Building
a
Quality Bass Boat - Page 1
– January 2, 2005
Another Ranger Boats Product Knowledge Tour has come and gone (December 6, 2004) and I believe they’ve outdone themselves – more changes than any other year since I began going to the Flippin, Arkansas complex.
December 2004 Factory Tour Update
Of
course, there’s no question much of the buzz is about the new
Ranger Z-Comanche Series boats – 18 months in secret
development with a dramatic release at the 2004 FLW Tour championship.
Quite a bit of this year’s product knowledge tour centered on
the new Z-Comanche Series. Four of us
traveled to Flippin to test drive the new Z series boats,
which we did on a cold, rainy Saturday. Good thing I brought my rain
suit… but rain or no rain, what a ride!
Regardless
of whether you’re a Ranger Boats owner or not, I think
it’s valuable to know how these fishing machines are made.
There are common issues in purchasing and owning a fishing boat
regardless of brand – helpful things to know when you buy
your next boat.
If
you’ve never had the opportunity to visit a boat factory, you
may find some of this information and the pictures interesting and I
hope informative. I’m unabashedly a Ranger Boats fan. I think
you’ll understand why once you’ve read these pages.
I’m
not trying to convince you that Ranger Boats are the only worthy boats
out there, but personally, I feel a purchase this significant should be
made with as much
knowledge of the product as possible. Are you
getting
your money’s worth?
Especially
if you plan on running the Great Lakes and other BIG waters. No matter
what brand you are looking at, it’s helpful to you to know to
ask your dealer things like what is in the transom in this boat?
You want to
know it will hold up. Or is this boat ‘hand-laid’
and what exactly does that mean? And even asking what controls were in
place to ensure continuity and consistency in fiberglass/resin
application? These are just a few very important things to think about
when making the major investment in a bass boat.
Regardless
of whether you’re a Ranger Boats owner or not, I think
it’s valuable to know how these fishing machines are made.
There are common issues in purchasing and owning a fishing boat
regardless of brand – helpful things to know when you buy
your next boat.
If
you’ve never had the opportunity to visit a boat factory, you
may find some of this information and the pictures interesting and I
hope informative. I’m unabashedly a Ranger Boats fan. I think
you’ll understand why once you’ve read these pages.
I’m
not trying to convince you that Ranger Boats are the only worthy boats
out there, but personally, I feel a purchase this significant should be
made with as much
knowledge of the product as
possible. Are you getting your money’s worth?
Especially
if you plan on running the Great Lakes and other BIG waters. No matter
what brand you are looking at, it’s helpful to you to know to
ask your dealer things like what is in the transom in this boat?
You want to know it will hold up. Or is this boat
‘hand-laid’
and what exactly does that mean? And even asking what controls were in
place to ensure continuity and consistency in fiberglass/resin
application? These are just a few very important things to think about
when making the major investment in a bass boat.
This being my 4th product
knowledge tour (2000, 2002, 2003,2004) now in 5 years, I can say that
I’m impressed by the
number and quality of changes that occur every year at Ranger
Boats. A sign of a good company is a constant drive to
improve processes, materials, safety and impact on the environment.
This year I witnessed more of this drive than ever at Ranger.
It’s probably very good for the industry that one of the
leaders isn’t just sitting back on its laurels.
Ranger has its broadest range and style of fishing
and family boats yet. All these
new boats and styles, along with constant improvement make for an
interesting tour.
The factory complex is large and Ranger Boats is
known for making most of theircomponents in-house, which provides a
thorough tour of the complete
process of building a quality fishing boat and all that goes with it.
If you are the kind of person who likes to know what makes things tick,
I think you’ll enjoy this virtual tour.
Note: If you’d like to take your own
factory tour sometime, Ranger
Boats gives free tours frequently. Find out more by clicking this tour info link.
J.D. Power has rated Ranger Boats Number
One
three years in a row – 2001, 2002 and 2003.
The
Hull and Cap - Molds
Gelcoat
/ Fiberglass Application
In
an entirely new model first comes the concept.
