Best new wakeboat feature of 2017?

[67King]

1 hour ago, DarkSide said:

This one is used by epic boats, several yachts, and is starting o make it into wake boats.  Vacuum Infusion vs traditional fiberglass. There are numerous advantages,  lighter, stronger, eliminates gel voids,  and is significantly more environmentaly friendly. 

Resin is pumped in and the excess is vacuumed out.  

That's friggin' awesome, but for clarification, the mold/layup/peel ply/bag system is evactuated (vacuumed) first, then resin is drawn in.  It is very similar to, but a little different from, vacuum bagging, in which case the excecess is vacuumed out (there really isn't any excess in the preform wiht infusion).  Both create much higher quality, void free, stronger, and lighter parts.  I've never seen it used with mat, it is typically used with cloth, but I don't see why it couldn't be.  Interesting here is that the mold is a positive, rather than a negative, which I find kind of surprising just because of the gel coat application.

[85 Barefoot]

Nothing screams quality like unregulated resin lines stuffed into a cut off home depot bucket!

[oldjeep]

2 hours ago, DarkSide said:

This one is used by epic boats, several yachts, and is starting o make it into wake boats.  Vacuum Infusion vs traditional fiberglass. There are numerous advantages,  lighter, stronger, eliminates gel voids,  and is significantly more environmentaly friendly. 

Resin is pumped in and the excess is vacuumed out.  

Seems like one of the things that Epic is famous for is voids in their layup, not sure them using it is really a selling point.

[bamaboy]

Nautique has used this resin vacuum system on the G for some time now.

 

I believe that it might be stronger but it does not eliminate gel voids.  Nope nope nope.  They can most certainly still happen regardless of what the Centurion people told you

Edited October 26, 2016 by bamaboy

[DarkSide]

3 hours ago, bamaboy said:

Nautique has used this resin vacuum system on the G for some time now.

 

I believe that it might be stronger but it does not eliminate gel voids.  Nope nope nope.  They can most certainly still happen regardless of what the Centurion people told you

The gel void elimination was from outside reading, there are several versions of infusing.  some are better than others, some of the other versions include using a resin that is applied to one side of the fiberglass, then the vacuum pulls it through  so the resin only travels a short distance.  If vacuum pressure is maintained through the entire curing process voids are eliminated.  However it depends on which flavor of Vacuum Infusion is being used.... i have no idea which version is being used by centurion, nautique or epic.   

@67King noted the variety pictured above.  So my bad not the same Vacuum infusion i was reading about.  still very interesting to me.  and still seams to be an improvement over backrolling. 

Here is a couple of the articles...interesting read. ..

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034361716000187

http://www.performancecomposites.com/about-composites-technical-info/125-resin-vacuum-infusion.html

One additional thought, if indeed it is lighter would this process not be of maximum benefit to ski boats? 

@bamaboy do you know if nautique does ski boat this way?  Centurion only doing RI this way at this point.  There seams to be a lot of advantages.

Edited October 26, 2016 by DarkSide

[67King]

2 hours ago, DarkSide said:

One additional thought, if indeed it is lighter would this process not be of maximum benefit to ski boats? 

 

It is lighter, as it eliminates the possibility for excess epoxy (when done properly anyway, in which case it does eliminate the voids, too).  Remember that epoxy provides little to no load bearing capability, so reducing it has no drawback.

What you posted looks like infusion to me.  It appears that the tunes go into buckets with epoxy.  With traditional vacuum bagging, the preform is laid up by hand, a perforated layer of plastic is pit down, then a layer of breather cloth that looks like cotton or poly-fill, then the vacuum bag.  A vacuum bag is then placed on that and a vacuum is drawn.  the breather ply absorbs the excess epoxy.  You can typically see that layer as it has epoxy in some spots, but not in others.  I may be making some parts next week, if I do I'll shoot some pictures.

[bamaboy]

2 hours ago, DarkSide said:

 

@bamaboy do you know if nautique does ski boat this way?  Centurion only doing RI this way at this point.  There seams to be a lot of advantages.

I toured the factory this summer and IIRC, it was just the G boats. They are made differently from the other Nautique boats in a several ways.  

 

I have toured Bu and MC factories as well and the process for building the G was certainly different.  I'm sure it has its advantages.  But gel voids is not one of them IMO (at least how Nautique does it)

[DarkSide]

I am no expert on it by any means, my knowledge consists of reading a few articles.  Most articles mention the prevention of voids as a benefit to the process.   Having personally owned boat riddled with voids, i may be overly sensitive.  There is nothing like wiping down your boat at the end of the day and finding holes in your gel.  (this one was 1/4 deep and i could fit a finger in it)

Edited October 26, 2016 by DarkSide

[05hammerhead]

1 hour ago, DarkSide said:

I am no expert on it by any means, my knowledge consists of reading a few articles.  Most articles mention the prevention of voids as a benefit to the process.   Having personally owned boat riddled with voids, i may be overly sensitive.  There is nothing like wiping down your boat at the end of the day and finding holes in your gel.  (this one was 1/4 deep and i could fit a finger in it)

I would freak the F out if I saw that on my brand new boat.

[DarkSide]

8 minutes ago, 05hammerhead said:

I would freak the F out if I saw that on my brand new boat.

For clarification this is not the surfer!  

Yeah, now imagine several of those.  with the biggest one being a little bigger than my thumb.  

[bamaboy]

1 hour ago, 05hammerhead said:

I would freak the F out if I saw that on my brand new boat.

