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Building Quality
Bass Boats Pg 1 |
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Building Bass Boats Pg 1Building Bass
Boats Pg 3
Building Bass Boats Pg 4 |
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December 2004 Factory Tour Update
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Another
Product Knowledge Tour has come and gone at the Ranger Boats factory
(December 6, 2004) and I believe they’ve outdone themselves – more changes
this year than any other year since I began going to the Flippin, Arkansas
complex. |
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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. Three D
& R Sports Center salesmen traveled with me to Flippin just to test drive
the new Z series boats, which we did on a cold, rainy Saturday (one of them
actually got to see his boat making its way through the final stages in the
rigging room – a beautiful Z21!). Good thing I brought my fishing rain suit…
but rain or no rain, what a ride!
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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 |
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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. |
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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. |
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The factory
complex is large and Ranger Boats is known for making most of their
components 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 1 three years in a row – 2001, 2002 and 2003. |
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The Hull and Cap - Molds Gelcoat / Fiberglass Application |
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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. |
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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. By building all production molds from the same master, dimensional integrity in maintained. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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 |
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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. |
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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.
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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 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Return to Top | Home | My Confidence Products
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Boat Pg 2 My General Info
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©2005 Dan Kimmel All
Rights Reserved |
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The stack above shows two
sections of a Ranger transom verses several sections of composite. The 