order of 50ft. Sadly, I suspect I'll have more resources and gumption to just earn the $500-600k to buy a used one in a year or two.

But I say more power to the DIY catamaran community!

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by nimblemotors

No, the time consuming part is fairing a 40ft hull.
This is only done once on the buck before making the female mold, not three times. I have made many fiberglass parts for my cars. All the time is spent making sure the body panels are perfect before making the molds.
This mold making overhead is an expense in material cost if you make only one boat. They are so big the cost is significant.
This is the point of a coop and building three boats.
Also, I already have an existing 32ft hull for the starting point of a buck.

Actually, fairing the hulls wasn't all that time consuming. Fairing areas like the cockpit was far worse. All those coves and corners. And the cockpit has to be done very well, because people will be sitting looking at it for hours.

[ausaviator]

I built a plane years ago which for my first one required lots of though and preparation before cutting or performing the job. When you first start out it's 80% research and 20% doing; measure, check, meaasure and cut. Later on in the build when you are more confident it's a matter of measure once, trust yourself and cut.

If I had a second aircraft next to me and I was working on the 80/20 rule, it would be much faster to build the second one, but the more I progress, the less that would be the case.

As noted previously, if something takes X man hours of labour, that's what it takes. If it's just labouring away fairing a hull, then it will still take the same time regardless of the number of vessels.

Finding 2 or 3 others that want to do the same idea on the same boat type in the same place would be unheard of.

[nimblemotors]

Is it so hard to understand that making fiberglass parts using a female mold is WAY FASTER than making them using any number of other methods, including KSS.
Therefore, 6 hulls can be made MUCH faster than 2.

As you say, when making 6 parts, you measure, measure, check, measure, cut, the first time, the next 5 you can just cut,cut,cut,cut,cut,
and in fact, often you cut ALL SIX at the same time when you know you must make six of them.
That is 5 steps * 6 = 30 to make 6 parts each the hard way,
and only 5 steps to make 6 as production, 6x faster.

I do agree finding others that want the same is the most difficult part.
Fortunately, it is NOT 'unheard of', it has been done many times by others, in fact, my existing boat design two were made at the same time,
and read this email:

Originally Posted by Gene Buchholz

Actually it has been done before. Many years ago I met a couple who sailed from Oregon to Sitka, Alaska on a heavy displacement 42' ferrro
cement ketch that Paul had built. Actually he and two friends had formed a
group, built three hulls then finished them out. To prevent anyone
dropping out after the first hull was built they decided they would draw
lots after all three were built to determine who got which hull. Worked
fine for them.

Originally Posted by ausaviator

I built a plane years ago which for my first one required lots of though and preparation before cutting or performing the job. When you first start out it's 80% research and 20% doing; measure, check, meaasure and cut. Later on in the build when you are more confident it's a matter of measure once, trust yourself and cut.

If I had a second aircraft next to me and I was working on the 80/20 rule, it would be much faster to build the second one, but the more I progress, the less that would be the case.

As noted previously, if something takes X man hours of labour, that's what it takes. If it's just labouring away fairing a hull, then it will still take the same time regardless of the number of vessels.

Finding 2 or 3 others that want to do the same idea on the same boat type in the same place would be unheard of.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by nimblemotors

Is it so hard to understand that making fiberglass parts using a female mold is WAY FASTER than making them using any number of other methods, including KSS.
Therefore, 6 hulls can be made MUCH faster than 2.

I'm sorry, but that just defies logic. By that reasoning if you built an infinite number of boats you'd be finished before you started!

[Zach]

Build in foam and polyester. Epoxy adds day between grinding, sanding and fairing. With the first dab you are married to epoxy. Go walk around a marina, and count on one hand how many production boats are made in epoxy. How many hull to deck joints are made in epoxy... How many bulkheads are tabbed in with epoxy...

As boaters, we have had epoxy foisted on us. Polyester and vinylester are better than good enough to do most jobs that don't involve Wood. That is not to say that Epoxy isn't better, or even the best. I even prefer to work in it... But it is the opposite of fast building speed, and should not be in the vocabulary of anyone on a budget. It is hard to get romantic about building in foam and polyester, where laminated wood is beautiful. Most things involved in building a fiberglass boats don't involve beautiful laminated wood, mainly space man suits, respirators and itching.

Spray your paints and primers.

Spray your fairing compounds.

Pick a batten and stick with it. I like a fir batten that is longer than the boat, (built a 90 footer once... Fragile!) If there is a crew big enough to use it. With 2 guys I like an aluminum 1x1 box tube. Any deep low spots can be pulled... With the corner of the batten or box tube and be "real close" compared to the fill and pray method. Another good eyeball method, is tacking a pink builder string to the hull and stretching it tight. If you have a smooth curve, it will touch the whole way. If you have a low spot... it won't touch the whole way. Mark out the boat so it looks like a road map. Most low spots look like texas. When you fill the last low spot and hold the batten up, it normally turns out that the batten was seeing the low spot as a high spot, as its a transition point and all of a sudden the planets have aligned and trumpets sound from the heavens... (This may be overly dramatic, depending on how many weeks you have been sanding...)

