New Resins

ImpulseIII

ImpulseIII

Active Member
Oct 3, 2006
2,043
Jersey Shore/Venice FL
Boat Info
2001 410 Sundancer
Engines
Caterpillar 3126TA
So I am at the marina yesterday and I meet a boat builder who builds custom cold molded one off sports fishing boats. He comments on ImpulseIII and asks what year she is. I say 2001 and he says thats good because several of his Marine Max friends have told him that Searay is having a hell of a time with their bigger boats because a new resin formula that they switched to two or three years ago, tends to wick water causing the bottom to become spongy!

I said that I would have thought a problem like that would become common knowledge fairly quickly and his comment was that Searay has just recently begun to receive complaints and they are trying to figure out how to deal with what could be a major issue.

This does not sound right to me and I am wondering if anyone else has heard anything even remotely close to this? I hope this guy is talking out of his hat but I had to ask the question . Anyone??
 
It certainly does not sound right to me, but there's always a chance. :smt017
In order to chase down profits or stop the bleeding hopefully they are not penny pinching on materials like many of the Hardware manufacturers (I work in the lock/security industry) I have seen.
If you're looking at 1/4 Million $$$ category on up you wouldn't think they can afford to use inferior products and then taught themselves as “Industry leadersâ€. Certainly SeaRay is well known for blazing the trail with Injection and vacuum molded hulls and manufacturing techniques. I don’t think it would behoove them to stray away from what got them that reputation.....but weirder things have happened... :huh:
 
Quality usually nose dives when bean counters take over from the NA's that do the designing! While some control needs to be kept on production expenses, putting an accountant in charge of production is like having the inmates run the asylum!! :smt101
 
ImpulseIII said:
Quality usually nose dives when bean counters take over from the NA's that do the designing! While some control needs to be kept on production expenses, putting an accountant in charge of production is like having the inmates run the asylum!! :smt101
Click to expand...
Here here Frank! :thumbsup:
What I don't like is the "re-design" that has not been driven out of the need of improvement or necessity, but like you said, the Bean counters create the "need" based on material cost :smt013 at the expense of quality.
Somehow many accountants have never heard the phrase, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
 
I heard something a couple of years back that "a few" manufacturers were playing with new types of resins in the manufacturing process that were suposed to be less toxic and more earth freindly then the current process. I never heard anything more about it and didn't think anyone was using this new type of resin. :huh:
 
Sure would like to think SeaRay would not stray that far away from QC for a couple dollars in profit. Based on the prices we pay for our boats, you would think they would understand that people are willing to pay for quality. If we were not we would have spent our hard earned $$ some where else :smt021 With that said I'm sure they are always looking for new and improved building methods and supplies.
 
Hasn't water wicking always been somewhat of a problem anyway once there is damage to the gel coat? I had that happen on my 240 SD and it required opening up the "wound" just a bit more to let the moisture that had wicked into the fiberglass matting dry out before repatching it.
 
OK this could be completely incorrect…..but…..the guy could have been talking about the Brunswick initiative to take the boats it sells internationally and make them compliant with RoHS.

Its the PBB (Polybrominated biphenyls ) and PBDE (polybrominated diphenyl ether) that is the issue.

These two substances allow the manufacturer to control the U.L. flame retardant rating of the final product. This is what allows one piece of fiberglass to be 94-V-0 and another to be 94-V-1 and yet another to be 94-V-2.

Initially only applicable to electrical systems the directive will spread to all components in the European market. Trying to explain this in its simplest terms, say the maximum concentrations are 0.1% or 1000ppm. Everything that can be identified as a homogeneous material must meet the limit. So if it turns out that the boat’s hull was made with 1,400 ppm (0.14%) PBB used as a flame retardant, then the entire boat would fail the requirements of the RoHS directive.
 
I love Sea Ray boats. I think they have the overall best styling/layouts on the water. And by and large, they have been well made boats. But... Sea Ray has certainly had serious QC/production method problems. Hopefully, this one is incorrect.
 
ImpulseIII said:
Quality usually nose dives when bean counters take over from the NA's that do the designing! While some control needs to be kept on production expenses, putting an accountant in charge of production is like having the inmates run the asylum!! :smt101
Click to expand...

