SUP Delivery

We delivered a set of SUPs and paddles to Tree house Marina near Cullman Alabama.
This was a big order for us and through the process of making the boards in quantity instead of one at a time, we developed some improvements.
Earlier boards had internal stringers of glass laminated ply running the length of the board,  This was sturdy but heavy and it is totally out of site once the board is together.   This means there is no way to inspect it.  I wanted to lighten the hull and happened upon using the carbon fiber tube we manufacture.
So now all Sea State SUPs are built with Carbon Fiber tube internal supports.  They are incredibly strong in compression and of course light and water proof.
This was a big improvement.
We also moved from pre-glassing the top decks to glassing in place.  This removed a step and it turns out also improves the appearance.

Here are some photos:

4 of our boards on the dock at Tree House Marina in Alabama

Our raw carbon fiber tube

New paddles prior to their gloss coat

Shaft Machine: in production

We have the shaft machine dialed in and are producing carbon fiber shafts.
They are wound on a mandril and have an ID of 1 inch.  The wall varies from 1/16 to 3/32nds depending on the stiffness we are looking for.
They are very light and have a glossy or semi gloss finish.
Here are some images of the machine and the process...

Carbon Fiber Tow

Break Time!  We took off a couple of hours and went out on Creve Coeur lake with Ingo and Tiny.

Shaft Machine: Wiring

Renaissance man, Jonathan W.  solved a vexing issue with the Shaft Machine yesterday.  The motor powering the unit is a Dayton gear motor.  It had 5 wires coming out of it.  I don't know what to do with that.
I had it working but only when I plugged it in and started it spinning.
Jonathan knows his electronics and picked up the right capacitor and parts and quickly got it functioning correctly.
It now has forward and reverse (by switch) !
He was also able to check its rotation speed with a device.  The mandril is spinning at 36 rpm and the bobbin shaft is spinning at 12 rpm.

He also tested the rpms of the Silver band saw.  With the sheave we installed, it has a blade speed of 1861 feet per minute.
Good to know.

We spun another test shaft of about three feet in length.  All is well.
This weekend we will spin our first full length carbon fiber shaft for testing.