Duratech's easy sanding primer. Use it. Gelcoat is cheaper, it does not lay down as nicely. A dump gun for spraying gel coat works great. You can go from 80 grit to 800 grit wet sanding if you do your part. It'll build 20mils wet on wet. Adtech's P77 fairing compound, is a polyester compound that kicks off entirely faster than it needs to... But works very well. It has a 6 minute sanding cycles instead of... Tomorrow like that of epoxy. I haven't found a polyester equivalent to Awlgrips Awlfair, but in small batches you can do what needs to be done with ATC's polyfair and the like.

I would think long and hard about shooting PPG instead of Awlgrip. Quite a few sport fishing boats are done in PPG and Imron instead of Awlgrip, as you can sand, cut in and buff a repair without having to re-shoot the whole boat. Also spend some time on the design so the toe rails have a break point so the hull can be sprayed at each go. I would wrap stainless down the stems, and corners of the sterns (or do a sugar scoop stair case that breaks at the boot top...) for the same reason...

If you want it to go fast, the key is to start out with 320 grit finish in mind and don't pick up 40 grit unless you are planning to bury it with bog. That means if one of your crew, works within a 1/4 inch, or doesn't "See it." They mix glue, and don't spread glue. The hold the air hose, and don't spray primer.

I'm being serious, because if you have one on the team that doesn't work with 320 grit in mind and absolute cleanliness as though they were building the space shuttle... They will add 3 weeks of fairing because it looked so good they did not need to put a batten on it! One man, who knows where the putty needs to go can fair a boat faster than 3 who can't "See it."

Anybody can bog a 1/2 inch over the whole surface and eventually get something smooth-ish. The goal is to build it straight and fair, glass it straight and fair. Sand the glass with a batten in hand and skim some 1/8th inch low spots. Long board it once from each direction and spray high build primer knowing where the low spots are.

Don't think about anything but 320 grit! Close enough when setting the framing is a fools errand if you want an awlgrip job that you can see yourself in.

For cockpits, showers and built in pieces... you can build with flat panels that are perfectly smooth and flat before they are cut out and assembled, you can save a lot of time by making the tabbing narrower than the land of the 3 inch pvc pipe... and when you pull the bog over the top, there is no grinding or sanding of the flat surfaces as they come up into the fillet, and no reason why you can't go wet on wet while the tabbing is still green. You can also use structural fillets with long hair, mat, and pull a very thin layer of easy sanding stuff over the top.

Large curved surfaces are actually easier to fair than large flat ones, as you can see a twist in a flat panel that is hard to find with a string... a curve is harder to see an imperfection in. I think flat panels that are tortured into a curve in one plane only, are the easiest to work so your long board or string and batten land at the same plane along plumb frame work no matter where on the frame work top to bottom. I think a lifted deck line is easier to fair a house into and keep straight on account of that single dimensional curve. The radius of the deck beams changes to follow a straight string, rather than following the sheer as it goes. Doing the bow out of a flat panel where the framing changes from athwartship to fore and aft also makes things a bit easier for mounting hardware too.

Where ever the batten breaks at the deck line from curved to "Can't curve any more" is a good spot to start going fore an aft. Raised toe rails and short bulworks work well, as they don't necessarily have to stay the same height on the run... Which means you can put the shear you want on the boat in the Toe rails and let the deck go where it needs to for the house to be straight forward to build. Your rub rails should follow the tops of the toe rails not necessarily the shear clamp.

I ran a Kurt Hughes for a summer with the curved sides over the edge of the deck for aerodynamics. I like a toe rail of some variety, as you can set a screwdriver down on the deck, and if you drop something it might stay on board. I also think that boats should have rub rails. Sure most cats don't have them... I guess most cats don't come near docks.

I like Barbour Plastics 2 7/8's rigid black plastic half oval rub rails. They are like greased owl snot pulling in and out of a slip, which means you'll have the second cat that is possible to dock and work off of pilings without needing fenders with microfiber covers. ( ) They are heat formable, so you can bend them down to the sugar scoop stern. 1/4 inch machine screws counter sunk every 6 inches is more than enough to hold them on. I cast the threads in epoxy for them, rather than put nuts and leak points on the inside of the boat. This also does away with the need for sealant behind it, so if you tear things up it is replaceable with a heat gun and a screwdriver instead of 5200 removal. Why repaint when you don't have to...


Outside corners (Toe Rails... cabin sides... Ahem) are most easily done, by building the fiberglass structure with a larger radius than the one you want. Pull bog out to a square corner and get it perfectly smooth and square. Then run a router down it that cuts the radius you want. Rub red scotch brite on it, and spray primer. Or you can take a short board and a cut out piece of plywood on as a radius gauge and sand fiberglass, bog, and keep hitting fiberglass forever more.