The concept goes through
many steps including engineers and artists. In the case of the new
Z-Comanche series project, months of design work leading to this 4-foot
clay concept model. Every surface is digitally recorded for further
testing and study. The digital images can be used to create the first
fiberglass or wooden plug, or sent to the Genmar VEC plant in
Pennsylvania for the unique VEC one-piece production.
All
molds begin with the wooden or fiberglass plug
crafted inside the R & D
shop. Craftsmen hand-design the plug. Test boats are made from molds of
the plug. A final plug is selected after extensive testing of the hull.
A matching interior deck design is chosen (such as this deck plug
here). All molds used in production come from these plugs or masters
(wood plugs are reproduced in fiberglass later) after they are polished
to a high gloss level and treated with a release agent.
Properly
prepped molds are critical for producing a high
gloss gelcoat on the deck and hull part.
This prevents unnecessary buffing of the hull or deck later. Gloss
levels are measured electronically to meet standards. Molds, such as
these 500 series deck molds, are repolished chemically and manually
after a certain number of units (or if it falls below standards) by
mold maintenance teams.
Release agents are used to separate
the parts without damaging the mold or unit once the part has cured the
correct amount of time.
All
the stripes are
hand-taped by trained technicians. I don’t know how they do
it so well so often, but they do. Tape is removed from stripes as each
new layer/color of gelcoat is sprayed.
Mold
maintenance is critical to the success of the part. The high gloss
finish depends on the quality of the mold. The depth of finish is
monitored constantly for each part. Each mold is numbered and parts are
tracked so if any issue is identified with a mold later, all the parts
produced from that mold can be pulled back and reviewed. There may be
100 molds in use at a time with several molds for each model.
Gelcoat
application is
done in booths with new and improved ventilation that along with better
materials has greatly reduced impact on the environment. Boats take up
to 30 separate spraying steps. This is where the main difference
between R/Sport-Series and Comanche boats occurs. R/Sport-Series boats
are made using all the same materials and processes, but their pre-set
color schemes, require less application steps than the more complex
striping and color schemes of Comanche Series boats.
After each layer of top quality ISO-NPG gelcoat is applied, an opaque
back-up
layer is sprayed to protect from bleed-through and give poly finishes
depth. Thickness is continually monitored.
Pinstripes
and Panels are
untaped in the order their colors are applied after each gelcoat
& back-up layer cures. Styles lines in the molds aid in taping
and add attractiveness and strength to the resulting part. The new
spray canister process
shown above also has reduced waste and improved gelcoat/flake
application.
Almost 60 different colors are available in solid, polyflake and
polymist
varieties. Polymist is a new option with tiny colored flakes verses the
large flakes in Polyflake. I really like the new Polymist. All these
gelcoat layers protect against water damage to the fiberglass layers
applied next.
What’s
in your transom? Many fiberglass types go into
making a bass boat. Different types for different areas of the boat.
They included Ranger’s exclusive, patented pultruded,
woven-roven, multi-axial and fiberglass ropes of various thickness and
strengths. High stress areas such as the running pad, transom and hull
bottom, and deck corners receive hand-laid fiberglass reinforcement
– up to nine layers.
Extremely
strong fiberglass rope is placed in each hull strake during lamination
providing exceptional longitudinal strength similar to re-bars in
concrete. Some manufacturers fill hull strakes with putty-like
materials that offer little if any additional strength.
The
putty triangle
samples on the table used by some boat builders were broken into small
strips easily by hand. The fiberglass rope Ranger puts in their strakes
would not break even when repeatedly rapped hard on the table edge.
The
exclusive pultruded fiberglass transom and gusset assembly used in all
Ranger boats is three inches thick and stronger than steel
pound-for-pound in compressibility and sheer strength. Aluminum corners
and an aluminum layer inside the transom section complete the assembly.
This whole assembly will be glassed into the hull of the boat.
Some bass
boat manufacturers use composite sheets of about the same thickness in
their transoms. They are essentially a high-density foam-like material.
You can wallow out the boltholes by hand in just a few seconds in these
composite blocks. You can’t do that with the pultruded
fiberglass sheets. They do a demonstration of this by placing the
Ranger transom section over a large metal bolt. By twisting the Ranger
pultrusion assembly, they easily bend the heavy bolt without changing
the bolt hole in the ultra dense fiberglass.
