Carbon Snake (Mini Mutt) Sport 20

[Jeff Barnhart]

I modeled up the Snake sport 20 in Solidworks about a year ago and I'm finally getting around to building a mold for this boat.

A friend of mine has a HAAS 3-axis mill that we are machining the pattern with. We're machining the bottom side, cutting a fixture, and then machining the top side. It will be identical to the wood boat I'm currently racing.

More pictures to follow...

 

[Jeff Barnhart]

a few more of rough cuts

 

[Jeff Barnhart]

Bottom side finish cuts

 

[Hydro Junkie]

Interesting way to do a plug. Are you going to do the deck the same way?

 

[Jeff Barnhart]

Yes, that's next to be cut

 

[Roy Munoz]

Very Nice .. Keep sending pictures of the mold ..

 

[SayMikey]

Very cool, I want a Snake

 

[Kevin Krogness]

Somebody say Carbon!!!

 

[raptor347]

Somebody say Carbon!!!

Can we say vacuum bagged carbon with really good epoxy? Yes, yes we can.

 

[Jerry Dunlap]

Very cool, I want a Snake

Well, here's a photo.

JD

 

[Jeff Barnhart]

the almost finished product and mill fixture, nice part about doing it this way is when you have an oops.... just let the bondo kick and rerun the cutter paths, no sanding to shape necessary.

 

[Jeff Barnhart]

Here's the final version, it will get some areas of sanding, sealled with resin, and we'll build a mold off of it.

It was definitely a learning experience for us, we ran into some issues with MDF that we didn't forsee.

 

[Terry Keeley]

Wow! Lot's of whittlin' there!

Nice work.

ps: think they make some high density foam just for that, might cut cleaner than MDF...

 

[Jeff Barnhart]

Wow! Lot's of whittlin' there!

Nice work.

ps: think they make some high density foam just for that, might cut cleaner than MDF...

Foam tooling board would've probably been a better option in hind sight. I thought I'd give MDF a go since it's cheap and readily available.

The fun part about this is that there's as many options as you could ever imagine and then some.

 

[Terry Keeley]

Wow! Lot's of whittlin' there!

Nice work.

ps: think they make some high density foam just for that, might cut cleaner than MDF...

Foam tooling board would've probably been a better option in hind sight. I thought I'd give MDF a go since it's cheap and readily available.

The fun part about this is that there's as many options as you could ever imagine and then some.

Yup!

Makes my system of using forms/radius cutters and sandpaper look ancient!

But then again i still draw stuff up on graph paper...

 

[dave roach]

Jeff

Is that boat legal in IMPBA

Cool looking boat.

Dave

 

[Jeff Barnhart]

Thanks Dave.

I'm not super familiar with the IMPBA rules, but I beleive it is legal. I know JD and some of the other guys have raced them in IMPBA without issue in the past.

If it were not legal, I'm sure it would not take much effort to make it conform.

 

[Jeff Barnhart]

I got the sponson decks sheeted and removed some of the bulkhead that I left in the model so that it's easier to get the pipe out the back of the boat. Sheeting the sponson decks was the easiest way to add the winglets to the trailing edges of the sponsons as well as eliminate a lot of sanding and filling.


The bulkhead was left in the model as insurance to help prevent cutter-loads from pulling the center-section apart. My plan is for the boats to have a carbon fiber spar going through the bulkhead in the middle and in the front of the boat (think like the glass Mutt 2 Sport 40s have).

 

[Jeff Barnhart]

Here's a side-by-side of the plug and the wood boat I'm racing currently.

 

[Jerry Dunlap]

Are the sponson tips going to be that shape?

JD