Not multihull content, but composite content.   

Last Friday at midnight, a 120 mph wind (according to neighbor w/weather kit) hit the lunar lander lower floor awaiting painting. Hold-downs parted and it tumbled and flew 135 feet. It is photographed here in the street ready to be moved back. Only damage was fist size crush where it hit the rock wall. Other neighbor secured it with forklift and chain before I arrived, as in the picture. When I squirted primer on it later I noticed sticks jammed into the top foam. That it means it was upside down at times. I’m amazed at how little damage there is.  A great test for biaxial joins.  Especially with one free edge on it.

Its not that important in saving money boatbuilding, but its not nothing. Do you toss the mixing pots and spreaders or clean them? I clean them, as I need to save money. (I’m practically giving the plans away according to my accountant).   Couple tips I found.

If you keep the stir stick in the mixing pot, it makes a great tool to pull most of the most difficult epoxy out.

And spreaders can be more easily cleaned if they have mold release wax put on first and buffed.  And the sharp edges cannot be sanded usefully, but a plane or planer will leave crisp edge.

I did simultaneous comparison of adding micro-spheres to both regular epoxy and Smurf Snot or System 3’s  Gel Magic as it is officially known. The Smurf Snot is far far better. First, the spheres mix in much more quickly; probably because it is already a sort of filler. The spheres extend it and for fairing, make it easier to sand. Next, it is much easier to spread thin and with a smooth surface. The spheres in regular epoxy are more ragged. I do use a mix of about half spheres and half Microlite. Pure Microlite is too fragile in my opinion, and it shrinks a bit.

Interesting idea came this weekend. Noticing that people using these Spacebags keep clothing vacuum sealed for days or weeks. https://www.spacebag.com/
I wonder if a small part could be vacuumed and sealed, then the vacuum, or compressor in my case, could be shut off.

At the very least it is a clean bagging solution.
I will be trying it.

Frank’s 45′ KHSD catamaran being built in Indonesia.  Very nice CM hull shapes in developed plywood.

Latitude 38 Magazines own catamaran, the KHSD 63 Profligate is back in the water after a refit at La Cruz Shipyard in Mexico.

I finally gotten around to chopping and channeling the pictures I took at Alex’s build and launch site.  Two were posted earlier.

It seems that the shopping cart is suddenly down for all Chrome users. I have DXCart working on it. It does still work with IE 8.
Doesn’t everbody use Chrome now?

5 days later I see it is not fixed yet and all I get is recording when I call, or robo form when I email.  For now have to use IE.  If not fixed by tomorrow, I have one more big job I see.

I just got another rude awakening from PayPal. A fellow in UK ordered some plans and paid by Paypal.  The plans, CD, DVD and specs were sent to him by airmail. It seems that he was of the opinion that airmail from the US doesn’t take more than 10 days. (airmail overseas now always takes a month to a month and a half) Despite my giving him the postal tracking code, he filed a claim with Paypal, and they took my entire fee back.  (I see the tube took 8 days just to leave the US)

I have to remind everyone that KHSD is a design office, not a retail store.  I do know that some people expect my office to be like Amazon with hordes of low paid workers ready to Fedex your order out the same day.  I cannot hire more staff to meet the orders as the products do not bring in enough  to pay for that.  If I had people to do the retail, the costs would have to double at least.  I don’t think most people want that.

When I am here, printing can only be done once a week to meet the printshop minimum order size.  Printing costs have doubled about yearly now. If I have a serious deadline on design work, the retail products might have to wait.  Again a design office not….

Finally when I am out of town, as happens often and usually with little warning, the retail has to wait until I get back.

Not Amazon here, but trying to keep up.  Maybe the products all need to be only sold on Amazon, but its not there yet.

A few people have used this feature of Paypal to both get the product, and also get all their money back.  I guess I need to get a waiver back from every Paypal order now making sure they understand how it is, or I refund on the spot.  Just what I need, one more layer of tasks.

I am surprised that IBEX has never been interested in doing a seminar on legal intricacies of international design sales.  I’ve stopped suggesting it by now.