Alex just got his all carbon fiber, rotating, unstayed Aeroesque mast from Jim Betts. I hear it will be stepped soon. He is building a 45′ KHSD cruising cat; kind of a smaller Sarabi 56′.  Bellingham, WA.

Plywood/epoxy.  The work looks great.

I often end up going to Online Metals to get metal or plastic bits. Easiest place I know of to get that 3″ x 3″ piece of teflon, or whatever. On the ship canal here in Seattle so especially easy for me. http://www.onlinemetals.com/productguide.cfm

I wanted to find some ethafoam mats for the lounging pit on the lunar lander project (a house built like a modern boat). I imagined something like the wrestling mats that I recalled from high school would be great. And would be good to work with local company. http://www.bottomsiders.com/
It turned out each 15 square foot cushion would be $1265.00 before tax. That’s $84 per square foot. Yeow. All six cushions would cost as much as a new Hyundai. I have to keep looking.

I got to use System 3’s Silverthane polyurethane sealant this weekend, in place of 5200. http://www.systemthree.com/store/pc/SilverThane-SA-2100-c58.htm
It is a 2 part product so that seems to solve my two main complaints about 5200; that my $17 tube hardened in just a few weeks, and after seems like days, the part I sealed was still wet.
I lose 5200 tubes after they opened even though I try to seal them up.
The two part poly self-mixes in a special nozzle. I’m guessing each use ruins the nozzle, so get several if you work like I do, with several small jobs. And my job was functionally cured the next morning, which was the soonest I tried it.

Only comes in white at this time.  So I still have to bear with 5200 for black jobs.

One of the best sailing mags there is, now available for download.

Course I’m prejudiced as Richard, the editor sails the hell out of one of my 63′ cats and has done so for years.

http://www.latitude38.com/ebooks.html#.Uaj2I9KsiSp

I see that the link on my earlier entry on X-Bows no longer works. So the link again, and another from Vigor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJsogw9fHE0&NR=1&feature=endscreen

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0w8AktIkCo

For the Hardware, the website is www.BlockandWInch.com . For any of your customers I would create a coupon code which would give them about 20% extra discount on the website prices, which should beat any prices worldwide especially on the winches.

Many thanks

Andy  sales@blockandwinch.com

I finally tracked down the book I needed to verify the design rules for the 149′ passenger trimaran. It’s the IMO HSC Code 2000. I faced the expense and the month wait for it to be posted from UK. Then I saw on the IMO website that their publications are also available at Captain’s here in Seattle. www.captainsnautical.com  I had forgotten that they have everything to do with boats there. They are now carrying my Design Book also. (and at less cost as there is no shipping cost)

Maybe once a week I hear a suggestion that someone wants to slightly punch up a glass laminate with a bit of carbon. Or even a bit of Kevlar. I have even seen laminates on a roll with a small bit of carbon mixed in with the largely glass roll.  It is seen like a vitamin I guess.
Bad news,  it doesn’t work that way. The problem is the difference between each material’s stretch to failure percentage. E-glass is around 6%. Carbon is typically around1%. So, for example, if you had half of each in a laminate, when the carbon started to fail, the e-glass would be only contributing some 17% of its possible strength. Another way I have heard to visualize this is to imagine two boards several feet apart. A steel wire, and a rubber band connect them to each other. Imagine that each will fail at 100 lbs pull. The rubber band is doing nothing yet, as the steel fails and breaks.

E-glass can be laminated with carbon, if they are not both oriented in the zero degree axis for example.  The carbon could be on the 0 degree and e-glass could be on the off axis.  The off axis will contribute almost nothing to the strength, but will help keep the zeros in column and add some shock absorbing ability to the laminate.