You can speed up your fairing process in the cockpits by increasing the diameter of the fillets in the corners. Use a 3 inch PVC pipe to pull them instead of a 1 1/2. It is much easier to sand out smoothly, and you can use the PVC pipe to take the edge off. With 1 1/2 you have to sand from the panel into the fillet to keep it straight. At 3 inches, no one can see a wiggle in it.

I have a 3 1/2 inch diameter shaper bit, that fits a custom base plate for a hand held porter cable router that does magical things to shape large diameter corners. Hand shaping and sanding those works... If you have a long board just shorter than the length of the corner of the house, stem, transom... And don't mind working 8 sided, 16 sided, 32 sided. Or you can run ever larger series of routers down it until you get what you want.

I use an 8 inch mud hog, and a hutchins orbital inline sander to do the bulk majority of the work on flat surfaces. If the 8 inch won't fit, I use the inline. If the inline won't fit I pick up hand board until I'm in finish primer, then the dynabrade comes out. I use 3M gold production paper on sticky back. If you have enough horsepower in your air compressor you can go from 80 grit, spray primer to 320 and let it chew. 3M's black dust guide coat is worth its weight in gold. On hand boards, try Mirka's HD screen paper. 3M makes 4 1/2 inch wide boards that are worth their weight in gold, just triple check that they are flat and true when you get them. I reject them from time to time...

Take the excess resin off the surface while glassing. Mush down any built up piles of cloth. Work within an 1/8th across the whole panel. If you have to fair out the whole panel an 1/8th to meet a high spot, any idea of speed of construction is over with before you got started. If the cloth has to overlap, make a trough for it to lay in so it is a low spot, not a high spot.

If you have to use epoxy, you can speed up the process by using Adtech's Proseal. It is a heavy, white compound that is loaded with filler. It kicks incredibly fast, and builds up enough thickness that it will hide Biax in one pass. It doesn't shrink and show the weave like a straight resin coat does. Doesn't work all that great on verticals, but on a table top it is great. ADTECH Plastic Systems

For the construction, if you make full size templates and patterns out of MDF (Or MDO if you can't control humidity in the shop) and use a spiral down carbide router bit with double guide bearings you can make as many of the pieces you want at once if you rig up a decent size router table. If there is a goof up in the panel, the Adtech P77 mentioned above will fix the troubled spot in the pattern in 6 minutes. I use carpet tape to hold things together. Perfect patterns, make for perfect fits... and it doesn't matter how many you need to build as they will all be the same. Don't under estimate Swanson #1 trim screws either, particularly the 1 7/8ths length. You can assemble quite a bit, and leave the screws in place.

One thing that needs to be noted, is that storage space in the shop is important... It doesn't do you any good to make 3 of each panel, if you don't have room to store it during assembly, or if it will be a week till the next one gets put together. Lost pieces, mean you are back on the router table.

You can buy pre-made rounded corners out of plywood from World Panel, for doing interiors. That way you start with a few flat sides of plywood, cut a rabbet down them and glue them up. Quite a few folks are vacuum bagging linoleum counter top material down to plywood to veneer over...

Wiggle board is good stuff too, but over perfect frame work. If you want a large diameter round wall, you can do it... But it needs to have straight frame work. Flat panels make life easier, if they don't need a high grade finish.

I don't think high gloss paint belongs in an interior, a sheet rock texture, or just a shade smoother is perfect to my eye. Most custom boats are wallpapered or soft walled everywhere possible because even a sheet rock texture that looks fair takes an extra couple hundred hours to attain.

The stuff needs to be flat and true but building a gelcoated shower stall in place... that shapes to the hull, were "two" of the dumbest things I've ever built. Fiberglass drop in showers, will save you several weeks worth of work, so walk around Lowes Hardware and see if you find one that you like. Put it inside the boat before the deck goes on. Without forced air and a huge exhaust fan you can't spray the inside of a custom shower, in place and see what you are doing. Climb inside a 55 gallon paint drum and start spraying awglrip. The overspray is nuts. Rolling and tipping over your head, doesn't work very well if you need the floor painted, at the same time.

Make all plumbing accesses and wiring chases 4 times larger than they need to be. Also mock up any locations where wiring or plumbing will need to go and make sure it can be maintained, or even assembled. Back up shower drains, sink drains, and water tank access so they run to the center of the boat and make all panels removable that can be. Drop in fiberglass liners have made folks shy away from trim rings on screws... Build it so it is maintainable without a sawzall.

[Boatguy30]

Wow, that's a ton of info. I suppose it all depends on the type of finished product they want. I'm thinking of naming my cat "assembly required" as it will look homebuilt but I'd prefer to be sailing than buying those last cases of sandpaper. I have some 150 grit which is the finest I'm going.

[Zach]

I think that is wise, particularly if you don't have another helper to hold battens.

On my personal stuff I do all the fairing and sanding just shy of topcoat. When the time comes to sell it doesn't take anything but scuffing with 320, taping off and spraying.

Zach