My finished boat project

[SnappingTurtle]

It has been a long time since I rebuilt a boat. I was fifteen at the time and it was a total rebuild and took an entire summer. But it worked, looked good, and I was happy. Happy to be finished.

I should have picked something smaller at the time to start with, but I learned a lot. Always wanted to do it again, but studies and work never seemed to allow for the time.

We live in Europe, and I keep saying as soon as we can go home, and I can have my garage and tools back I will do it again.

It became one of those future projects that got pushed to the next year and then the next ...

Well I got tired of waiting to go home so I started a small (this time) project.

I already sold this project boat and it is now financing the next boat project. It is somewhat larger, but still very small compared to the first.

I know I write long post, and many here don't like to read them, so I will stop writing now and just post some pictures.

This was a simple project and took about three long days, the present project is somewhat larger and I will post photos when I am finished.

 

[SnappingTurtle]

Re: My finished boat project

 

[SnappingTurtle]

Re: My finished boat project

 

[SnappingTurtle]

Re: My finished boat project

I forgot to take photos of it before I started, but someone had already laid fiberglass patches all over the hull. Covering dirt, paint and everthing else with it, before giving up. They were at least one inch thick. I started sanding on these points, got mad, and just popped it all off with a screw driver.

Whoever the poor guy was, he was obviously not a reader of this forum.

There are also many steps in the hull repair process missing in this photo series. This is what I have, so this is what I posted.

 

[samo_ott]

Re: My finished boat project

Excellent. As a paddler I can appreciate the boat. Too bad mine is poly. Did you get it cheap to start off with? It looks like it!

 

[SnappingTurtle]

Re: My finished boat project

Thanks!

It was free and on it's way to the crusher. It had such a nice form I had to rescue it from a certain death. I looked much worse than in the first Photos, it was covered with fiberglass patches, badly applied to the outside of the hull. I would have liked to have kept it but it had to make way for the new project aand the owner of the house wouldn't let me keep it in the bike room any longer. It is the only room in the house long enough for it, and I was hogging it all for me. The wind surf board is mine also, as are three of the bikes in there.

 

[redfury]

Re: My finished boat project

Well, it's not a wally yacht, but it turned out nice. I've always had problems painting yellow for some reason. New project, what's not larger than this thing...what did you start on now?

 

[SnappingTurtle]

Re: My finished boat project

I don't think I will be considered a member of Wally target group of future customers any time soon. But they do make nice watercraft. If I ever win the Loto ...

Your yellow paint problem might be solved with a secret method I use to prepare it before applying. This paint I bought back in the mid nineties for part of another non-boat project and since then it has been been sitting in the cellar, aging like a good red wine.

I thinned it (it was like thick peanut butter after ten+ years on the shelf) and used the “roll and brush” method to paint it. It was “semi gloss” so I didn't get the shinny look I would like to have had, but it still turned out pretty good when finished.

The kayak is about twenty feet long and as such, a bit longer, although much slimmer than the new project. The new project is a small (9ftx3.5ft) very old, very neglected, very ugly, badly modified, combination rowing skiff, closed bow motorized yacht tender, sail boat. I have decided to drop the sailing feature in it's rebirth. This project I will be keeping.

I don't have access to a work space for anything larger than these type of projects because we live in a typical European apartment in the middle of the city, but it does show that if you wish to do something like this under these conditions, it is possible.

I make extensive use of my balcony (weather permitting), for detail work, store the finished pieces in our tiny cellar, sand in the parking lot behind the house (weather permitting), and assemble and paint in our Piggyback, hydraulic garage. The garage has a head room of about five and a half feet (I am over six foot), no electric hookup (I have to run a hundred & fifty meter extension cord from my cellar), no lighting, and no water. After eight or nine hours in there, standing at a 15 to 20 degree angle, on corrugated steel floor, the entire time bent at the waist, you start to feel like the “Hunchback of Notre Dame”.

I would like to make a Glen L Picklefork Hydroplane after my present project is finished, if that is, we end up stuck here much longer.

 

[SnappingTurtle]

Re: My finished boat project

Here is a shot of the German garage I have to work in for those never having the pleasure of seeing one of this type, and a sneak preview of the present project.

Take it from me, don't, I repeat, don't ever install one of these garage systems if you don't absolutely have to.

It fills with water every time it rains hard, ten times faster than the ability of the just installed bilge pump (yes, our garage has a bilge pump) to pump it out, leaving autos on the bottom in three feet of water (which is why I have the boat on the bottom). Something is also always broke, which is really nice when you go down to get in the car to rush to a appointment, and the garage won't give you your car back.