Max Hardberger News

A small New Orleans boat design and manufacturing firm has combined proven materials and cutting-edge design technology to provide the ultimate in one-off efficiency, giving its customers custom boats at production prices. Dave Sintes of Sintes Fiberglass Designs has been tweaking his CADKEY-brand CAD-CAM software for over 10 years, customizing and augmenting the off-the-shelf 3-D program to produce scantlings, drawings, materials lists, and weight and balance calculations for his designs. When the boat's design is complete, the program produces computer-disk instructions to guide the yard's flat-bed router. Even on Sintes' 700 mHz computer, the CADKEY program is fast and versatile. With a few mouse-clicks, Sintes can fine-tune a vessel's lines by altering its 3-D on-screen rendering.