The
composite section other builders use can’t bend the bolt, but
actually wallow out the bolt hole creating a loose fit. This makes it
clear that keeping outboard bolts tight always is critical for hull and
motor mount integrity in a composite hull. Any play could quickly cause
dangerous transom damage creating a situation where tightness may not
be able to be maintained.
The stack
above shows two sections of a Ranger transom verses several sections of
composite. The pultruded
fiberglass sheets Ranger uses have to be cut with a
55,000-psi water saw. I know what I’d rather have in my
transom when I’m looking out across Lake Erie.
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High
stress areas are reinforced with hand-laid multi-axial fiberglass cloth
along
with areas of sharp radii to make sure no air pockets form, strengthen
the gelcoat finish and ensure a strong bond between the gelcoat and
fiberglass dramatically increasing the durability of the part. Then a
first layer of fiberglass is applied with a chopper gun. The chopped
fiberglass goes on in multiple directions using a measured amount of
resin. Strength is in the fiberglass, not the resin so consistency of
the fiberglass to resin ratio is important. Thickness is checked in
several areas to guarantee adequate reinforcement.
You hear manufacturers claiming their boats are
hand-laid in way that makes it sound like the best way to build a boat.
This is misleading in several ways. Often, a claim of
hand-laid truthfully only applies to part of the boat, usually just the
hull or part of the hull. It’s actually much more difficult
to hand-lay the cap with all it corners and turns.
Consistency
is critical to a strong part, especially boat after boat. Hand-laid
parts introduce a potential for error such as too much resin for the
amount of fiberglass or especially difficult, controlling the smooth
bonding and curing of resin and fiberglass along the entire part. An
edge or weakness in the hull or deck can occur where sections of
hand-laid glass didn’t cure together smoothly. You only have
a short window of time to work with the resin.
The chopper
gun works better for the large parts such as the hull and cap because
it can be applied quickly and consistently even into sharp corners and
contours. Ranger uses proper controls to ensure a good result. Chopper
gun applicators are trained 8 months to do the job consistently. The
fiberglass is weighed as it is applied to guarantee the proper and
consistent amount is used for the various models.
The high-tech equipment Ranger uses not only weighs the fiberglass, but
also measures the proper amount of resin to maintain a uniform ratio of
high fiberglass to resin for a stronger part. A consistent single unit
part is created. Excess resin adds unnecessary weight. The chopper gun
equipment prevents that.
Some companies produce boats with up to 70% resin.
This is excess weight,
not strength. Ranger’s partial hand-laid and
multi-directional chopper gun process provides a strong consistent 60
– 40 ratio. The pultruded reinforced transom and backing is
an incredibly high 75% fiberglass to 25% resin.
Combining the proper types of reinforcing fiberglass materials in the
right
areas, then adding the efficiently and evenly applied chopped
fiberglass in a high fiberglass to resin ratio is one of the main
reasons why Ranger Boats are built to last, and why I feel much safer
when I'm forced to 'surf' the huge waves of the Great Lakes. Unless
you've ever fished were you could not see shore in any direction, you
have no idea how truly critical it is to be riding in a boat you have
the ultimate confidence in!
Another
significant key to a strong, long-lasting hull and deck is cure
time-length. Ranger usually has over 100 boats on the floor at any one
time. To do so, they need several molds for each model since they leave
each new hull and deck in the mold for 3 full days to cure before the
hull is removed and sent to rigging. Other boat companies use less
molds so they only cure their parts one day. Hull and deck consistency
is assured because each mold comes off of the same master plug.
I cover this topic so much because there is quite a bit of misleading
information
out in the market that does nothing for us anglers except add
confusion. And I believe information makes all of us smarter consumers
and hopefully safer boaters.
I hope you've found this information interesting,
educational and informative.
Please use the link below to get to page
2 for more pictures and info on hull and deck finishing and
lamination from my visit to the Ranger
Boats factory.
The stack
above shows two sections of a Ranger transom verses several sections of
composite. The 
