Hudson is a rowing shell manufacturer based out of London Ontario, Canada. Carleton University almost entirely uses Hudson boats for racing, and training. The boats are always held at the highest of quality with yearly innovation and development always underway.
Hudson builds all boat sizes - 1x, 2x/2-, 4+, 4x/4-, 8+. All boat sizes can be built as a Super Predator (SP) or an Ultra Super Predator (USP). With the USP being the top of the line model.
For this project I chose to reverse engineer a coxeless pair (2-), which is rowed by two people, each having one oar.
This boat classification is considered the most difficult boat to row, as each person much balance their own side in
cooperation with other, while also applying equal power, with simultaneous catch and blade extraction. It is my favourite
boat to row and race, while it was also one of my primary boats for the 2022 summer and OUA fall season.
CAD Modeling - Due to not having access to SolidWorks, the CAD modelling phase was conducted In Fusion360. The most difficult aspect of the CAD process was the surfacing work for the hull. Since the shape of the rowing shell is dynamic in its design the surface had to be developed from all three directions. Following imagery sourced from the HUDSON website, the hull was constructed using three primary guidelines each subsequently on the X-Axis, Y-Axis, and the Z-Axis where each must intersect at both ends of each line to ensure a smooth surface once combined in 3D space.
3D Printing - 3D printing was done on my personal Ender 3 Pro, because of the chosen scale size the shell had to be printed in sections. It was broken into eight pieces and each printed on their own, and assembled afterwards. Each piece is printed out of black PLA. PLA was chosen because of its ease of use, and simplicity of finishing needed to create a presentation model.
Assembly - The assembly process has been broken down into several main stages. The initial stage is the assembly of the minor components, Oars, Riggers, Footplates, Seats, Slides, and Vent Caps. Each component goes through initial finishing process and is assembled as far as possible before needing to be finalized by attaching to the primary hull. The main section of assembly is the Hull of the rowing shell. In order to reduce the amount of Z-Axis wobble while printing the Hull was broken into 15 ~90mm pieces. Each piece was then aligned and assembled using super glue and wood paste too fill in any major imperfections or gaps. Final assembly of all of the minor parts together along with attaching them to the primary hull is the final step in completing the model.
Model Finishing - Each component is finished in the same way. Initially the 3D Print is sanded with 120 - 180 and 400 grit sandpaper. Any visible imperfections are then filled using wood paste and further sanding with 600 grit sandpaper is done. An initial layer of primer is done, and further sanding is done with 800 Grit sandpaper. Second and third coats of either primer or paint is added where a final sanding with 1000 - 1200 grit paper is used before applying the final painting coat. Once the painting is complete and all imperfections are fixed, a final gloss clear coat is applied to protect the paint and model from UV rays along with give a finished gloss appearance.
Throughout this project I have certainly learned a lot, not only about the general design of a Hudson racing shell but also about tools and techniques in Fusion 360. Being a student at Carleton University I primarily use SolidWorks. However, being on CO-OP I not longer had access to the platform. While Fusion 360 is great I feel SolidWorks has more abilities and goes deeper with each tool allowing for more complex geometry. Regardless still being able to mimic a Hudson shells geometry off of imagery and guidelines is very do-able.
Further more the skills developed as far as finishing a model have definitely gotten better. Certain techniques when it comes to surface finishing have helped a lot, and proved that always creating tester components is best.