67 SN Resto/Mod rev. 2

Good to see you posting and still in the game Mikey.....You and Barb need to catch us all off guard with a surprise visit to a gathering.

Craig..... congrats on the new addition!

I would love to see how those window brackets cone out. I'm in the middle of a 66 mustang restoration and mine are toast.

Any further updates Craig?   Would love to see where you are at these days.

Okay so I'm getting real close to covering the bilge with white gel. I have just a few places to add some fairing compound, then I need to spay my conversion coat of VE primer. Anything I should watch out for? I don't anticipate this being much different than the rest of the gel work, except that I won't be sanding & buffing the bilge (not that OCD).

I also plan to finish the inside of the hull sides. I had briefly discussed this in another thread a year or so ago, but since I fastened my floor to the hull sides, there is a transition where the fiberglass cloth I used ends and the roving of the original hull side begins. I can blend this so there is no step, but I think the texture difference is going to look terrible. So I had thought about just trying to apply fairing compound to fill in the "grain" of both the roving and the cloth and them lightly knock it down with sandpaper then shooting it with white gel. Any other ideas? I'm all ears..

Is that what this would've been from the factory (just plain white gel?)

Craig,
I feel with the TIG you have more control on the puddle shape especially on a fillet weld. With brazing, the temperature is extremely critical and in most cases you end up with brass flowing all over and not making nice radiuses.

Pete, is there a specific reason you suggest TIG? I don't have access to one, nor do I know how, but just curious why you think it would be better. I know it would be stronger but I feel like even brazing this will be at least 2x as strong as the thin pot-metal originals.

Thanks for the compliments guys.

And Tim...never! Although I am considering repairing and re-shooting gel on the deck of the 73 since it has some damage. Adam bondo'd and painted it. It's not real noticeable from 10+ft but I will tackle that some day.

Looking great. I will let the dust settle a bit before I ask you if you're ready to gel another boat.

Nice work. Great color too.

Nice work Craig. I'll have to come over some time and see it first hand. I'm in Morgantown. Most of my mechanical work is done, but yet to start re-gel. Hope to start that in a week or so. Had engine issues. More than I anticipated. Imagine that!!

It shouldn't come as any surprise that I wait 3+ months on an update by now, but I actually have a legit excuse this time. My wife recently gave birth to our first child (son), so that is taking up just a little bit of our time, but things are going very well. Taking him on his first boat ride in this boat is pretty good motivation to keep pressing forward.

I wetsanded the bottom & sides through 1000grit and compounded/buffed the bottom. I wanted to wait to buff out the sides when everything is done for fear of getting scuffs/overspray/drips while flipping the boat and working on the top deck. The flip went just as smooth as the first time, using the same method with my single beam, 2 chain hoists, and an assortment of straps.





In between some of the major work I decided to try and fabricate some windshield brackets since the set I have are cracked/bent. I bought 1/8" brass and started cutting and bending. So far this is where I'm at. I plan to braze the pieces together and see how it looks.




Just yesterday I finally got the top deck sprayed with gel. I followed pretty much the same process with the top deck that I did with the hull.

-Ground out and filled major cracks with thickened epoxy
-Laid a layer of cloth and a layer of mat over the front deck since I felt it was extremely too thin, especially to ever be able to walk on.
-Faired (with regular bondo this time, not the marine variety since I wasn't worried about water absorption, and the VE primers I use should be a barrier coat anyway)
-Spray with VE fairing primer from Duratec
-Final fairing
-Sprayed with VE primer from Duratec
-Filled any pinholes with more primer
-Final sanding to scuff surface
-Sprayed 5 coats of Gel. 3 coats were mixed with 1% MEKP and thinned with 10% styrene. 4th coat was mixed with 2% MEKP and 25% Duratec Hi-gloss. 5th coat was mixed 50/50 with Duratec Hi-gloss and 2% MEKP. All sprayed with a HVLP gun with 2.5mm nozzle.

Other than climbing in/out of the boat to do the spraying, this was a lot easier having already done the process once. The only thing I really changed between the first spray and this was adding the Duratec on the 2nd to last coat, and on the last coat bumping up the ratio to 50/50, whereas I was most like 25/75 the first time around. I do feel like this laid it down much smoother, but we will see when I bust out the sanding blocks.

I totally forgot to prep and spray the rear panel that covers the transom, so I still have to do that, but it should be a piece of cake. After that it's on to the bilge.

My tablet takes awful pictures (color is terrible) but here it is. I threw a section of new rubrail on it just to see how it was going to look.

Cold up North? Its only 52 out

You've got an excuse for everything; ADD, old age, cracked screen.

Awesome Craig! How's your arms

TRBenj wrote: Finesse it ii is not going to remove the scratches left by the super duty (read the bottles). You'll want an intermediate compound to step between the 2.

I didn't say the Super duty.

8122pbrainard wrote: The Finesse It will remove any swirl marks you may still have from the Perfect ItI.