C-Forum

griffen_williams wrote:Are fiberglass molds for PE boats cost effective? How many boats can you pop out before you have to make a new mold? Average Cost?

Wouldnt it be possible to make more boats like Blackfly(Jeremy) does instead of dealing with all of the crazy high cost of mold tooling?

Yes and no, glass-vinylester moulds tend to suffer from degassing, resulting in small bubbles which can weaken the plastic, and because fibreglass has low thermal conductivity and low thermal mass, it makes controling were the plastic goes more about the skill of the moulder, whereas an alu mould can have fins and variable wall thicknesses to control the amount of heat going to/coming off from different parts of the mould.

TheKrikkitWars wrote: Yes and no, glass-vinylester moulds tend to suffer from degassing, resulting in small bubbles which can weaken the plastic, and because fibreglass has low thermal conductivity and low thermal mass, it makes controling were the plastic goes more about the skill of the moulder, whereas an alu mould can have fins and variable wall thicknesses to control the amount of heat going to/coming off from different parts of the mould.

That hasn't been my experience.

yeah, but actual boat building experience doesn't count

RodeoClown wrote:

TheKrikkitWars wrote: Yes and no, glass-vinylester moulds tend to suffer from degassing, resulting in small bubbles which can weaken the plastic, and because fibreglass has low thermal conductivity and low thermal mass, it makes controling were the plastic goes more about the skill of the moulder, whereas an alu mould can have fins and variable wall thicknesses to control the amount of heat going to/coming off from different parts of the mould.

That hasn't been my experience.

That's from my discussion of the reasoning that Big Dog had for choosing to tool the force turret in aluminium when they're unlikely to get massive demand; and my discussions with other people involved in plastics technology about the moulding process.

What would you say your experience has been of fibreglass moulds? What issues did you find and how did you/your contractors address them?

My experience is that it's tough to get good cosmetics, but the boats so far have proven to be plenty tough (I've got some dents on the hull of my Blackfly from hitting rebar). Also remember that the Quakes and Skeeters were out of glass molds.

As far as specific issues and solutions... that's proprietary information.

RodeoClown wrote:As far as specific issues and solutions... that's proprietary information.

I suppose that Open Canoes don't have to be open with a small "o".

the main reason to utilize an aluminum mold is for uniform consistency and the likelihood that high numbers of boats will be made with low maintenence or replacement costs of the mold. I've heard at one time Dagger was cooking one of up to three RPM molds full time during that boats heyday.

that said... Savage, Robson and even Dagger use/used composite molds for rotomolding and did a great job with them... but they did not sell thousands of the boats from those molds. to my knowledge if done properly a manufacturer *might* get 100 good boats from one composite mold. then they'd have to make another one... and another one... and so on.

to his credit and noted with my admiration Jeremy has designed his own boats, made his own plugs, built his own molds and manufactured and marketed his own plastic boats. he's literally a one man show... and I applaud him for it. how many people could do or have done that? not many that I know of.

so... there ya' go



do I need to change the title of this thread to something more like "let's talk about manufacturing new canoes"... or do we want to get back to "I think the future of ww-canoe designs needs to head to XYZ place..."???

or... maybe everyone is just fully satisfied with all of the canoes we already have out there and you don't think we need anymore new designs for another 5 or 6 years.

i think we (or i) need a new playboat c1. kind of old-school long and slicey, wavesport forplay-ish, but perhaps a bit more stable. and also available in composite. i'd buy that.

Both the Skeeter and Superfly were from fiberglass molds, (as were the first Sauvage Spanish Flys) basically two layers of 1 oz. mat and isothalic (tooling) polyester resin. The trick was to get uniform thickness. I can't remember how many Superflys we made but the Skeeter mold cooked over 200. I added aluminum powder to the resin of the Superfly mold which helped tremendously in getting more uniform plastic thickness as well as adding durability. It took about three runs through the oven to drive all free styrene out of the mold and eliminate the off-gasing.

Now back to your regularly scheduled discussion.

gumpy wrote:i think we (or i) need a new playboat c1. kind of old-school long and slicey, wavesport forplay-ish, but perhaps a bit more stable. and also available in composite. i'd buy that.

You mean the Sith? Call Shaggy, they'll build you one.

How about a smaller, agile, much lighter, still forgiving canoe designed specifically with the small female paddler in mind? For those of us that love the l'edge..... but feel lost inside of it.

eddyflower wrote:How about a smaller, agile, much lighter, still forgiving canoe designed specifically with the small female paddler in mind? For those of us that love the l'edge..... but feel lost inside of it.

anybody want to suggest an Ion?

RodeoClown wrote:

eddyflower wrote:How about a smaller, agile, much lighter, still forgiving canoe designed specifically with the small female paddler in mind? For those of us that love the l'edge..... but feel lost inside of it.

anybody want to suggest an Ion?

note she said MUCH lighter... maybe a royalex ion or option... maybe that might be a viable option for people who don't run crazy steep creeks, and mainly stick to class 3-4, but still want the playfulness/stability/maneuverability of those boats, in a lighter version.
Mohawk... Esquif... are you listening? partnership opportunity with Jeremy, maybe?

Hello? Millbrook Inferno.
Or an Ion of course.
Live free or die.

An ultralight canoe would be great. To be honest it would be real hard to invest the money into building a mold and doing what it would take to get into production to sale 8 boats. With the min. order and price of royalex don't hold your breath. Simple math says it will not pay for itself much less pay any bills.