Suck the moisture out of your sails

I don't have a sail tube that looks as cool as a torpedo, but mine can prevent mildew. After having disastrous results using Damp-Rid and having it attack my aluminum sail plates and boom, I bought one of these mini dehumidifiers off of eBay. ADS-300 Portable Dehumidifier- FREE GROUND SHIPPING, so far so good.

Here's the outside view of my tube.

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TC

here's the inside with a timer set up. The door that the dehumidifier is mounted to is made from PVC board, which mates with a weather stripped flange made of the same material.

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TC

Hey, mine does look like a "Storpedo" but it doesn't have a dehumidifier!

Where did you get the sheet PVC and what kind of price did you have to pay?

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Alan
'86 H16, Sail #89057

It looks like $37.95 with free shipping according to Ebay

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2003 Tiger - Don Atchley

I saw Harbor Freight has a "Bait Aerator" for $4.95 which will pump air for 30 hours on a single D battery. Would that do the same thing?

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What - Me Worry?


2006 Hobie Wave 7358
"Ish Kabibble"

I buy the PVC board locally at a marine surplus/scrap yard called Flounder Pounder Marine http://www.fpmarine.com/
Because of the odd shapes and sizes they sell PVC and Star Board by the pound. I can't remember exactly what I paid, but it was less than $5 a pound. One caution about Star Board...the stuff is slicker than snot and nothing will stick to it, including every glue I've ever tried. Which is why I stuck with the PVC board, that and it weighs half as much.

Indy, a Bait Aerator is not the same as a dehumidifier and will do nothing to remove the ambient mositure. These mini-dehumidifiers use a Peltier plate to condense the moisture and allow it to drip into the collection tank. I drilled a hole (be REAL careful as the plastic tends to crack and shatter) and attached a drip hose to the outside of my sail tube. I also had to add a small wick inside the tube to keep these damn bees from filling the line with God knows what and stopping it up.

The mini dehumidifier also comes with an adapter for plugging into a cigarette lighter, if some would prefer that sort of hook up. I've never used that feature though.

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TC

Thanks, I had Founder Pounder in my bookmarks but forgot all about them. I may give them a call to see how much some pieces of thicker stuff would cost for new ends on my Storpedo. Since it is cut and hinged lengthwise, I'll likely need some sort of rubber seal in order to take full advantage of the dehumidifier.

Do you leave it plugged in all the time when at home?

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Alan
'86 H16, Sail #89057

Flounder pounder keeps some wierd hours, so you may need to email them. Great place to get odds and ends though.

Yeah, I keep it plugged in, but use a cheap digital timer I bought at Walmart and run it about 4 hours a day. I might be over kill, but even with a compression fit, my seals leak some, so I'm hoping this will compensate.

Good luck with your tube, and put a prop on it will ya?

I'm working on another project as we speak, but not having great sucess molding a carbon/epoxy trapeze buckle. Hopefully I'll get the kinks worked out before I run out of materials and give up

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TC

If you have the mold made, use pre-preg carbon, or if you use regular carbon fiber rope or roving, wet it out, then squeegy or roll out all the excess resin. Place the the wet carbon in the mold then vacuum bag it. If you are using epoxy, it will flow better and wet out the carbon easier if it is heated gently.

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Alan
'86 H16, Sail #89057

I'm using a Kevlar fabric. The first attempt came out a little dry, and I didn't use enough fabric. The second is still in the mold, but I did pre-wet the crap out of it. I think the biggest issue I have is my lack of a good vacuum. In both attempts the bagging film doesn't seem to want to get down into all of the nooks and crannies.

When I get home tonight I'll pop the latest out of the mold and see how it looks.

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TC

Don't forget, when you vacuum bag, you need a place for the excess resin to go- an absorbent layer of something on top of a perforated barrier.

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Alan
'86 H16, Sail #89057

Allen, I'm using peel ply over the top of my wetted fiber, (looks like silk screen cloth) followed by a layer of polyester batting for sucking up the excess resin. Finally I top everything off with a thin sheet of polyethylene which conforms to the part when I pull a vacuum.

My second attempt was better than the first, but still I have issues...like the peel ply and polyester batting being hard as hell to remove. Other problems are wetting. The final finish on both the mold side and the back side don't have a gloss finish, actually it's rather spotty. I'll probably end up sanding the finish out and recoating everything with a final coat of resin. I need to do some cutting and drilling anyway, so this final coat would help seal the exposed edges. Still, I think I can do better...if I only knew what I was doing !

Another probelm I have is my mold. I have some deep curves which the fabric does not like to conform to w/o wrinkles. I found a work around for part of it, but cosmetically, it sucks.

BTW, I did wet all the fiber as I placed them into the mold. Mixed about 6 fluid ounces of epoxy for about 6 ounces of fiber. From what I've read I need to use less epoxy, but my end results tell me differently. My last was six layers. I'm going to try a couple more things on my next one, but I think I need to order more fabric first. A square yard didn't go as far as I'd hoped....and is hell on sissors.

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TC

I used peel ply over many glass/epoxy layups on the homebuilt airplane I was building years ago. I think the main wing required 16 layers. We used peel ply because the textured surface left after removing the peel ply didn't need to be sanded (no damage to the glass) before epoxying the part to other structures. I still think a perforated plastic sheet would be a better barrier for vacuum bagging. I have never played with Kevlar, just a little with carbon fiber- the plane had a prefab carbon wing spar. Most of the carbon stuff guys used back then was pre-preg because of the difficulty wetting it out. The parts were put in an oven/autoclave for curing. Carbon and Kevlar are pretty stiff, more so than heavy glass fabric, so don't conform well. You might need to use chopped up fibers.

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Alan
'86 H16, Sail #89057

I'll see what I can find in the way of perforated poly. I'm also thinking of ordering some Kevlar 'tape', rather than cutting from a yard of material. I think using some narrower widths may help with maintaining a shape w/o wrinkles.

Thanks for the help.

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TC

So where'd you get the storpedo? I want one the next time I tow through customs.