The first cold-moulded hulls commercially produced were derived from wooden aircraft technology developed during World War II. These used phenol-formaldehyde glue and vacuum pressure was employed to hold the veneers together in an autoclave oven. Hulls produced this way have proved extremely durable with a life of over 30 – 40 years. Nowadays no such plant exists and all cold moulded boats are produced on a one-off basis. Glues other than epoxy are still relatively popular but chosen on convenience grounds rather than performance. Urea-formaldehyde types are viewed as being simpler to use and clean off easily using water. However there are noticeable benefits in terms of hull stiffness using epoxy. This is due mainly to epoxy’s good gap filling properties and the resulting continuity of glue line. A contributory reason for the superior stiffness of an epoxy hull is that with other glues moisture is introduced into the veneer during application and by the process of curing.
Source: SP Systems. This article was derived from ‘Wooden Boat Const. Meth.pdf’ which can be downloaded from the SP Systems website.
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