Quick n Dirty VS Carefully Built...

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Teeeman
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Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2005 1:40 pm
Location: Huntsville, AL

Quick n Dirty VS Carefully Built...

Post by Teeeman »

We are painting (sealing) our balsa boat (the “Black Pearl”) which is CAD model-shown in the some previous posts…

Saturday we spent a total of about 2 minutes and chopped a quick and dirty test article out of Styrofoam… it was flat bottom, with rudder simply stuck into it…

sail was a small square of paper held by folding the bottom 2 corners, piercing with toothpicks and sticking the toothpicks into the foam. The tops of the toothpicks also were pierced through the sail.

It actually surprised us how quick it was!


Has anybody compared “quick and dirty” little boats like this methodically, carefully built articles?

We hopefully will have a comparison in about 2 days (paint drying, then final overcoat).



Funny: Spraying the inside of the sail on the ‘Pearl has proven a challenge. The fully circular sail exits the inflow such that the paint is missing areas in the corners… I dunno if this is good or bad, we’ll find out soon (sail is definitely air-tight).

-Terry
"I dunno..." - Uncle Eddie, Christmas Vacation
Teeeman
Pine Head Legend
Pine Head Legend
Posts: 1577
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2005 1:40 pm
Location: Huntsville, AL

Re: Quick n Dirty VS Carefully Built...

Post by Teeeman »

... replying to my own post...

after quite a bit of testing, we found a simple 5 minute boat that is a speed demon... faster than our balsa pre-build.

Weight is king, apprently... !

We are learning to rebuild the design nicely out of styrofoam (paper sails with waterproofing sprayed on, water based paint for the styrofoam, Elmer's glue to be followed with waterproofing spray)...

... should be light and quick, I hope... if it doesn't melt or fall apart... or waterlog...

so the answer is YES...

we kicked our own butts with a 5 minute slopped together styro test boat held together with Scotch tape compared to our balsa/hotglue/plastic "beauty queen" of a build.


-Terry
"I dunno..." - Uncle Eddie, Christmas Vacation
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