well all, I think I have a winner! I've attempted to make a turtle deck, this is now the 3 attempt.
I dont feel the need to go into detail as to why the first 2 failed, lets just say that polyester resins melts monokote. Over a male mold... it looks great, after the piece is pulled... Um... well its not good. It takes too much cloth and resin to make a free standing peiece, that doesnt weigh 18 lbs. What I ended up doing was this: I built a female mold, much like Mark L's first attempt. Mark said that he really could have used a vacuum pump to pull it up close. I didnt have a pump either, so what I ended up with was.... I built this female mold, I went to home depot and purchased a 4x8 sheet of 3/4 foam. I set my blade on the table saw to about 30 degrees. So to minimize the gaps as it curves around the shape of the mold. This foam has a thin plastic sheet on either side. I ran the foam through the table saw and cut it into 3in strips. I picked up a can of 3M spray adheasive. I sprayed just enough to keep the 3in strips of foam in contact with the female mold, keeping the plastic sheet on both sides. The foam in small pieces is able to bend and maintain, without pulling away. Thus negatting the need for a vacumm Once the entire surface of the mold was covered and the end pieces trimed, I pulled the plastic sheet off of the exposed surface. I then layed 1 sheet glass on the inside. After its cured, I worked the foam away from the plastic on the underside that has been attached to the mold with the spray adheasive. This took a bit of time but was not difficult to do. Once removed, I mixed up a heavy slury of microspheres and epoxy to close the small gaps between the foam, its a minimal gap because the mating surface are mated 30 degrees. After a few thin coats of mico... I layed a single sheet of 8.5 oz cloth and a sheet of deck cloth ontop and epoxied in place. Why I thought to convey my method is it cost me 8 bucks for the foam.... and I didnt have to shave foam making a heckofa mess. The final weight will be around 8-10 lbs after the bulkheads are installed. for what its worth. -Jeff
