Please critique my 23' CC Rebuild plans

[flyingfrizzle]

I used vinyl-ester on the brackets I did mainly as I had a 55 gallon drum. If I had to buy it by the 5 gallon pail I would price it out poly vs the VE. I have found VE for only 20% more than polyester resin which is worth the upgrade to me. Most of the time it is 40% more and epoxy twice that. VE works just like polyester its just way stronger, more water resistant, better elasticity and very similar to epoxy properties. VE uses MekP just like Poly, you work it the same and all. It works well with gel coat also. The way I look at it you can use epoxy on anything but once you have epoxy down you can only put epoxy on epoxy. I use interlux 2000e primer or prime con mainly over the VE but you can use probably what ever. If you put epoxy down make sure you put epoxy over it. There are a lot of good epoxy fairing compounds out there and I mainly only use epoxy compounds to fair. I don't fair like most though. I treat fairing compound like bondo on a car. Least amount possible. Like you mentioned about the csm outer layers, I try to fair into the csm and used fairing compound to spot fill. I always try to avoid skimming out an entire area. Im not saying you cant do that successfully, I just try not to. Also you can do 1700 on 1700 with VE but most people recommend using 1708 or csm between layers. I use a lot of 1708 but when doing vacuum bagging light parts with low resin to cloth ratio I use 1700. Far as the scuppers, your inlet- I would make them big as you can. Never hurts to have more than less. Just make sure they are above the water line. The 23 hull done correctly dose not need a raised deck but many do probably mainly they have heard that about the 20' hulls and it has carried over. Raising the deck only hurts loosing free board so if your not worried about free board than it wont hurt. It is a give and take there. Far as the bracket deal, Big Shrimping and Strick have done more than me so you may be better off directing that at them but I like to size mine custom to maximize flotation, tub low as possible, tub wide as possible, swim platform low as possible to the water and set back short as possible with out motors hitting transom. Also getting the outboard height right is a challenge to figure out and how tall to make the mounting ear on the bracket. Most brackets work but don't maximize efficiency and outboard needs to go higher until it runs out of adjustment. Far as how much resin or cloth to build one. A bunch. I would have 15-20 gallons on hand just to do the bracket. Buy the cloth by the roll cheep off ebay and such. Make sure it is good cloth as all 1708s are not all equal. Far as temps under 60 degs. The VE shines. I don't use epoxy when it is cold. With VE or poly you can just flash it harder with the Mekp. Epoxy you need a winter mix or part "B". I like VE as I can flash it hard and sand on it 30 mins latter. Don't flash it too hard with the MekP though or it can make the resin lay up brittle. As much work as you will be doing it would be cheaper to buy a drum but if you get it by the 5 gallon pail you can re-order as the shelf life of VE is listed as 6 months. Ive used it 2 years old and it just needed a little more Mekp. Ive used Epoxy 8-10 years old and it hardened fine. Just took 3-5 days to do so. I wouldn't recommend using it that old but Im cheap sometimes and long as you do a test piece first you know what your getting into. Start a build thread and others will chime in as you move along with it.