'78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

[Trooper82]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

Wow Troop,
You sure or taken alot off of the gel.. I really like the chalkline chalk ideal.. Really good ideal..
If you still have the straight line sander, they make 80 gritt for them.. Might be alittle bit easier to use..

Keep at it and one day you will look back and it will be done..

ya I am taking alot off....hoping a single coat afterwards wil be enough to get it buffed...


the chalkline chalk is working good, but it doesnt show any of the 80 grit marks....I imagine the 3M stuff you used was good for finer grits?


not using the inkine sander due to lack of air volume with my little compressor...


some day.....

 

[ondarvr]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

I hate hand sanding large areas and won't do it. One problem you can run into in trying to get the surface too perfect is as the temperature changes so can the shape of the hull, so what was perfect this morning may not be later in the day. If you're not trying to make it perfect an electric palm sander can remove the orange peel faster than your arm.

 

[Trooper82]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

?..If you're not trying to make it perfect an electric palm sander can remove the orange peel faster the your arm.

I gave it shot....much faster, but came at a price....more dust in the air...


i'm not really trying to make it perect...just flattened out so the next spray covers good...

 

[Trooper82]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

Just how much dust????

I found spider webs about 8' from the boat that looked like this....

So I pulled out the 1/3 sheet sander and got some soapy water...if I would have started out with that combination I'd have had everything sanded in a couple days easy...oh well live and learn....and the water cut the dust down to nil....

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

Think of it this way:

If not for all the hand sanding, the powered wet sanding would be a drag.... But having done some hand sanding, the wet sanding is

 

[Trooper82]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

Always the optimist JB.....thanks....

 

[Trooper82]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

Well I sanded till I just plain ran out of gas...

have about an hours worth left...will gt up early tomorrow and get it finished...god thing I took an extra day off this week

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

Excellent, 1hr to go

 

[Trooper82]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

Hull is again almost prepared for gel coat... just waiting on funds to buy acetone and the gel...and rags... tyvek suit...mixing cups... etc etc...

I may go ahead and fill in the low spots with the little gel I have left over from last summer...and then there is the repair on the bow to get done...

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

evil-bay has bunny suits reasonably

gonna try the squeegee trick for the low spots?

 

[Pmccraney]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

Congrats on getting the sanding behind you... Can't wait to see the gel coat job.

 

[Trooper82]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

I said I would put in late hours once I had a garage....so tonight I stayed till 12:30....didn't want to bother neighbors too bad with the air compressor running...



so I decided to try an experiment...took my purple gun and sprayed the transom....it didn't go very well...it was not too bad but could have went better....for instance if I had taken the filter out it might have supplied more gel to the tip...the tip on that thing is really too small...had a little left in the bucket so decided to try the spreading with spreader....another mistake...only because I had little pieces of gel starting to get hard...it actually worked good if not for that...one more lesson learned...hang plastic around the boat before spraying in the garage....pictures gonna have to wait till tomorrow....

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

Dag nab it, hate to hear it didn't got good. Sorry if mentioning it prompted you to give the squeegee shot :facepalm:

 

[Trooper82]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

Dag nab it, hate to hear it didn't got good. Sorry if mentioning it prompted you to give the squeegee shot :facepalm:

No worries...I got it on nice and thick...so should sand out ok....if it sets...I may have thinned a little too much with MEK...also hoping the wax I added works...

 

[Trooper82]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

Couldn't wait till morning...went out and took a pic...gel is heavy in the air still so left the windows open...but it is curing!

 

[Trooper82]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

Back at it at 6:00 this morning....lifted the doors to get rid of the fume buildup...hit the highspots with 80 grit by hand...then 120 grit with the 1/3 sheet sander...looking good so far..will have a few lowspots to correct but will do that later as if a repair...



Last day of the 4 day weekend...got to get this part done...

 

[Trooper82]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

went from 120 to 220..then 320...400..600

Have some spots that are thin...some places I didn't get good enough with the courser grits..was afraid of burning through...

I can see where the 3M black dust stuff will be needed to get things right...

600 grit..

you can see the burn thru on right side of pic...along with some places I need to go back and do with heavy grit again..

But...

not enough sleep and I got to working...

needed a nail..4 washers...a rag...variable speed drill...and some finish compound...
and got this...

Was good experience...I'll have to get the right compounds and a buffer and accessories eventually...but I don't think it came out too bad for using hill billy ingenuity...

 

[sphelps]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

Nothing wrong with hill billy engineering as long as it works . She's gunna look sweet once you get your recipe down .. I'm sending all the good karma your way Troop ! I know your ready to get past this stage and move on to other things . Hang in there you'll get it !

 

[Trooper82]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

Thanks SP!

I will get this figured out one way or another...

 

[GT1000000]

Re: '78 Ebko Lebaron - Therapy

Keep on keeping on, brother...this gel stuff sure seems like a challenge in my book...but I am confident you will beat this dragon.