To begin, I would like to congratulate you on undertaking and documenting this project. Your videos are well done and informative. I do have a question which, as I am rather new to you channel, you may have addressed in the past. How are you going to transport your catamaran to a marina? I assume that you will try to straddle a flat bed trailer, but at roughly 28’ wide, it is wider than most roadways. I have run into this in the past moving mining equipment through Nevada and Utah, and it is a major obstacle when loads are wider than the 22’ maximum width allowed in these states. It is possible to apply for exception permits, but the logistics generally need to be planned across multiple jurisdictions which is very time consuming and costly. Unless your route will be on a minimum of a four lane divided highway, traffic will need to be stopped and moved off of the shoulders in both directions. This has generally required working with local and state law enforcement agencies to make this happen. Typically in my experience, you will end up needing six patrol cars, two at both the front and rear of the load to make sure a safe buffer is maintained and another two about half a mile ahead moving traffic off to the side. I am now planning the logistics for my own catamaran build, and the marina access has been a major issue in trying to find a build location of my own. Any insights you can give from your own planning on how to deal with this issue would be greatly appreciated.
Fortunately we have a six lane road to the eight lane freeway to the eight lane highway to the water. So no road closures needed for our 25' wide cat. There are special permits needed and a Highway patrol escort, as well as a wide load escort, but it is all doable in California with our easy route.
A big difference from the late 1990s when I used Coppercoat, it came ready to go in 5 gallon drums just decant and add the hardener, the copper sitting down the bottom of the drum not added later. A major job to mix it and it weighed a ton. It was very thick and hard to apply and as such when it came time to abrade it you can guess it was a terrible job, I didn't have the luxury of having the hull inverted. It wasn't a great result in the water and I finished up overcoating it with conventional antifoul. The upside being that I have always had a yacht with an epoxy coat below the waterline.
Bravo! Gazebo cluster will do the job! Unicorn Mad Scientist - what a callname! go Mike go! ;-) Exactly! Why not to paint easy rather then up side down? Let Schionning learn from you!
I have been thinking about your carpet cradles. You stated that the copper coat will not age until its in the water. I'll assume that fresh water is not a problem. However, LA is famous for its smog n acid rain, carpet that has not been treated to resist water will retain it. Potentially, you may have acid water or salty sea mist soaked carpet aging your copper coating at the cradles for 18 months.
I think you are reading too much into LA acid rain. I have lived here for 45 years, with no effect on my cars, etc. Not to mention that LA is a dry desert climate. We get little rain and mostly months of dry heat. This carpet will not be wet. If you want to worry about things worry about the heat, not rain.
You guys are doing a great job! Recently discover you channel and watched all of your videos. I wish i had a 3D model of the cataraman im building as well :( , as you i have walked the maze and decided to take the path of building our cat from scratch, hope one day may sail close by. All the best
One step closer to flipping the hulls! Well done! Watching your videos, I often wonder how your electrical system manages with the consumption. Do you ever use mains power (from one of the neighbors) for the power tools?
We don't need to, we never even come close to using up the stored power in our batteries, they seldom drop below 95%. We are using power during daylight, so the solar panels are putting out enough power to run our power tools.
Typically, it takes 1:15 hours per layer (they recommend 4 layers) for our 15.2m long cat hull. About 25 sq. meters total for one coat. We ended up having extra Coppercoat so we put on 5 layers, which took about 6 hours.
Well, we already did the burnishing sanding since they recommended that be done before the epoxy fully hardens. Now that it's done, we won't have to sand it before we put the boat in the water, even if that is several years from now.
Did you guys come back and sand the Coppercoat a couple of days after this application? Isn’t Coppercoat really finicky about the application process and following the directions to a T? I really like what I’ve heard about the product and I plan to repaint the bottom of my boat with it. However, it seems folks that don’t comply with the directions end up with the product not working as well as hoped. Best of luck, z.
Yes, we came back and sanded it at the right time. We also followed all their directions completely. It wasn't hard, we just have a large hull to paint with two rolling. If we went to four, (next hull, we hope) then it would have been pretty easy.
I need to do my own coppercoat paint job in May in Napa and I'm a bit overwhelmed by how I'll organize all this. I don't have a lot of hands to help! How long is the window between when it's tacky and when it's too late to overpaint anymore?
Coppercoat say it’s ok to do it in sections. So you could split the hull into say quarters and tackle it in four sessions and just overlap onto the previous section👍
The problem there is it depends on the temperature and humidity that day. For us, it was a cool day, starting at 50F and ending at 73F with very low humidity. Each coat took about 1:15 to get to the point where it was tacky. We were doing 50' long hulls, so two people would just get to the stern by 1:15.
also you can sand it when its hard but copper is a very mailable metal so its MUCH better when its tacky but NOT impossible when its hard, remember work smarter not harder
After decades working on painting Autos/Planes/Boats it KILLS me to watch you fondling sanded primer! Even if your going to clean it multiple times with a degreaser before you paint with a final product, why would anyone deliberately rub oils and contaminates into your sanded primer?