Rigging a Vacuum Pump

After going thru Bill Quigg and Jay's website plus some research I was able to rig up a nice little vacuum system with a kit and pump I purchased from http://www.veneersupplies.com/ . The instructions are fantastic and I think the kit is worth more than what it costs. I strongly recommend buying from him as he is very helpful and the price is so reasonable. I left the small air reservoir as designed but added a Sears 5 gl air tank instead of the 2 4" PVC vacuum reservoirs. The tank was cheaper and easier to rig up. I also added a relief valve as Bill suggests. It made sense as you would have to manually release the vacuum sometimes to adjust wrinkles etc.  The pump works great and pulls about 26hg which would be more than sufficient from what I read and understand. Most of all it holds the pressure very well. The end result is below.

And here's a side view.

F-32AX Hull Number 99

It's been about one year since I purchased the F-9AX plans from Paul who lives across the pond. The way things were going during that year gave me the feeling that I might have to do the same thing Paul did. Sell it!

After the long lull and the what seemed like an endless winter I decided to get moving. I hope to be dedicated and sincere towards this and complete it quickly so I can go sailing (in my own boat). Does a couple of years sound like enough time?

I won't go into when and how it all started as I don't really recall. All I remember is that I was looking to build a 26 ft Maine Lobster power boat and gas prices drove me towards a sailboat and I hit pay-dirt with the F-Boats. I was drawn towards the F-33 and the F-36 but one was a production boat and the other was just too big for trailering comfortably. I was deciding on the F-32 when the F-9 #383 plans came up for sale and after comparing the F-9 and F-32 it seemed like the same boat. So, I bought the F-9 plans. Little did I know they were so much different that what was described. The changes I wanted to make to the layout etc were either not possible or feasible. I kept coming back to the F-32AX as that seemed to acomodate my requirements. So I bit the bullet and upgraded my plans to the F-32AX in April 2009.

I'll be building the hulls out of Core-cell foam and probably will begin with Mas or Silvertip resin. I'll also be vacuum bagging some if not all of the parts. The bulkheads will definitely be vacuum bagged and decide on the floats and the hull once I figure out the the amount of work and headache involved.