V-28 Bay Boat – Hull Plug Process

A few weeks ago, at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, Viking President and CEO Pat Healey made the historic announcement that Valhalla Boatworks will build a V-28 Bay Boat and V-29 Hybrid. Behind the factory walls, our engineers, designers, boat builders and specialists have been hulla-busy. You can see the progress above in the foam “block up” of the V-28 Bay Boat, which consists of individually cut billets of foam (74 pieces to be exact) which are assembled and attached to a platform – that our carpenters built in-house as well.

These geometrical blocks are then cut by our CNC Machinists using a custom ball mill tool that will reveal the hull shape and design during the process. This rough cut is the foundation on which the hull plug will be built.

Once the rough cut is complete, our production team will prep the surface for the next phase – epoxy putty application. This is done by a team of three or four specialists who are laser-focused on applying the putty in a timely fashion to minimize the CNC machine's downtime. During this process they are taking thermal readings, checking and gauging the thickness of the epoxy and ensuring consistency throughout the process.

After the epoxy has hardened, the final cutting of the plug takes place. This highly accurate machine will cut or “tool” the epoxy to within fractions of an inch, ensuring consistent and accurate tooling. From start to finish, the hull plug was cut within one week. This allows the plug to be inspected one last time by our engineers and designers before heading into the R&D Department where it will begin the next phase. Stay tuned as we follow along the build process of the new V-28 and V-29.

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