My method involves the subdeck at 1/8th, then two exact copies in 1/16th. Everything is cut to be tight to the inside of the hull.
Sanding and then you get the bottom part of the deck complete. Removed all the unnecessary fiberglass. Top deck and bottom are now ready to be joined.
On side of the deck will be tounge and groove, the other side held in place with magnets. The three holes are where the 1/2 magnets will go (rare-earth).
Gluing time, lots of weight used for a strong bond. the tounge and groove has been cut, those are the two pieces on the right side, I will install those later.
Now it is time to make the "tounge and groove", the deck will slide into the side of the hull, providing a water tight seal and easy access hold down. In the picture below, the sub-deck has the notches, the top deck has two layers and the rails at the top need to be added.
The bottom side piece has been glued to the sub-deck, and the top piece was glued to that piece. If you were to look at a cross-section, you would see a lower case r. The lower deck piece slides under the top of the r. After I glued this piece, I was disappointed to see I did not get the gap as tight as I wanted it, this was due to not paying attention during the glue layup. Lesson learned...
Used JB weld epoxy to fill in the gap between the deck and the hull. Pack it in as much as you can and leave it a little proud of the surface, I have encountered air pockets in the past that leave voids.
So... another lesson learned on the sub deck and creating notches, mine are too long at this point. This will require filling and lots of epoxy for a strong joint. Also, need to make sure the surface is flat or the deck will not seal.
The JB weld also acts as putty, so I was able to flip the boat and use west system epoxy with fiberglass to firmly attach the subdeck.
Time for drag disks. I will be using one of my earlier molds but you will get the idea. In the picture below, I have a two part mold and a piece of 1/8th brass rod
The brass rod is used to reinforce the shaft area, without it the plastic will fail due to rough handling of the ship. So, place the rod in the mold.
For the casting, I am using what I have on hand (in this case TASK 8). You can use any hard plastic material from smooth-on. Equal amounts of both part A and B, and I like to add a color. Using one part black to ten parts white to get a grey color.
I am using a board and rubber bands to hold the mold together while I pour the plastic. Just below the mold is the master that is made of a cast prop, rod, parts of a pen, and plastic rod for the sprue gates. Below this is the part after being pulled from the mold, you can see all the flashing that needs to be cleaned up.
Pulled the top off the mold to show what it looks like, it is still to early to remove as the plastic really needs to harden (about six more hours).
Using model paint, going to show what it will look like when done (still needs to be installed and sanded to fit the hull). The area under the blades was an experiment to see if modeling clay could be used to fill gaps. This proved to not work do to the mold pulling the moisture out of the clay when it was curing. Still though, good enough for drag props.
