Is it possible to alter the shape of a Fairey hull?

[ACB]

Several people here have had Fairey hulls more stripped out than I have and will know better than I how floppy they become without the stiffening. My question, really, is "how floppy do they get?"


I'd be grateful for advice on this idea:

I'm playing around with an idea for a winter project - I am very taken with Uffa Fox's little 8ft 6ins dinghies, "Cub" and "Nest Egg", and I am wondering - if one started with a Firefly hull that was beyond hope as a Firefly, whether, by stripping the decks, gunwales, tanks and c/b case out, cutting 3ft 6ins off the end and a bit off the sheer, adding a new transom, c/b case and bow and stern tanks, as pet the "cub" drawings, and perhaps slicing down the stem and adding a fillet to it to keep it vertical, one could torture the remaining hot moulded shell into a new shape with the fuller bow, harder turn to the bilge and flatter midsection of the little boat?

Would this work?

Or would the whole thing disintegrate in a shower of splinters as the old urea formaldehyde glue gave up under the strain? Could one ease the strain by peeling off selected veneers first and epoxying new veneers (or the old ones) back after the torture session? Is it possible to do that?

[Ed]

I don't think it would work....

and it would be much easier to start again from scratch anyway.

eib

[ACB]

Thanks.

Idea now canned.

I'd have to build a proper mould and do it properly...still, 8ft 6ins of could moulding is not an impossibly huge task...

[roger]

One of our club members built a little dinghy as a practice before he took on something bigger. The tender size dinghy looked very good. He got the plans online somewhere and built using strips of wood and lots of west system. Sadly he died suddenly before the dinghy was finished and his wife has it stored somewhere for his sons to finish at some point.
I know he enjoyed the project and as a first foray into boat building he found it quite simple. I will try to find out where he got the plans