Mar 17, 2008

It's all hingeing

Today I send the second and final payment for driftboat emblems.  In 3 weeks they should be at my doorstep.  A month later there will be at least one order for a driftboat and I am not ready.

*  I need to secure a location for light industrial manufacturing... fiberglass resin can be smelt for a quarter mile around.  I am going to go visit the Aurora Airport and see what a hangar costs in this day and age.  Plus Aurora, Oregon has a nice ring to it when people start to imagine where their boat was given birth.
 
*  I need to figure out the waterproof hatch system for each side compartment in the boat.  I was considering ways of incorporating an OEM solution from the Pelican Case Co.  But I also found Arrowhead Inc and they have a cool hinge that may work in conjunction with their fiberglass door.  I would want to make the door/hatch a custom size that is a bit bigger and followed the contours of the curved outside edge of the side compartments.

*  I found Arrowhead as I was trying to take fiberglass boat manufacturing to the next level beyond "hand-laid" fiberglass layers and into a vaccuum assisted Resin Transfer Molding process.  Here is the company that makes RTM molds for Lockheed, Boeing, etc.  

By doing an RTM mold I wouldn't feel the need to hire someone right out of the gates to do the glass work.  I could do it myself and probably make a boat every other day.  It would be cool if the demand was that high.

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