Shipment from AirTech came in today. Release-coated peel-ply, bagging material and mastic-tape. Am going to put it on the rack tomorrow and hopefully finish building the strongback. Now I just need to start searching in earnest for a good deal on a vacuum pump that will pull the kind of vacuum I want (29″ Hg). Ordered the epoxy today from Applied Poleramic. They said their board of orders to fill is pretty full right now, but hopefully they can get my order mixed and out the door next Friday (The 6th) – should mean in about 2 weeks I’ll have everything needed to start constructing parts (assuming I can get a good priced pump, of course).

Just received an automated e-mail from the freight company stating that a bill of lading has been created and they are scheduled to pick it up a 500 lbs skid tomorrow… I’m assuming as soon as the shipment has been picked up and the system updated I’ll be able to see an estimated date of delivery.

Spoke more with Ric at Noah’s this afternoon. He gave me a number of suggestions on my list to save money and hopefully make sure I didn’t order too much of certain things. He has been extremely patient with me this past week, both in email and on the phone. The skid of materials should be ready to ship out towards the end of the week – everything was in stock except some Carbon Fiber that he is going to backorder and ship seperately.

Put together the rack I drew up for holding fiberglass rolls and infusion materials. I gave it an inside width of just over 64″ so it will hold a 60″ roll with no problems. The only thing I have to put on it right now is the Resin Distribution Media which I picked up on Friday. 13 Time spent : 4 hours

Got the garage cleaned enough to buy some lumber today. Bought enough to build the rack I drew up to hold rolls of fiberglass and infusion materials. Also bought most of the lumber for the strongback and began to cut it. Thought we would end up spending much more than we did for the lumber, which is good, but there is still some expensive stuff left to buy. MDF is not cheap… 🙁

Tonight I ordered a roll of Resin Distribution Media from DelStar. After going through everything, I read the confirmation e-mail and found out they were on the south-side of town. I didn’t want to end up paying sales tax and shipping, so I gave them and call and left a message explaining things. Early the next morning I receive a very friendly phone call and we arrange it so the credit card does not get charged freight and the item is held for me to pick up locally.

Last night I decided to create a new weblog, completely seperate from my usual one, to track this project. It will make for cleaner browsing and searching as well as only contain information relevant to boat-building.

After much debate on which boat to build, what with the F-22 plans getting closer and closer to completion, I went to the Post Office during my lunch break and shipped the F-82 plans to New Zealand. Ian will send me what has been completed of the F-22 plans as soon as he receives them.

A big thanks goes out to Steve G from the Multihull Boatbuilder group for letting me check out his progress and watching a resin infusion take place. The panel that he did today was 8ft x 20ft with 50oz of fabric – not exactly a small piece – and it took just over an hour to completely infuse. I definitely learned a lot today, and it makes this whole procedure seem less “black magic” and more practical – espicially for someone building without much help.

I put a question out to the F-Boat list and received a number of good replies on the subject (one of them mentioning a lower-cost alternative that I had placed by the way-side because it wasn’t a big name). I received the following from Ian Farrier regarding my question… it’s nice to know that I’m worrying about, basically, nothing.. 🙂 The question of the day, however, is what properties are “good” for a boat?