Kindly Old Dr. K’s Hydrosphere

I should have waited another day or so, but I couldn’t stand the suspense.  Popping a part out of the mold poses two big questions:

1)  Did the mold release work?  (Did I avoid total disaster?)

2) How does the part look?

As it turns out both answers are good.  The hull had been curing for about 24 hours and was hard to the touch, although it still needs more curing.  It was very gratifying to get the part to slide out of an ancient, long-dormant mold with only a minor struggle.

For us old school builders the term “gel-coat” is kind of a bad word.  We just paint a layer on the mold with the same resin we’re using for construction.  I didn’t do a clear layer as I’ve seen in the past that un-pigmented structural resin turns brown after a while exposed to the elements.  So, I took a chance and sprinkled metalflake in the purple outer resin coat.  I wasn’t sure it would work, but I just popped the hull out of the mold and it worked great.  I’ve got an opaque outer resin layer and the metalflakes shine through.

The deck is going to be tricker.  We’ll see.

Here are a couple of pics of the brand new hull.

Tyler Kirby inspects the new hull.  The blems you see in the surface are actually in the plastic mold release, still stuck to the hull.  The mold release washes off with water.

The bow area.  It’s difficult to see in the photo, but the silver metalflake is shining through nicely.