I got to smell saw dust again.

[Scott Dunsworth]

Sure am glad to be woodworking again. Got the cockpit floor framed in tonight. Thinking of using blue board foam for the flotation. If it is cut to the width of the cockpit and stood up vertically I think that it will make a nice job. Can anyone think of a reason not to use blue board by Dow?

I have a good bit of this stuff in 2 inch thickness.

Scott

[Melissa Goudeseune]

I can't think of a reason not to.

For the mini-paw, I'm planning to laminate 2" pink foam to 1/4" ply (for the forward seat) or 1/4" balsa (for the aft seat) and fiberglass / vacuum bag the whole shebang.

That way, I get flotation and strong seats in one diffiicult step .

The foam I have has a 30 psi rating, so the fiberglass will help to reduce the number of dings in it from feet and oars.

One other foam comment: I tried hot-cutting 2" foam by using a loop of 14-gauge copper wire in a 120-watt electric soldering gun. It takes more skill than I expected. The wire gets flexible when it heats up, and it's rather difficult to draw the wire through the foam in a straight line.

I ended up using a knife for the trickier cuts (this was for hull stiffeners on a fiberglass kayak I fixed up recently).

Michel

[Scott Dunsworth]

Thanks Michel

[Klaus]

Michael, copper wire is way too soft and it conducts too well for hot wire cutting.

if you can't get hold of NiChrome wire ( as used in heating elements) try ss wire.

Ideally, you should have some means to control the voltage and hence the heat of the wire.

Klaus