Transom & Stringer replacement

Hi Blaze
Have the stringers and cross members been glassed post us some pics.
I was thinking about your next step do you have a new floor. At the point where you put your floor back in measure and mark where the stringers and
cross members are so if you need to fix anything to the floor you will know
where to drill later. I made that mistake and am not sure where to drill for seats now.

Good luck
Dave

 

I ran into multiple different type issues in the past few weeks and the boat project is the one thing that got put aside... Someone died, I put a car back on the road, that same car blew up last week end... the typical fun stuff you know...

But I grabbed some more fiberglass cloth yesterday afternoon and the project should be back on track tomorrow. I'm everybody's IT technician, and also everybody's mechanic and people seem to come to me exacly when I would prefer they didn't... I want the boat back in the water by the end of the month since that's when I take my summer vacation. The next 2 weeks should be spent on the boat.

Now I got a question about the gel coat. As far as I understand, the gel coat is not only used to make the boat pretty. I think it also helps keep water out. Does that mean I have to gel coat the transom before I wet the boat? I'd like to complete all of the fiberglass work, and test drive the boat to make sure I got no leak before I gel coat it...

Edit:
What? I just read a thread where it says you can't gelcoat over fiberlgass? I'm lost here...
What about automotive paint? Can I respray the whole boat using car paint?

 

1 other thing... money is running short with the cars breaking down all the time so I think I'll have to skip the "marine grade carpet" thing this year. I think I'll just apply a thick coat of resin on the floor and call it a day.

To ensure the floor isn't too slippery, would you recommand adding sand to the resin mixture applied on the floor? Cause if I use resin only, I'ma break my neck every time I step in with wet feet.

 

Good to have you back

I think when glassing make sure there's enough resin to soak the fiber well
and that should be water tight. Your boat should not depend on only gelcoat to keep water out. I used a good bicomponent primer ( 2k 4+1 )
after using an epoxy based filler and lots of sanding and refilling. Three coats of paint and 6 coats of clear.

Sand and resin may not be a good thing. It will be good antiskid but hard to clean. How about textured paint. Or antiskid tape ( 3M Marine ) strips on a good paintjob?

Dave

 

Mopping a floor that has sand imbedded is indeed a royal pain in the b*tt. On the other hand, how would I manage to clean the floor if I broke my neck trying to get in after a swim? lol I'll look up the 3m thing you talked about. But I'm looking at making the whole floor anti skid. From the back of the boat all the way under the steering wheel.

Wouldn't putting the 3m strips over a painted floor render the paint useless? The 3m antiskid would hide the paint anyway? So since cleaning the floor is not my main concern(I can always pressure wash it or get whoever got it dirty to clean it ), is sand a good idea to make it antiskid? I know lots of people mix sand and the likes in their epoxy mix when they cover their garage floor. And how would I add color to make it a bit more interesting to look at?

What would my mix look like?
Resin + Sand + color additive = kick @ss antiskid looking boat floor
I'm aware the color additive would most likely not protect the resin from UV rays, but that's not really that important at the moment as I am more than likely going to put Marine Carpet in there over the next winter.

After further reading on Gelcoats, I figured its role has more to do with UV protecting the fiberglass than it is to add water resistance. So what's the word on using urethan car paint on a fiberglass boat? I have plenty of stuff running through my head so this post probably looks like a complete mess. I'm all over the place lol...

Cliffs notes:
Resin + Sand + color additive = kick @ss antiskid looking floor :?:
Automotive urethan paint to paint the exterior of the boat?

 

Do yourself a favor and don't use sand, this is what amateurs use and it's about the worst material for an anti skid. It does produce a nice texture, but the granules can grind out of the paint, it's very difficult to remove, and generally a pretty lubberly way of doing things. Buy a texture additive, that's designed to be added to paint, but don't add it to the paint. Apply a good few base coats, then with the last still very wet, sprinkle and even coating of the texture over the wet paint. Let this dry for a couple of days then vacuumed the loose stuff off. Apply additional over coats to "soften" the crispness of the texture down to the desired level of texture.

The best and most waterproof anti skid I've found is truck bed liner coatings. It's extremely tough, has a nice, soft texture, can be aggressively pressure washed, is water proof and easy to apply.

