I have found that the concrete sealant does NOT grind out easily. With heat it becomes soft like gum and the particles from sanding/grinding stick to everything. The best method I found was cut and peel. Epoxy seems staightforward as I just take a grinding bit and hit it till its gone. So far it works great.
Which is heavier? if the sealer is heavier it is more efficent in a boat, because you have to use less to get the same results. less sealent, means more space for equipment. Just an idea.
Just a little update. While the sealant was very easy to pour and get results, the weight was just too much for the baden. I ended up taking most of it out in order to allow me to ballast the ship. The hull ended up so heavy that I had no weight to play with in order to ballast it side to side or front to back. I have learned, since I poured it, about reserve bouyancy of which the sealant provides none. My ship is so packed with stuff there is very little volume left to hold water. I used a wood chisel to scrape / peel it out which worked great. I only had to grind the sealant out of the corners. I did find a good use for it though as I used spray foam to bring the water channel in the bow up to the bottom of the penetrable windows. When I cut them to shape they had a lot of holes so I coated it with the sealant, it didnt take much, and it made a glassy smooth surface. That will let the water flow easily under acceleration. See ya
I have been using this stuff as well. I do not lay it in very thick. I generally lay it in on top of some other material that is light weight. Like foam. It sets up quicker, and ends up weighing less, yet I still have a nice smooth surface. I also found that getting it out of a boat is best with a flat bladed exacto-knife. Mikey
Johnny, it's funny to hear you say that about Baden, if only because I was listening to Brian K say it about his son's newly-completed Bayern a few weeks ago. Very nearly word-for-word! He peeled it out relatively easily and put in balsa water channelling so he could cut weight and ballast the ship. Minus a pound or 3 of weight, Christopher's Bayern turns in place (almost). Most impressive, easily the best-turning ship in Region 3. I'm excessively proud, if only because I made the plug and mold for the Bayern rudders
Yes it turned pretty well, but it still went down when a Duke came along side and shot it full of holes, LOL. I just don't know what you fellows are doing with the sealer? My Duke has quite a bit in it, and fully loaded is over 4 pounds under weight, the PE also uses it, and is 2 1/2 pounds underweight. You all must be putting it in way too thick. It most definitely helps with the boats stability.
I've used the sealer in 5 ships, including two wood hulls. So far, no overweight problems in anything from a Gloire CL to a Gascogne BB. It kinda sounds like the Baden hull itself is the one having problems with weight. My latest project only used 9 ounces of sealer. The ship is about 46" in length. The sealant was poured over a 1/4" balsa bottom and ended up 1/4" at it's thickness. Admittedly, a fiberglass hull would use a bit more, but even my fiberglass hulls haven't had weight problems. Having the weight low really increases stability. A great example was the tale of two Lutzows. Same fiberglass hulls. One has all balsa waterchannel. The other use sealant waterchanneling. The balsa waterchanneled ship showed a remarkable tendancy to lean alot while turning. The sealant waterchanneled ship stayed flat in the turns. I'm thinking that most of the time, the sealant waterchanneling will work in nearly all types of ships. But like most things in life, there is always exceptions. Heh.
I layed down a 1/4 frame and poured up to 1/4 thick in the midships. In other places it was a little bit thicker. Must be the hull.
Some hulls are like that. Most of the Iron Dukes out there do not run close to max weight ... some are even lighter than standard weight. The hull just doesn't work well at heavy weights. Not sure if the Baden is like that though. I did not use extra filler material in the bottom of the fiberglass hulled Gascogne. For those that don't know, the Gascogne was the next proposed version of the Richelieu battleship. The sealant is upwards of 1/2" thick in the center of the ship. All together, I used 5 tubes ... thats 50 ounces (3 lbs 2oz) of weight. Yet that is only a small percentage of the ship's total 36 lb weight. So far, the amount of weight added by the sealant is proportional to the ship's size.
If I remember right the Duke has a little less than 3 tubes in it, so a little under 2 pounds, less than 10% of the ships weight. The boats that look like they are having issue's using it are Baden's, and Konig's. But then they are shorter, with quite a bit more width to fill.
Keep in mind that there are several brands of this type of material. More than likely, some will weigh more than others as well. Mikey
If I remember correctly. Phil purchased some that set-up hard. Almost like concrete. It seemed heavy. What brand did you all use? Especially those that think it is causing yoy trouble. Mikey
Johnny, I'll try to find a couple of spare rudders laying around when I ship you the other thing we talked about.
Yes one of the new fellows here got some that was like concrete when it set up. After he chipped it out, he found that it weighed over 7 pounds in a Scharny. He had less than 1 inch of freeboard without a Super on it.
Why not put some closed cell foam as filler for the concrete sealer. Like the stuff Strike uses for super structure. It's light, cheap, water proof. CA a little to the bottom of the ship and pour the sealer around it. Less sealer less weight. I used it in my Kongo, but used a two part plastic instead of the concrete sealer.
