67 SN Resto/Mod rev. 2

Craig,
I feel the color is great (unless my monitor is off! ) It's looking fantastic.

Gary S wrote: First off Craig,looking great. 2nd is your garage connected to the house,if so your wife is going to kill you Looking at the last couple of photos it looks like the boat is all the way down on the ground already,I'll bet it was quite the workout.I assume the "old" gel turned out ok? What gun did you use,got a picture and tip size?

Gary, this is all being done in the detached garage. Definitely no way you would ever want to do this near the house unless you took major precautions to seal it off.

The boat is up on stands I made, probably about 18" off the ground. You can see a better angle in previous pictures where I had it rolled out of the garage to wash it off. It's the perfect height for working on the sides, but a little high for doing the bottom. I'm not so sure if I did this all over again that I wouldn't just work on the bottom first, then when it's complete/cured, work on the sides on a separate day. It's just a lot to tackle for one person.

I used a cheap gun off of Amazon with a 2.5mm nozzle. I don't have much painting experience so I can't really comment on if it's good/bad, but it seemed to work OK. I think I would've preferred a bigger nozzle though to be able to lay down heavier coats quicker.

81nautique wrote: Awesome work Craig, Looks fantastic. I have a project lining up that is going to need to be regelled and I may take your advice. Want to do another one for me?

After watching the Hurricane thread Alan, I'm not sure you want/need to take any advice from me, but I would be happy to share. Honestly, I would advise anyone thinking about doing their own regel to re-consider, and have it quoted somewhere else. Unless you have good bodywork skills, and have a dedicated facility/tools to do all of the grinding/fairing/spraying, it is just a ton of extremely messy work. It has taken me wayyy longer to get to this point than I ever imagined and I still need to flip the damn thing over . I would've been better off taking the time I worked on this part of the job and got a part-time job at McDonalds, and just paid someone else to do it with my earnings . All that said, there is something to say about learning something new, grinding through the learning curve, and finishing something yourself. The goal for this boat was always to do every bit of it that I thought I was able to do.

I am always amazed at people that can tackle a job like this. Lots to be proud of! Nice work.

You know it is done right. I don't think you will get the same care paying someone else.

Not a whole lot to report. After a weekend out of town, just really started digging into the boat after I sprayed the gel. I started by wetsanding with 320 but it was quickly apparent that I wasn't removing the orange peel, so I ended up going all the way down to 120. So my process is:

120 grit dry on an 11" Durablock to knock down 90% of the orange peel
220 grit dry on 6" DA sander
400 grit dry on 6" DA sander
600 wet
800 wet
1000 wet
3m Super Duty Rubbing Compound
3m Perfect It Rubbing Compound (???)
3m Finesse It

Any input on whether the Perfect It rubbing compound is needed? I don't have any of that and wondered if it's worth buying it and another wool pad.

I was worried if the gel was going to be thick enough but I think I'm out of the woods with that. After the 600 grit you're not really removing hardly any material. I'm only through 800 grit but I'm super happy with how it's turning out. I finally feel like I'm reaching a milestone with this project. Here is a shot after I sprayed it down after 800.

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.

Awesome Craig! How's your arms

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

Cold up North? Its only 52 out

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.

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!!

Nice work. Great color too.

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

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.