FINALLY!!!! It's About BOATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

While I am doing the hopefully FINAL sorting of the stuff in the house, I'm working on the Challenger as my sanity keeper. The Venture is still in the drive way but she is full of stuff I have yet to sort through before I put her up on blocks to drop the keel.  This is how I'm keeping my sanity in the mean while. Yeah I'm getting flack from some of the guys over the method and materials I'm using. By their standards and expectations,  I'm cheating like an erring husband on how I am doing this.  For this reason I make an open and honest offer to those who feel very strongly about how I should be using the two part epoxy on these little  fixes. Please feel free to shop and order the materials you think I should be  using and ship them to me. I will be more then happy to use them and even give you a blurp as donator.  Email me for my shipping address.

Having said that, on to the boat.  If you remember I picked this up last summer with the idea of fixing it up for  my son.  Well he is on his  own, several states away and I'm not about to carry it THAT far on the top of my car. I now have another toy to play with . You can tell I'm just heart broken over that development, right? :)~

Finally got her up on blocks to work on.

Sorry about he angle but had us use my cell phone and that aint gonna take a close shot  straight on.


Initial work to be done.

There are some gouges and dings along the keel. This one is the worse with out actually being a full fledged breach.

            Then there is this one which is a                     full blown hull breach.

                         A close up of breach.

Then there is the transom. The story that goes with boat is it got hit by a string lawn mower TWICE.

    Been busy sanding her down. Wouldn't  you know the sander went kapluie. I have go to learn how to replace bushings in these sanders! I do however have a LOW COST idea on how I am going to temporarily solve that  little problem. All I have to do is go digging in the shed which is another spot every thing is stashed in for now. GRRRRR  I'll let you know how it turns out AFTER I try it.If it is successful. This idea is so nutty, I'm not telling in advance.

Now some of you guys are going to hate this but I've been using JB weld products for years quite successfully. I've saved TONS of money using their line. They make water weld and I got some.  So far  I have  2 1/2  tubes invested.  Beats what epoxy cost. Yes, I thought about getting some filler and using the polyester epoxy.  It cost 18.00 plus a can and I have ZERO experience using that kind of set up. Before I do it on a boat I actually hope to be in the water with THIS SUMMER or what is left of it, I went with the water weld.  It's about SAILING remember?


In no particular order here are the current pics.

This is where the sander died . GRRRRR

Almost partially done with the first sanding .

Remember that really nasty hull breach?

That's all for now.
Sail safe but SAIL!!!!!!!!

Publish Post

What I (we) did during my summer "vacation"

Some Misc Pics that never got uploaded:

June started out  with 105 degrees and stayed that way until Sept, which surprisingly brought cooler temps. Needless to say not a lot done on boats but wow what we got done in house is great!
In no particular order......

Before shot of ceiling, Wood stove smoked up a bit and ruined ceiling paint.,

No home remodeling is complete until someone puts their  foot through the ceiling

Oh the joy of remodeling a house while your trying to actually live in it.

UPDATE on The Toy

Folks have commented on  why am I not focusing on The Toy. Mostly it is because I am focused on The Venture, I really want her in the water ASAP!
Also I have been reading all the books I have been getting. 
I've been debating on do I cut The Toy down in length or leave it as she is.  I'm fairly close to the Texas border and in Texas a boat smaller then 14 ft does not need to be tagged. Since my first choice for closest possible sailing spot is Lake Texhoma, I'm thinking it would save me money.
Either way I can tie it down to the Ventures deck and go . In the back of my mind assuming the guys will want to come with, I figure we can take both and they can go do their thing while I'm doing my thing.
Since I'm going to learn how to fiber glass with the rudder, I'm seriously thinking to just fiberglass her hulls with polyester. That way I could conceivably have her in the water soon after it warms up enough to get it done.
I bought a small trailer from a neighbor cheap enough, I need it get it new tires. Putting a floor on it is a thought I have been playing with . It needs the tongue extended but that is not a big problem. The idea is use that to pull the Toy until I have a roof rack for  her made to fit the Lumina or get a tow vehicle for the Venture and use that.  I have a light weight hitch for the lumina..  Most of this is outside work and let's face it , winter  just not conducive to out door work, even in Oklahoma.
So for all you folks out there that have been wondering whats up with The Toy, that's the latest on her.

