The Making of
The New Montgomery 23 Offshore Cutter
Part Three - Finishing the Mold and Starting Production

Text provided by Bob Eeg, builder

Click on the half-scale image (10-20 kb) to see the full-scale picture (~60 kb.)

Continued 4/10/2002:


The 23 mold is finally laid up over the male plug. Here we start welding on reinforcing in the form of steel pipe. The end result will be a female mold for the new 23 deck that we can stand in and sit on while we lay up gelcoat and fiberglass. We want to be able to roll the mold around the factory so at the same time we are building an upside down, steel frame with wheels.



Jerry, welding the framework.

More welding. Lots of welding. Endless welding.
(What a beautiful shot. The Ironworkers Union ought to put this on their too-short T-shirts -DK)



A long view of the mold framework as we built it on top of the hull mold.

After completing the welding task on the deck framework, we lower the frame we built earlier that has the wheels attached.


The frame/mold reinforcing is finished. It's now time to pull the mold from the wooden deck plug.


Attached to our overhead hoists. Hit the "Up" buttons and wait. Add some wedges around the deck flange. She starts to creak, pop, pop, creak, groan, she wants to be free. More "Up" on the hoist buttons. More creaking, more popping and with one loud Snap!, she breaks free. Off she comes, nice and clean.



She's clear!


A side view

Here's the new mold. A clean pull. All we have to do is hand peel some of the plug gelcoat and we can start the polishing, buffing and waxing process tomorrow.


Turning the new mold over so it's on those upside-down wheels we installed earlier.
Time to start production on this new and exciting project.


The new deck mold has been polished and 12 coats of mold wax has been applied.



Some close-ups of the mold detail


More close-ups of the mold detail

We apply one more wax coat before spraying the first coat of Ivory Isothalic Gelcoat, the best gelcoat available.
Good view of the anti-skid surface in the foreground. -DK


Bob spraying the deck. It's such a deep mold that we have to start inside and move outward.
Remember, the deck and hull are laid up from the outside in -DK



Bob working on the outer sections with the spray gun.


First deck coat, all ivory.

Here Bob is in the process of fogging on black gelcoat over the ivory for UV protection. This is a normal process that all builders do.


The next day, after the gelcoat has set, we lay in two layers of fiberglass. The following day, Bob lays out the balsa core pattern for the foredeck area. At this stage we have to consider high load areas that this deck will be subjected to. Areas like the bowsprit and mast step need extra reinforcement. We then switch from 1/2" end-grain balsa to 1/2" marine plywood in these higher stress areas.


Here we continue to prefit all the core material for the 23 foredeck area—very time consuming.


Natalie, Bob's daughter supervises the location of the 1/2" marine plywood core reinforcement for thru-bolting the future stainless steel bowsprit assembly. She approves.


We also add the extra strong 1/2" marine grade plywood to the mast step area. In fact we add these plywood pieces all over the deck in areas that are considered high stress. We want this boat to last and not have those typical stress cracks that you see on older boats that didn't have these stronger pieces built in at the factory.


An overview of the foredeck area. The deck will be finished in 2 more days...



On to Part Four: Production Continues...

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