17' 0" Freedom

[stripperguy]

Randy,
Thanks for that thorough description of your gunnel (guwale, gunwhale) lamination technique. I love the idea of in place laminating to reproduce the sheer line shape in all planes.
Do you recall the foam dimensions and size/weight of the carbon sleeving?

On my only composite build, I used a fully finished hull (complete with all trim) as a plug, it was a J. Winter's Kite.
If you know that hull, it has a pronounced "crease" that makes for a challenging composite copy, especially so with full gunnels in place.
As such, I have a section of sheer line that did not fully conform to the plug.
To hide that discontinuity, I had to epoxy my oversized gunnels in place first, then sand and form them true to maintain a fair gunnel shape.
Worked great for hiding the wavy lamination, but was a challenge to wet out the carbon without making a mess of the mostly finished hull.

Next time, I'll use your method.
Thanx,
Mike T.

[Patricks Dad]

The foam i used for my gunwales was built up from the 3/8" foam I had left over from a prior build. I built up a 3/4" X 3/4" cross section

I purchased carbon fiber sleeve from soller composites:

https://www.sollercomposites.com/CarbonSleeves.html

I think they were 1.25" Diameter. You can measure your cross section perimeter to calculate the sleeve diameter (diameter = perimeter / pi) you might want to use (keep in mind the perimeter includes 2X the depth of your channel on the underside of the gunwale to "straddle" the sheerline.

The sleeve is pretty forgiving on size as you can simply shorten it a bit to increase it's diameter (This is necessary to slide the sleeve over the foam gunwale as you assembling it). I just used a plastic putty knife to poke the sleeve into the channel.

Hope this helps.

[Cruiser]

A few questions on the gunnels:

How many layers of carbon sleeve did you use?
What weight sleeve ?
Did you do the wet out with thickened epoxy, or did you wet out with unthickened and followup with thickened?

Thanks

Brian

[stripperguy]

I'll have to look back on my records, but I think I used a heavy bias woven 4" carbon tape to cover my gunnels, on both my red Kite and the carbon copy. I was very disappointed with the weight associated with those gunnels. IIRC, the tape was .032" thick, which required massive (relatively) quantities of resin.

Did you use light, medium or heavy sleeving? Soller has them listed as .012", .018" and .03" in thickness.
Interestingly, the cost of the light carbon is barely more than all fiberglass sleeving, making that choice simple at least.

[Patricks Dad]

Brian wrote:

How many layers of carbon sleeve did you use?
What weight sleeve ?
Did you do the wet out with thickened epoxy, or did you wet out with unthickened and followup with thickened?

I used just one layer of sleeving. It was 3K (light weight). I might have gone with medium weight (6K) if it were available in the right diameter. 12K just seemed like overkill. It was wet out with unthickened epoxy. The gunwale was subsequently affixed to the hull using thickened epoxy.

[Cruiser]

Tks Randy

[Patricks Dad]

I put the layer of Innegra (3.6 oz) in this weekend. I put a layer of 0.2 oz carbon fiber veil over the honeycomb core to avoid filling the honeycomb with epoxy... It came out OK but still took more epoxy than I would have liked..This hull is now sitting at just under 31 pounds..

here's a pic of the wet-out coat. I did a fill coat after this..



I figure I'll add 8-10 pounds to finish the build.

[Jim Dodd]

Will you be adding flotation ?

Hull looks great !

Is that the innegra above the shearline ? How was it to work wet out ?

Jim

[Patricks Dad]

I will add small flotation chambers. The 3.6 oz Innegra was OK to wet-out. About like 5 oz kevlar I'd say. I use West System epoxy so it took me about 2.5 hours to get it all wet. I've been thinking I should experiment with a less viscous epoxy...

[Cruiser]

Such nice epoxy work Randy ....

[Cruiser]

Randy, one more question on the foam you used for the gunnel core .... you said it was left over... but what type was it? And did you do any weights on the gunnels?

Brian

[Patricks Dad]

Vinyl Foam: Divinycell 4 lb. Density - 3/8" thick

https://www.fibreglast.com/product/Viny ... dwich_Core

I had used this stuff for the core (and ribs) for the first carbon/kevlar canoe I built). 2 layers built up to 3/4" by 3/4"

Total weight of the gunwales including the epoxy to glue them onto the hull was 3.3 pounds. I cut my channel a bit wider than it needed to be so I traded some foam in for epoxy so they were heavier than they should have been. The foam and carbon sleeve alone was about 1.5 pounds.

Brian, you have used fairly thin cherry for gunwales. If I recall they ended up fairly light. What numbers do you have? Maybe this foam/carbon approach is more work than it's worth??

[Cruiser]

Hi Randy,
I have struggled with the weights of some of the synthetics versus careful use of selected woods, the pros and cons of the weights and savings etc... as you get closer to the minimum wood usage, there doesn't appear to be many reasons to go with carbon/kevlar etc ... they cost more and don't really offer much more.

In this case my gunnels and decks came in just under 3 pounds for a Freedom Solo at 16', yours is a Freedom 17, which would require a bit larger gunnels and they are a foot longer, so I would expect those to be in the same range as your carbon gunnels.

Just for the esthetics I would likely go with carbon (as you did) for a composite canoe and wood for a wood boat .... having said that, my next boat will be white cedar and I think the carbon would look sharp on that type of wood. I just wanted the info to make sure I had the lightest option (within reason), I am not currently sure there will be much, if any, weight savings in using composite gunnels for the next build .... I do know there would be a pretty significant cost impact to get those materials together (but there is always the "cool" factor).

Having said that, your treatment of the gunnel is about the best (read that as it makes sense to me) I have seen to date. When I built the first Freedom with a uniwale, I always thought that could be adapted with carbon or glass sleeve, I even went so far as to order a test batch fro Soller just to try it, but it is still on the shelf.

Just so many things to try, lol and a limited amount of hours in a day.

Brian

[Patricks Dad]

Got my gunwales fabricated and wet-out.... Once these cure, I'll install them permanently. I built them a bit larger (1" x 3/4") than the prior set. I think they look good. 1.5 pounds before epoxy (foam + carbon sleeve).

[Cruiser]

Those look better than good Randy, they look really good or approaching awesome