CONSUMER ALERT!!!!!

CONSUMER ALERT!!!!! READ THE  MSDS on any product if someone tells you it is the same as another product BEFORE YOU BUY!

Well I thought I was good to go on the rudder for doing the fiberglass this week or as soon as the weather warmed up. It  turns out there is some sort of mix up with the bondo samples that were  sent so it appears that completing  this part is going to have to wait until payday.  I have an email sent to the tech I have been talking to so will see what happens. People make mistakes. It's not a big earth shaking deal. If I sound ungrateful it is because THIS IS SO frustrating!

 As stated through out this blog, I have WAY to much Scot in me to waste the samples sent. I have been thinking on this. What I am going to do is use the NON marine stuff sent on the inside to laminate the boards together where water will not touch them and use the BOAT YARD on the out side.  If I do it right the inner NON marine grade bondo will never see water, so it will be fine.
 I am still going to use the Boat yard product line since it is a lot cheaper then the other fiber glassing epoxies. If it was not for price difference I'd go with the  west or systems 3. I'm going to test it and see if the rudder holds up. Why am I being so hard headed on this? It is MY BOAT we are talking about here. I'm not expecting that every one I deal with have the sailing bug but sheesh!
 
I did the research. The end user sources online ALL agree, the NON MARINE grades of bondo are TEMPORARY for marine use, same as using duck tape and a piece of cardboard wrapped in a zip lock bag or  a piece of ply wood with a water  proof  5 minute epoxy to get you to shore are temporary fixes. 


 I asked about using the tempera paint  as a substitute since finding marine grade materials is not so easy in this land locked location. According to the same gentleman who told me the samples sent are identical in nature as the boat yard line,  TEMPERA is not a good idea since there is no way to know what fillers etc they put into the tempera.  Some additives will prevent bondo products from curing! According to this same tech support person, I can use  3 ounces of the strongest universal paint tint they have at any place that tints paint such as HD or Lowe's  (for white) and it will color one gallon of Bondo  to opaque. If he is correct on this issue we have a source for cheap custom colors. The question is do I want to trust him on this after the mix up on the other or not. I HATE being put in this kind of a position!

Cold hard facts time. We are talking about a rudder, not a hull. Do I want to take the time to rebuild a new rudder if he is WRONG on this as well? I did a search for bondo colorants, I went  to their site. That site is NOT user friendly. I got tagged for a survey and I actually did it. I gave the web site related questions  1 on everything,. If I could have given zeros I would have.  After going through the process of adding a - minus sign to all the various NON relevant terms and items that came up I found NO link to colorant so I guess they are not making marine colorant any more.
Bottom line, I have entirely to much Scot in me to waste time on a product the I have reason to believe might let me down later when I need it the most.  I'm putting a lot of work and materials into this rudder and I'm not going to risk bad advice for false economy over the cost difference of proven colorant vs non marine paint colorant..

I have looked up universal marine colorants in bulk. I found nothing that was specifically mentioned as for marine use so I'm back to getting something probably from jamestown.  Granted I did not search through all the zillions of links but then I'm not into spending hours upon hours looking for this type of item.

 If I can find a cheaper source of MARINE grade tint that works with bondo I'll let you know.  If bad comes to worse and I POSITIVELY HATE this idea. I'll forgo the colorant and just paint it with marine grade paint. Chips I'll just have to  keep on top of so it does not look shabby.
Repeat after me.  It's about getting in the water!
 I decided to submit this question  to yahoo answers. 
Will see what happens.