They are extremely common

[tjklein]

1 hour ago, bamaboy said:

They are extremely common

Wow, I must be lucky.  My boat has zero of those and I've certainly wiped it down a lot.  I wouldn't go for that either.

[Anderson24]

2 hours ago, DarkSide said:

For clarification this is not the surfer!  

Sure....sure...uh huh @DarkSide we believe you 

way to CYA when the surfer is still up for sale. 

I kid, I kid...I know this was the previous boat. That was just insane the problems you had with the gel. 

[bamaboy]

3 hours ago, tjklein said:

Wow, I must be lucky.  My boat has zero of those and I've certainly wiped it down a lot.  I wouldn't go for that either.

A little disconcerting at first.  Ive had several on different brands.  A good dealer can fix them with no issues under warranty.  

 

I guess I look at them as relatively minor because it doesn't affect performance. 

 

I've never had one as big as my thumb though.  That's big

Edited October 27, 2016 by bamaboy

[DarkSide]

2 hours ago, bamaboy said:

A little disconcerting at first.  Ive had several on different brands.  A good dealer can fix them with no issues under warranty.  

 

I guess I look at them as relatively minor because it doesn't affect performance. 

 

I've never had one as big as my thumb though.  That's big

To give you an idea how bad they were, the factory flew a tech and materials to az, he ended up stripping the hull with a grinder, to get to the fiberglass,  80 of the main hull on one side and 3 of the 6 top deck pannels. so he could completely refinish, it took about 2 weeks, the hole pictured above appeared 1 week later in one of the pannels he did not strip and repair.  

My floor also flexed horibly, so reinforcement was added, yet the floor still flexed, upon further inspection the floor had to be replaced too, because it was also full of voids.  

So anything that helps control these variables is a huge plus to me.   it may not be immune, but it has to be better.

Edited October 27, 2016 by DarkSide

[skurfer]

Dockstar not available on X26 or X46 because the boats are so big it doesn't work..

[bamaboy]

5 hours ago, skurfer said:

Dockstar not available on X26 or X46 because the boats are so big it doesn't work..

I believe these boats offer the bow thruster option.  Last I saw, it was 10K in additional cost.  

[ahopkins22LSV]

Holy cow @DarkSide that is crazy! And for sure not normal. I agree with bamaboy as I have had a few on each of our boats. But it's two-three dime size voids.

And I never would have noticed two on our current boat if I wasn't laying on my back cleaning the trailer this spring!

[05hammerhead]

2 hours ago, bamaboy said:

I believe these boats offer the bow thruster option.  Last I saw, it was 10K in additional cost.  

Yup they do.  Not sure on cost. 

[Fman]

On 10/26/2016 at 6:26 AM, DarkSide said:

This one is used by epic boats, several yachts, and is starting o make it into wake boats.  Vacuum Infusion vs traditional fiberglass. There are numerous advantages,  lighter, stronger, eliminates gel voids,  and is significantly more environmentaly friendly. 

Resin is pumped in and the excess is vacuumed out.  

Oh no, don't use Epic boats as an example of this... that would make everyone in the industry stay with the old school chopper gun and roll on method!!!

[NWBU]

35 minutes ago, Fman said:

Oh no, don't use Epic boats as an example of this... that would make everyone in the industry stay with the old school chopper gun and roll on method!!!

Malibu uses the chopper gun and paint brush roller method on all their boats. Maybe a dumb question but what's the new way of adding fiberglass and resin now?

[DarkSide]

This thread is starting to sound like a b!tchfest, on my part which was not my intention,  so i am going to attempt redirection.   

Favorite features new or improved  . ..

Tower folding latch mechanism.    Malibu absolutely wins this category.   Think 2014 it was knobs on your G3....this latching mechanism gets better every year. 

[Fman]

Are there gel voids in traditional chopper/roll on methods?  would like to see some examples of what this is.  And I thought wakeboats were supposed to be heavy?  Do you really want to make them lighter?  Not saying this infusion is not a good thing, but I have yet to have any issues with the old school method Malibu is using right now.

[bamaboy]

9 minutes ago, DarkSide said:

 Favorite features new or improved  . ..

Tower folding latch mechanism.    Malibu absolutely wins this category.   Think 2014 it was knobs on your G3....this latching mechanism gets better every year. 

I still think the ZFT4 is great.  My experience with the G4 is limited.  The ZFT4 is set back so the towers don't blow you out of the boat, folds back for easy driving onto a lift, and the latch mechanism is awesome.  Takes one person about 5 seconds to drop it.  

8 minutes ago, Fman said:

Are there gel voids in traditional chopper/roll on methods?  would like to see some examples of what this is.  

There's an example above in the red flake boat.  Think of the gel like a candy shell on an M and M.  It is a hole in that shell.  

Edited October 27, 2016 by bamaboy

[DarkSide]

3 minutes ago, bamaboy said:

I still think the ZFT4 is great.  My experience with the G4 is limited.  The ZFT4 is set back so the towers don't blow you out of the boat, folds back for easy driving onto a lift, and the latch mechanism is awesome.  Takes one person about 5 seconds to drop it.  

There's an example above in the red flake boat.  Think of the gel like a candy shell on an M and M.  It is a hole in that shell.  

To take this one step further, imagine the chocolate inside the M & M has an air space, so there is no chocolate to support the shell, these air pockets are gel voids.

Now back on topic,  the ZFT4 seams like a great tower, i loke the foling backwards and towability.  The only complaint i saw with it is if you forget to spin the racks in they hit the top deck.  

The absolute worst folding mechanism that i looked at this year belongs to Centurion, they still require a 8" Allen Key, its not 1996 and at that price point an allen key ...Really????