RevHead Marine

01/07/2025

Just a few things on the workbench and desk now that the lake is frozen. Honestly not a bad thing saves me money from crashes and forces me to build. Few books I picked up over the past few seasons on props. The Jim Russell one is by far the most practical and useful, the others were just Amazon temptations lol.

Prop work is on an ABC 2219 cut to 50mm (started at 56mm). Steel sleeve retaining glued in place for 3/16" shaft. Special drive dogs bored to 6mm. Shafts are secured to the 3'16" shaft then glued and baked into place. These have proven to be extremely strong on my overweight overpropped mystic 114, hoping they get the job done.

06/03/2023

I totally screwed up the nice vinyl window decal designed for the Zonda, bought from OSE. Turns out using vinyl wrap material for cars works very very well for creating the wind screen. Edges aren't perfect but we will see if it lasts. Really not a fan of faux carbon fiber in any form, looks tacky BUT I bought it for experimentation purposes cheap on Amazon and I've got to say wrap material is very cool stuff! Originally wanted to learn how to use it for my father's snowmobile trailer to protect a newly painted section which will inevitably chip on long road trips.

Props pictured are 57s red. 48, this boat only runs ABCs, 1815-1917.

03/08/2023

ABC 1917 right, ABC 1918 left. Penny shim for height adjustment for hub length. Maybe more pitch, maybe not. Two ways to find out.

03/08/2023

This is probably the most time I've wasted before mounting a single part. On the other hand I've never drilled this many holes in a boat either, about 42 I think 😀

36 of them were countersunk M2 screws/nuts the other 6 are 4mm countersunk Hatch bolts with nuts installed.

I'm very excited to build this boat. Power will be 8s XLX2 (I have 7 of them now), amazing controllers. Motors will be Lehner 2240s are the preliminary motors. They have plenty of power for a boat this size if you know how to trim one and but also weight is extremely important. Lehner 2260s are the trophy motor for these if I like it's water manners. I tend to apply this thinking to all of my smaller boats. Use TP test motors and if they exhaust before aero/hydrodynamic lift stop singing in harmony then a trip to Lehner Motoren we go.

02/27/2023

Alright...almost done. After everything was attached, now I have the chance to trim the excess carbon and make the lip "jut out," and then recess in key areas, like for inserting lipo sleds. Front is about done then onto the back. It's funny (except not really) but I probably spent more time on this hatch/lip interface than I would have building atleast 60-70% of the boat. This is what New York winters will do to you, you'd almost think I was finding ways to make this more time consuming than it needed to be lol. Hatch bolts are m4 with attached steel serrated washers which spin. These are retaining glued/baked for strength, before cutting and scuffing for epoxy adhesion. I always follow up with a layer of fg cloth to ensure the joint doesn't split.

I'm a big fan of FG cloth to laminate all joints. There is plenty of epoxy joint fracture analysis information out there in papers which I can't find at the moment, you profoundly increase the strength of joints by taping over them a few times. Tip is let the epoxy tack up and use serrated sheers to cut the cloth, the strands will stay tighter and lock into place once they come in contact with the tacky epoxy ;)

02/27/2023

Now that Hatch bolts are drilled, time to move to finding the 6 key areas where the bolts will sit and add 1.5mm more plate. This is the exact thickness of the deck lip from the factory its a real shame it was cut out the way it was. To achieve a good bond...you yet the picture...Harbor Freight clamps, and yes I have a few of them...lol

02/27/2023

This gives an idea of how the cf lip looked before any trimming began but nonetheless this was a success....so far

02/27/2023

Unfortunately this hull came with a disappointing deck lip :( . Very irregular cutting, not smooth and no symmetry. I was really bummed out by this, but that didn't stop me from wanting to continue making something great of this build.

I ended up cutting 1.5mm carbon fiber to precisely and tightly fit every curve. I used a large amount of thickened West Systems Epoxy to ensure any potential cavity was filled. The deck lip and cf parts were already mocked up with CA glue and drilled were 34 M2 screws to sandwich the plate.

I had to work very quickly to tighten all screws while the epoxy was squeezing its way out of the lip/joints, talk about a mess but I had a towel beneath the hull ready for this. This took patience and speed since this epoxy tacks up pretty quickly. Once tightened down removed the excess.

02/27/2023

Nose protection. First I poured 2 pumps of Wesy Systems Clear Epoxy thickened to a ketchup like consistency into the nose. This was difficult due to dimensions of the hull so using a syringe helped with placement of the epoxy. A few days later after the area cured I went back over the area with 1 layer FG, 2 layers CF in an 8" section to form a reinforcing "bridge," in the tunnel area. Sometimes I'll apply this technique to the tunnel but cut the cloth about 12" wide. This works well to really tie the sponsons together since many hulls have stress cracks in this region if they're a weak layup or the boat has no measures taken to strengthen this area from the builder.

Fortunately builders like Manfred K. And Hanspeter always took some measures to reinforce the critical meeting point of the tunnel and near the sponson tips. After seeing a Hans 135 with some of these tricks 10 years ago, every one of my cat hulls has gotten some form of this treatment for security.

02/27/2023

Bandit M "Super Bulletproof" built and delivered beginning of January. Hull layup is quite good. Very stiff with some core reinforcements in select areas.Heavy Duty FG tape on seams, this is one robust hull (y)

12/16/2022

Just a few pics of the Exocet 125cm.

Will absolutely opt for a slimline rudder to significantly reduce drag for speed runs but overall I do like the impression of this build so far.

I have to do a weigh in and see about what it'll come in at fully loaded. Motor selection, kv and voltage is still undecided. I do have lehner 2250s 1691 kv to get it started :) for 8s. Ideally motors will be 2260s on 10s.

12/11/2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPb37-TdY-8More

More testing this time with the 1916s. Didn't have much of a choice but to drop down to 1916s after destroying my 1917 in a crash the week earlier :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R6KEi7srdI

Passes at 2:25 , 3:25 , and 4:25Speed of 128.8 mph revealed at end of video.