Laszlo, some advice about graphite...

Builder's Forum
1

Laszlo, 

First of all, let me thank you for your advice about tabbing, filetting, and taping the seams.  They came out beautifully, and I've so far used about half of the wood flour that came with the kit.  Thin fillets certainly save time and money.  

 I'm at the point now of filling the weave on the C16, and am trying to make a decision about how to protect the bottom from abrasion.  I don't particularly like the looks of the dynel strip, and am toying with the idea of a graphite-infused bottom instead.  Did you do graphite on your 16LT, and if so, do you have any pictures of the finished product?  Also, if I decided to wait until the end of the build for this step, would I simply need to rough up the surface before applying?  I guess the benefit of doing it now would be to use the phenolic micro-balloons to save weight and epoxy.  Any advice on this would be great, as I'd like to make a decision within the next day or so as to how I'm going to proceed.

 Thanks!

~Chris 

2

No problem, Chris. glad to have been of help. Though I must admit that none of those ideas were original with me, I'm just the first guy to have gotten to the keyboard when you asked.

I did graphite on both my wife's 16LT and on my WD12. On the 16LT I filled the weave normally and just painted on the graphite/epoxy mixture before varnishing. On the WD12, I filled the weave with phenolic microballoon slurry and then painted on the graphite epoxy mix. That used less epoxy and reduced weight compared to the 16LT.

Here's a link to my WD12 graphite bottom page. There's pictures there and on the last page of the duck build.

Good luck. Sounds like you'll be wet before the end of the summer.

Laszlo