Steve 1

The Molds (straight bottom) were bought by Pantera and they are doing the bottom personally and in house with their Engineer/Designer who they have worked with in the past with great success. I cannot think of a better home for them.


The Console

Steve 1

I want to thank everyone for taking the time to view this.

Steve 1

The CNC Hull Plug had 2" wide Strakes for some reason and yes that needed addressed, now if it was just that,Well no big deal piece of 1/2" material or whatever on top of the strake and back into the deadrise and we are Good to go,But someone had tried to correct this with pieces of foam putty and whatever was around on the side of the Strakes no less, which Necessitated a lot of rework from me.The sides we shot a coat of Duratec for a guide coat and started sanding.


This was the side




Meant a lot of this





And this




To get to this

Steve 1

I will skip ahead. This is getting close ,plug work tells you when it is done.

Steve 1

The deck Plug construction, this was done with The bluefoam which was the Dow Styrofoam blocks, that were piled on a Plywood faced Steel reinforced Pallet, you can then use urethane foam to for glue like a mortor between the lifts then after machining to say deck 1 it was coated with Epoxy a coupling agent and ATC Putty was sprayed on then machined to final dimension deck 2 or whatever.. The Hull Plug was Done differently

Here are pictures

Steve 1

In the end The Plugs were all destroyed ,What Pantera has is it ,they now hold all the cards.

Steve 1

Look just because something is CNCed does not make it fool proof,Here you see a batten wrapped around the deck ridge to "sweeten" up the edge and curve.and again a custom file small one made from a piece of 6061T-6 Aluminum.

Steve 1

Deck ridges ,In the old days a lot of Mr Aronows flat decks had three Bumps or ridges running down the fore deck unique to the Apache also, What we did was not only keep them but add a 21 Century flare to to the profile. Structurally nothing measurable with the new materials.

Steve 1

I was asked about our primer systems;Regards to using Duratec Primer on automotive stuff ,We have tried a lot of things over the years and had chipping problems on the corners of some parts so back to epoxy Primers on the vette stuff. For Plug work it is just fine.

Steve 1

The T-4 and it's story is coming up;There was a meeting in the office one day, I was called in, Thad Allen, Randy Garcia, Steve Wilson’s Office I forget who else was there anyway it was decided that a Step bottom was needed as the first boat. Which presented me with an Array of Problems, One my key guys (Brothers) were tied up on the 2 plugs in the shop which meant I would have to train people on the fly. Second the Bottom could not be a copy or look like anything ever done before, third I did not want to kill the boss in a flip and Forth there were a pair of 1250 HP Cobras with Dry Sump 6’s coming for it!