Friday, October 10, 2008

Batboat Rebuild: Woodflower and Funnoodles

No, Woodflower and Funnoodles are not recipe ingredients. I'm using them on the Batboat.

On October 5th, I drove back from Bay City where I found swimming pool foam Funnoodles clearance priced at $1 each. I stuffed all fifteen in the back seat. Holy blind spot!

These are commonly used for foam flotation in fiberglass boat restoration. The material is the same used in aircraft wings and will not absorb water. They do chemically break down and shed to foam flakes if exposed to UV rays for too long but since they'll go under the boat's deck that will never happen.

An example I found on my hard drive of someones Funnoodle placement between the deck and hull. These keep the boat afloat if there is an accident on the water.
Each is around 5 foot tall, easy to cut and will fit perfectly under the deck of my boat.

I found two types of them. Ten are the standard, funtastic noodles and five Monster sized, both for ages 5+.

Friday, the day before this, UPS delivered two 2 1/2 lb. tubs (5 qts. volume) of Wood Flower to my door. Basically, this is expensive, fine saw dust at $9.50 per tub.

Ordered it from Mertons Fiberglass and Marine Supply http://www.mertons.com/Additives/flour.html

It is most commonly used to thicken fiberglass resin to a peanut-butter like consistency for filling inside corners, fixing holes and setting stringers to the hull, to name a few. Wood flour makes a great, coarse fiberglass structural putty, too. This and cabosil are indispensable in fiberglass boat restoration.

I have all the things I need now to install the transom, stringers and deck except for warm weather. Fiberglass resin needs consistent temperatures at least around 65 degrees to properly solidify. A garage and a space heater sure would come in handy right now.

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