Newly installed at FIBRE Mechanics in Lymington UK is a 48m hull oven, for the curing of pre-preg yacht hulls and decks. The oven was designed by the in-house project team who bring a great deal of experience to the task. Gary Vaughan (Director of Operations) commented "...we constructed our first pre-preg oven here in the Waterloo Road factory over 25 years ago, when we were building a 90' carbon cruising yacht. This new oven has come together far quicker than that one, and requires a lot less energy to get up to temperature. It's good to see we have learned something over the years..."
The new oven has been built over-length so that it can be sectioned into smaller units as required. At present it is partitioned to provide a 14m oven for two large vacuum tables where FIBRE Mechanics are building the structural bulkheads of the Gunboat 68; and a 34m oven currently being prepared to accommodate a new project starting late August. The oven is powered by electric heaters capable of raising the temperature to 105 degrees centigrade - with both temperature and vacuum pressure being controlled, monitored and logged across all component surfaces. Fifteen separate heat inlets allow accurate control of temperature at every point within the oven; and a retractable roof allows use of the overhead factory crane during hull assembly.
