Got our TotalBoat flotation foam today from Jamestown Distributors, it is marine grade, closed cell so it won't soak up water. Hey look, we're in the Summer catalog :) Maybe we'll make the Winter catalog as well....
The foam works as an adhesive to secure the blocks in place and stiffen the hull. It also provides flotation. Mix the foam for 25 seconds and pour it quick. Before we poured it we put a strip of blue tape around the top of the white foam block, it mostly holds the foam in place while it starts to expand. Then we clamped the deck/hull seam tight while the foam did its expanding thing.
Clamped the seam tight while the foam expanded and cured. If not, it will pop the seam and make a mess. We try not to pour too much or it will ooze into the inside part of the seam and seal up the deck. That's bad because we still need to open the seam a bit and fiberglass it closed. With just alittle seam to seal up, you can foam the blocks and epoxy the seam all in one evolution, but not with as much seam as we had open.
Skipper thinks she can use the leftover foam for a hat mold.
Sealed the deck to the hull by wetting the seam and 4 oz fiberglass cloth with TotalBoat High Performance epoxy, then bedded the fiberglass strip into the seam with THIXO. Clamped the seam shut with light pressure, just enough to see the epoxy start to squeeze out.
Skipper sez "Float Test!"
All clamps on deck, we had about 20 feet of seam to seal up. Sometimes we do the bow first, then the stern the next day. But we had enough clamps to handle it today.
Log of Viper.
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