The Mold

The Process
What would be the mold flange was installed on the plug, faired and painted with Imron. This process also included installation of a fairing around the building platform that will create the flange of the hull at the sheer line (supports the deck). As shown, this would be for the starboard half of the mold. The entire process described here would be repeated for the port half. All this is then sprayed with a tooling gel coat and when dried, heavily waxed with a mold release. Multiple layers of fabric are then applied with resin. This was a long process with many cooling periods before continuing to achieve a 1/2 inch thickness. You will see a lot of red here as the color bleeds through the resin/fabric.

     
   

The supporting framework for the mold is installed during the fabric lay up. Once the port side is done, the two halves are clamped together and drilled for the alignment fasteners. The entire mold is now trimmed of excess that will leave a clean bolting flange to the mold. Then the mold is separated and it is done.

   
   
   

The first hull is laid and sacrificed for ballast preparation. Hull # 2 becomes Brawner's #18.

    
   

On the building of hull #3 note the fabric tabs. This would be the 94 boat and layed up by Rick West. When the excess fabric is trimmed after the laying of the fabric and resin, tabs are left to assist removing the hull from the mold; nice touch and very effective.  This is done because of the size of the hull to be extracted.

  

The new hull is ballasted, trimmed and put in the pool. Now, there is a boat, mother and the daughter. It was just five months, that's all.