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MY BOAT PROJECT CRUISE CRAFT
48 inches long 16 inches wide 12 inches tall Powered by 32cc McCulloch weed eater engine. It all started when my brother bought a 48 inch fiberglass hull from a local hobby shop for around $200.(you can see his boat on my boats page) I got this crazy ideal that I could build one of these for a whole lot less. I started out building a 48 inch hydro/tunnel hull mix from wood and hardware cloth and then covered it with fiberglass. The result.........a 100 pound piece of crap that wouldn't even get up on plane. Back to the drawing board.
Next I decided on using foam. So off to Lowe's to buy some 1/2 inch thick blue insulation foam. I started by laying out the shape of the boat on the foam with a black magic marker. Once I decided that the shape was just right (48" long 12" wide and 12" tall) I got a sharp utility knife and started cutting out the shape of the boat. I cut the exact same shape on 12 piece of foam. I then started gluing the 12 pieces of blue foam together using 3M super 77 spray adhesive. I staggered each piece of foam back 3/4 of an inch to form the bow of the boat. (Oh I almost forgot a very important step) you must peel the clear film off both sides of the blue foam or It will tear chunks out of the foam when you start sanding the shape of the boat.
I wish I would have taken pictures of the early part of this boat project to help explain what I done to get to this point ,but unfortunately I didn't. If you look close at the photo above (click on photo to see full size) you can see the layers of foam stacked together. Next when I got a rough form of something that started looking like a vee hull boat I started sanding. I started by finding the exact center of the boat and drew a line down the center and up across the back. I then measured down on the back corners 5". This would be the dead rise. Look at the drawling. After hours and hours of sanding I finally got the dead rise exactly the same on both sides and the way I wanted it. Next came on of the hardest parts so far. Cutting out the engine compartment. I once again found the exact center of the boat and drew a line from front to rear this time on the top of the boat. The engine compartment was to be 12" wide so I measured over both ways from the center line 6" and drew lines. I started cutting. I cut the foam down to about 1/2" from the bottom of the boat. I forgot to tell you that I fiber glassed the bottom of the boat before I started cutting the engine compartment out to give the boat strength once the foam was cut away.
I filled in the back with a piece of 1/4 plywood. Next I started fiber glassing the entire hull. I had to start with stuff called epoxy resin. Ordinary fiber glass attacks the foam. Epoxy resin mixes one part resin one part hardener. Once I got the entire hull covered in epoxy resin I then went back over it with ordinary fiber glass. I could have just finished the hull in epoxy resin but this stuff is very expensive and it doesn't really go very far. The hull is still pretty rough even after 4 layers of fiber glass. I applied a very thin layer of bondo and glazing putty to help smooth things out.
Inside the
engine compartment
Well enough sanding and smoothing for now. I'm going to spray bomb this thing and put it together so I can play with it this summer. I'll take it apart this winter and next summer she will be slick and shiny. THE CRUISE CRAFT WAS BORN........
All running hardware is homemade by me. On the water.
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