As a quality engineer in the aerospace industry, I could not agree with you more, Frank. Sadly, this kind of thing happens all too often. Does the term "lone voice in the wilderness" mean anything to you? :smt013

Presentation, that's an excellent technical explanation of the issue. I wonder if a barrier coating, similar to what is used to remedy the "blistering" that used to occur on the bottom of boats in the 70's (my old Penn Yan comes to mind) would fix the problem? If they're going to be putting on bottom paint anyway, a layer of that stuff as a primer coat wouldn't be that much more difficult. Still costs, though, and we're back to the beancounters again....... :huh:

Bill
 
Osmotic blistering is something we all have to deal with but Sea Ray's gecoats since the mid 90's have been good to excellent in preventing that problem. As fas as you boat bottom getting spongy? I think that story and other good novels are found in the fiction section at the library.

A factor worth considering is that many one-off builders...we have a couple in our area.......are critical of any and all production boats and have the attitude that " my way is best" and "my boats are better than your production boat".......well, maybe and probably so, but the production boat we buy for $700K would cost $2.0-$2.5 Mil out of the custom shop.....and you'd wait 3 years to see the finished copy.
 
Hey Frank,
No argument that the custom builder has a "My boats are better" attitude but his comments were not about that. He just stated that people from MM had mentioned the bottom problems with the newer Searays. Not having a newer Searay I really don't have a dog in this fight but I was interested in seeing if anyone else had heard this.
 
This just adds a little info to the subject. When we had that bad two seasons back to back for both hurricanes and typhoons, a couple of large resin plans got knocked out. One over seas and one down in the southeast some were. This affected the supply of pvc piping for our industry to a point where you could not buy pvc pipe for a while. During that time there was some "new rosins" used that were ready for use that also had the eco safe idea behind it. As normal anytime a need come about and someone has to try a different source, we will not see the affects for years to come. Just recently I was setting 32' tall 14' diameter fiberglass wet well 14' below the the water table and we had a huge problem, infiltration due to the top surface being damaged and had to inject from inside out to repair. Fiberglass is only resistant not waterproof.
 
Not certain how "big" the guy was refering to, but I really gave the bottom a thorough going over when I touched up bottom paint this spring and couldn't find any blisters, or any areas that looked suspect to a problem. My boat went from factory to 6 mo of wet slip in less than 3 weeks so I had some concern about everything being cured...

The "problem" could have been specific to a certain run of boats built that were shipped to MM.
 
I know nothing more that what I first posted which was based on a casual conversation at the marina. Not sure if (A) Its true, (B) it only applies to certain sizes, (C) it only applies to certain years, or (D) the story is complete BS....Lets hope for (D).
 
Doug / Presentation-
I'm familiar with the new Rohs rules as they effect Europe and they are slated to effect the states in two + years. The ruling will effect the flame retardancey of the resin. Right now we use Brominated resins to achieve UL 94 V 0 and higher. Suppliers have introduced a new additive to solve this. I have a sample at the office and it is costly but suitable to achieve 94 V 0. To the best of my knowledge we are not boating with boats made from fiberglass ( resin systems ) that meet those higher standards. They will burn! UL 94 V 0 will self extinguish once the ignition souce is removed. Most resin used by builders are filled resin systems. They are at the lower end of quality. High end builders will use vinylester resins.
I think the original coments about the soft glass was un warrented.

Mike
 
Hey Escapade

I think you are correct.

Are you talking about the modified ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene fluoropolymer?




For everyone else, no, I did not make that word up. :smt101
 
Doug-
Yes, Trade name EFR-1FM, By Manufacturing Insight LLC. Basicly it will take cheap general purpose resin and make it as non flamable as you want. The stuff really works. All of out parts must meet UL standard 94 V 0 or greater. We hit UL 94 V 5.

It would be nice to see boats made with a higher flame rating.

Are you in the composite business?

Mike
 
Frank-

Twice now we have taken a new 42 Sundancer hull and did a show mock up for the new Zues drive system. Both were original test boats that were run through the mill. These hulls had no bottom paint.
In my opinion the laminate schedule was sound. Sringers and bulk heads dry and had no evidence of moister intrusion. Believe me this is the process where it would have been found.
Our Model shop Tech's are not shy about letting you know isf a problem exists.

I was amazed when I inspected Jared's 420 Cutting Edge after his bump to find how well the laminate held up compared to the S.S. control arm for the rudders.

Mike
 
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