16' Ski Boat Restoration

[Milhouse]

Thanks Roberta, Matt, Ken, and Carl!

Making it pretty sure does take a lot longer than just making it functional. I hope it lasts.

Over the last few days I have put 8 coats of West System 105+207 on the outside and 2 coats on the inside. I sanded after coat 3 on the outside. The all the coats (except the one following sanding) were put on while still in the chemical bonding phase. My test is if I can still significantly dent the epoxy with my fingernail its good for another coat. Some coats were put on when I could sill leave fingerprints really easily others were a bit more cured. I did the first 2 coats in the evening and one in the early morning so that the wood and air was cooling so I didn't get bubbles. The other coats I did some in the evening and some in the heat of the day. Since the wood was more or less sealed I didn't get many bubbles (I only counted 3 of note) even when it was hot. This made it nice today to get 4 coats on as I could just go at it all day even with the heat.

[Milhouse]

Got a new toy; a Festool Rotex 90 and I love it! I always thought it was too small to be useful until I needed a small sander for the inside of this engine hatch. I also has a delta pad to get into the corners really well (The un-sanded spots are just some additional epoxy I added later to fill some gaps (don't round over the wrong edges before you assemble...) that need to be hit again with the sander). I have found myself reaching for it a lot for jobs where my ETS EC 125 is too large and would have the possibility of rounding corners.

The inside only has 2 coats. I plan to put on about 6 more hence the need to sand it.

[Milhouse]

Got the planks epoxied onto the top of the engine hatch. Used the same method I did for the deck. I used 105+205 with 403 and 405 adhesive filler mixed in till it was just getting stiff. Then I laid the epoxy down with a toothed spreader. I used .19" thick HDPE shims to keep the spacing of the planks. Then I used some packing taped scrap to serve as a caul and put lead and weights on top to weight it down. I pull the spacers out when they are just getting hard to pull out and then scrape off the squeeze out with a chisel while its still pliable before it gets really hard. I made a little thin sanding block to sand between the planks to get the squeeze out before it hardened as well.

It's always something...

1. I went off what I thought was the centerline of the king plank (the book matched seam) to the center line of the hatch. But it turns out the book match I did on the king plank was not 100% in the center (off by 1/16 or so at one end) because I booked matched two pieces that were not square. Next time ill have to remember to square of the sections before I book match them so its not a huge pain to try and get the match in the center. So it ended up that its slightly tilted on the hatch. I'm sure no one will ever notice unless they measure.

2. I tore out the end of the king plank pretty bad by going at it a little fast with the flush trim router. Even though its a spiral cut flush trim bit it tore out at the end. (maybe don't grab a router first thing in the morning and have it at...) The Bit may be getting dull and a little dirty which didn't help. I'll have to patch in a little filler piece so the epoxy white lines that fill the gab is not all wonky.

[Milhouse]

Fixed the blowout.

1. Trimmed the break clean with a chisel
2. Cut a matching piece slightly oversize on the table saw using a sled
3. Super glued it in place (activator is key) and held it in place with a little piece of wood with packing tape on it so it does not get stuck
4. Sanded it with a little piece of wood with sticky sandpaper on it.
5. Tada, can't even see it

Woodworking takes planning, concentration, skill and patience....and the ability to fix mistakes when it goes sideways after forgetting all that.

[Milhouse]

Speaking of mistakes. I found a ding in the king plank that was pretty deep. Looks like a 35lb weight slipped and dented it when using it as a press (may have happened at the time one of the lead ballast fell off the side and almost smashed my foot..)

here is a tip that not everyone may know. You can get dings out of wood really easily.

1. Sand the area (This gets the surrounding wood a little lower than what it was before the ding was there and will allow the dinged fiber to end up being a bit proud after it the steam pops it up back in place)
2. Wet a paper towel and get the ding wet
3. Use a iron to heat up the ding (keep the wet paper towel between the wood and the iron.
4. Let dry/cool
5. Sand the area
6. Tada

[DrBryanJ]

Nice Jim. and good saves.

[Milhouse]

Thanks Bryan!

Here is a pic of the engine hatch with 2 coats of epoxy on the deck planks.

The pic also shows veneer that I added to cover the back (before I added it one could see the raw plywood edge of the deck substrate ). I made a two ply in the vacuum bag and then just epoxied it down and with a large caul wrapped in packing tape with lots of clamps on it. It was in a convenient place that allowed lots of clamps so that was nice.

[Milhouse]

Got the mid deck planks epoxied on. This has been a long time coming as I needed to complete the engine hatch so that the plank lines match up.

The kink plank is from the same off cut off veneer so it matches quite well. When I trimmed the overhang off the hatch I forgot that I needed to save the offcuts of the deck planks for this section (got too aggressive with the router when trimming them). Luckily I had 3 more veneered cuts from the same board so I used the ends of them and tried to match them as good as I could but it was pretty hard due to the grain drift in the board. We will see how good I did when I get epoxy on them to see how much they match.

[Roberta]

Looking Great!

Roberta

[Milhouse]

Thanks Roberta!

I put 4 coats of epoxy on the mid deck and the cockpit coaming.

Got the white epoxy "caulk" lines in. They line up quite well.

See Here for the process when I did it previously.

In addition, the grain matching effort I went though paid off and the grain of the hatch planks and the grain of the mid deck planks match perfectly.

I now need sand down the white lines flush and put a few coats of clear epoxy on top and she will be ready for varnish in a few weeks. I want to let it cure at least 14 days before I varnish it. Last time when I put 1 part varnish on the dash before the epoxy was cured the varnish never dried. I will be using 2 part this time but I don't want to risk it.

[DrBryanJ]

Very nice Jim.

[hoodman]

She's really coming together. I bet it looks even better in person.

[Milhouse]

Thanks Bryan and Mike!

I got one more thing marked off my checklist today by getting my "boating safety card" I spent the day ~5 hrs taking the California mandatory boaters safety class and test online. I did the free version Here. With my sailing experience it was a littlie silly but hey, at least requiring it means that other boaters have a general sense of the "rules of the road" and what safe boating is as well.

Other issue is getting insurance, Ill have to start calling around. USAA transferred me to Progressive and they literally hung up on me when I said home built (maybe it was technical difficulties???)

I see this Thread so Ill give State Farm and Hagerty a call.

Edit: I just called the main state farm number and they said "we don't insure home built boats but call call your local agent maybe they can"

[Roberta]

It may be that the local agents will help you. It may depend upon how much you are insuring with them. We have our home, jewelry, 3 cars, the Torpedo, umbrella policy, and a fur coat through State Farm.

Roberta

[Bill Edmundson]

We're like Roberta, State Farm.

Bill