 

what about this stuff?
http://www.thechandleryonline.com//product.asp?dept_id=3004&pf_id=040_PDPASW


And what about automotive paint on a fiberglass boat? I'll ride soft water only; this boat won't see salt water ever.

 

The Sikkens paint you've shown has the texture added and it's one way of doing it, but it's difficult to get a uniform texture when you add the texture directly in the paint.

Automotive paints can be used on a boat and they produce wonderful finishes, but you have to be setup for applying highly toxic, 2, 3 and 4 part painting systems, which most novices aren't. You also could try a 2 part LPU which is very similar to the automotive paint systems. It can be "rolled and tipped" which produces results that will rival a sprayed job. Again these types of paints do require some skills and understanding, as they're not so easy to apply well, under the shade tree in the back yard.

Trust me, the best anti skid coating you can put down will be truck bed liner. It's a lot more durable then paint. Just roll it on and wait for it to dry.

 

Yeah lol I'm no pro, I got the compressor, paint gun and garage but I do not have a spray booth to handle the toxic fumes... I'll look into the 2 part LPU.

I'll take your word on that.

 

Hey Blaze,

Funny I was going to mention truckliner but thought there must be special products out there these days and reserved myself. However now that PAR mentioned it I'm more convinced it would be just for you. I used
bedliner last weekend to paint the inside floor of my Landcruiser. I found it to be easy to use and got good results. You can change the roughness of the texture according to how much thinner you add.

Few years back I painted the inside of a friends boat white 2k bicomponent automotive paint then took another color of the same paint, almost closed the air on my spray gun dial ( to where the paint spatters out rather than being sprayed almost to where it drips ) and covered the first coat of white with protruding spots of gray. When dry this also gave durable roughness.

Here are some pics about painting fiberglass my sons and I did this a few months back.

 

Here is how it turned out but still slippery inside . Thanks to both of you now I know I will look for yellow bedliner and paint it on.

 

I'm finnaly back in the game. Here is the first stringer glassed in:


Each picture have 2 "white" spot on the top of the stringer. That's where I'll cut out the fiberglass to insert the "cross-members".
I used a mixing stick to lay and spread the resin. That's a very time consumming process. What else could I use?

I've seen 2 types of rollers for fiberglass application.
There's this one:

And there's this one:

Other than the obvious fact they aren't made of the same material, and 1 is a roller cover, what's the difference between both? Are they both used for the same type of applications? Will I be able to use the first one more than once without spending 300hours cleaning it between jobs?

It looks like I'll have to change gear and speed things up. I got people lining up for car maintenance and I hate using a floor jack outside of the garage.

 

Hi blaze
For the job you are doing use a brush. Cut the bristles to about half the length(good for dabing resin to soak into fiber evenly.) 2-3inch cheap brush should do the trick. Buy a few. Here the thinner for cleaning these cheap brushes costs more so when I'm finished I throw it away. This is a much faster and beter way to apply resin,fiberglass,more resin ( with a dabbing motion to soak fibers ) and repeat three times to fix the stringers to the bottom of hull. Each progressive layer of fiberglass should be slightly wider.

What material are you planing for the deck. If you are going to use plywood
apply a thinned coat of resin on the bottom side before fixing permanently.
Also bevel the outer edges so your patch is not higher than the deck.

Dave

 

The floor will be plywood covered with resin on both faces and end grain. I'll also add a layer of plywood where I plan to mount the seats and use t-nuts to bolt the pedestral to the floor.

I used brushes on other fiberglass projects and thaugh it was messy as hell(I have half a dozen left). This time I'll cut the bristles and give that a shot.

 

The first roller looks like one to take bubbles out. he second one for application. But for this job I would find it difficult to use any of them.
Try the old throwaway brush.

Your work looks net and clean. Great job. How many layers of fiberglass matt
is there now on the sides of the stringers? looks like you need a couple of strips which overlap the stinger and bottom.
The lake we use our boat in can get very choppy suddenly and boats can take a good beating so I glassed three layers on all sides of stringers and five cross members to the bottom. Then glued ( epoxy ) the plywood floor clamped down with stainless screws and worked on glassing the edges of the new floor.

Hey do you have a full pic of the boat ?