After a lot of shaping, measuring, and more shaping, the rough plug is done (foam is shaped, and glass / epoxied over it).
This weekend my mentor has offered to spray it with gelcoat or duratec so i can start the long, long, long sanding process. The curves that looks so great on the deck will be a royal pain, I know, but I've been able to get A LOT of volume out of the boat, and it makes the deck much stronger (the hull will need reinforcement when built due to the BIG FLAT planing area.
So, it's still moving along....
From the Bow
From the Stern
For the curious, the saran wrap is to keep the glass on the ends 'stuck" overnight. It'll mean a bit more grinding to get all the wrinkles flat, but it's the best I could come up with for the night. I'll be grinding outside, and wearing a respirator....
I thought this was going to be a big guy's boat? It's looking as scary as an Oxygen I can't believe that you did the pools so quickly & that they look that good. You da man Not much need for walls is there
HA! I'm not sure I've ever seen 'big guys boat' and "Squirt boat" in the same sentence...except perhaps in in reviews of the Atom
This boat has a lot of other ideas from other boats in it, the Oxygen among them. Realistically, the four boats out there that have the capability for downtime are the Oxygen, Acrobat, Meltdown, and Maven. Depending on your comfort with unstable boat (trying to be polite here) the Oxgyen and Maven may or may not be options.
I'm hopeful this boat will combine a lot of the "good" features for downtime with the "new school" features for other river play (planing hull), and comfort (WIDE boat, rocker, cockpit rim made by a C1 paddler for C1 paddlers to really let your knees get OUT to the sides of the boat. This idea is brilliant and necessary and solely atributed to the Sith...the folks at Shaggy really have something there.
The "pools" bow and stern will be interesting
I'll post more images as the process progresses...feel free to post any thoughts and comments along with way
I've got a really technical plug building question. It might be a trade secret that you don't want to share, and you don't have to if you don't want to, but I'll ask anyway.
How DO you clean out all those little bits of blue foam? Between the static and the shear amount of them, i've always ended up with a huge mess. But your shop looks really clean.
In reality, there are blue fuzzies EVERYWHERE. The blue dropcloth just hides them better. Unfortunately the hallway and livingroom rugs don't .
I clean only the boat after each session with a shop vac. Tonight, now that we're all glassed up, I'll tackle cleaning the shop, then the house.
FWIW the tools you use to remove foam appear to have a great impact on static charge - the hand tools leave a VERY charged particle, the power tools less so (and large bits, at that).
If anyone has any better ideas we're all blue-fuzzy-covered ears....
Connect your tools to a vacuum system? They had a system like that in our college's wood shop for bench and hand tools - very nice, kept air and floors quite clean.
Hi Adam, looks like you've been having some fun!
As co-designer of the meltdown I'm into concave decks, I think it works well for the loading principal, it worked well on the shred & maestro designs of Jim and I think it looks cool. Obviously don't get too carried away as it will reduce the 'slice'.
As for the turrets I think that they're an essential part of c1 squirting, unless you've got legs like matchsticks! You've got to feel inside the boat to really control it. Just make sure the turret height is not just 'centered' but allows you to spred your knees as wide as possible. The meltdown has knee tunnels for this effect, but for sure this doesn't leave any room for your packed lunch in the coockpit area!On my Acrobat I've even tried to 'flare up' the deck resulting in the mini turret effect, allowing me to get my knees under the rim.
I can't believe that you did the pools so quickly & that they look that good. You da man 
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