Week 17 - Major learnings

Major learning for me this week are: -
1) Investigation into Polyester resin mix - on Wednesday.
Brett show us the effects of MEKP as a catalyst on the laminating and gel mix.  The time it took for the Gel mix to cure is shorter than the laminating resin mix - at 11.5 min vs 12 mins. The mix ratio used was 464 of resin with 2.5% of MEKP (which is much higher than standard at 0.75% to 2.25%). This higher ratio is used to amplify the effect of the MEKP on the resin mix.

Another pointer is that the application of the resin mix must be done onto the final material before the gel time. Spreading out the mix on the final material will also slow down the chemical reaction of air is an inhibitor (I am not sure about this and may have got this wrong - the other way round as air speeds up the chemical reaction - got to check on this. Reminded of Brett's comment that we are to read the resource CD). The mixes in the two ice cream containers did not have much air mixed into them and thus they cure much faster.

Safety considerations are major in this type of mixing of resin with MEKP. Brett demonstrate the way of the eye wash should any chemicals get into one's eye. Goggle therefore is essential in working with MEKP. Respirator is the other essential safety equipment for this work. As uncomfortable as it can be, I have to learn to get use to them though my hydrolysis situation cause my safety glasses to fog easily.

2) The other major learning is with the Dory thwart. There is a lack of continuity in the work on the thwarts and as such there is lack of co-ordination which resulted in a major blunder of the front thwart being too short. This remind me of the need for a sort of  "organisational learning and memory"  process which I had used during my corporate days. We used a similar documentation process (much like the google documents) where the sale persons used to record their visits to customers. Any other employee before visiting the said  customer needed to bring themselves up to speed on the latest development with that customer. So documentation is critical in our learning process.

Reflecting on the process of making the thwarts and what went wrong - I conclude it may have been that we measure and marked off the reference points where the thwarts are to meet up with the upside/hull of the Dory on the top side rather than the underside. This could have resulted in the thwart being cut too short.

Another learning is that we should not have cut off the excess of the thwarts  until we had taken all the measurements.

Nevertheless my greatest learning comes from these learning opportunities (mistakes made) - especially so in an learning environment such as the sessions at the CAT program. Hopefully I have learned from these so called "mistakes".

My other tasks this week on Monday and Tuesday were continuing on the anchor well works. My experiences as I reflected on it now is that the curing time of the filler resins/powder was similar to that of the investigation works done on Wednesday. Speed is of the essence once the epoxy is mixed with the filler powder. I found it difficult to apply the mix onto the walls of the anchor well toward the end as the mix had become thicker. Once it cures, further is not only impossible but of no use to try to get a thin coat.

The works on the well using the air sander is both noisy and dusty. The amount of dust is reduced if I held the sander with the air outlet pointing up rather into the well. Mask and goggle is essential for this work as safety equipment  My hands and face were all soaked with my perspiration.sweat whenever I used gloves and masks. This gives me second thought about my suitability to work in such environment.