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mike cunningham
05-04-2018, 07:28 PM
First carbon project. Micro project I guess, but you gotta start somewhere. Mybinreach won't be hanging from a USB cable any more.3375

Philpott
05-04-2018, 08:58 PM
What IS that made of? Carbon fiber with a rattan pattern? Looks like something from the jewelry department at Neimann Marcus. But wait! I didn't know they sell boat bling. Let's see your cabin again. Pretty swanky as I recall.

Daydreamer
05-04-2018, 10:07 PM
Did you make that?
Nice job!

mike cunningham
05-05-2018, 10:40 AM
What IS that made of? Carbon fiber with a rattan pattern? Looks like something from the jewelry department at Neimann Marcus. But wait! I didn't know they sell boat bling. Let's see your cabin again. Pretty swanky as I recall.

Ha Ha there's a story for everything... I bought about 30 foot of carbon fiber sleeve for a spinnaker pole project that got derailed (this was SHTP related BTW) so now I had the unused fiber sleeve begging to have something done with it. My Inreach had been stowed in a dodger pocket during the last race and I was constantly having to retrieve and recharge it. As an aside, The USB connector on the Inreach is quite vulnerable to water intrusion and corrosion.

So, anyway, I did some experiments recently and found the inreach link would work well positioned inside the cabin next to a fixed port above my chart table and out of the weather. I needed a way to hold it in place and had no intention of paying Garmin $100 for a cradle. I could then permanently hook it up to a USB charge cable and life would be good.

So I started building a small wood box. After a few cuts on my table saw I glanced over at my carbon sleeve and it occurred to me my Wife just bought one of those vacuum food sealers. A plan began to germinate. It grew pretty fast. In 15 minutes I had snuck the sealer and some bags into the garage, cut out a styrofoam plug the size of the Inreach and I was in the carbon fiber vacuum bagging business. Now the first article wasn't that great but it will serve just fine and looks pretty cool if you don't inspect it too closely. I am also happy to say the vacuum sealer survived intact with no evidence it had ever been used to manufacture carbon fiber parts.

Philpott
05-06-2018, 02:57 AM
Ha Ha there's a story for everything...

Another garage manufacturing success story. When will you begin to monetize this little gem?

Gamayun
05-09-2018, 11:17 AM
I love boat bling and CF is particularly beautiful ;) Fantastic job, Mike!!