going to be farwell to all googans !

[diggin4grouper]

David

Looks good - thats a winner

thanks man , with all we are doing to it i hope it will be a great boat for many years ..

[diggin4grouper]

hers an update for yall

little bit of progress as we have put the floor structure in for the last time , and its completely fiber-glassed in place ... next we changed the hatches that were in the boat to a new style .. the ones that were in there let water go underneath them so we cut the molded fiberglass out and sanded the crap out of it and layed a piece of 1/2 plywood in there after fiber-glassing both side of it first , the with bondoglass filled the gaps and sat the plywood in it , and then we took 4 oz finishing cloth and cover the entire deck of each hatch , and then cut a hole for the new water proof hatches ....... and right now we are sanding the entire inside of the boat to prepare to set the flloor deck in and tab it in with fiber-glass to the hull still havea ways to go on that part ....

here you can see what the hatches used to look like



and here is what they look like now




this is the floor supports fiberglassed in place



just a lot of sanding

[diggin4grouper]

well we are now at the point we need the foam to put back in the boat, to get to this point we have fitted the floor and got it to fit the way we want we had to make it in 4 sections to get it to fit right ,2 pieces are 4 foot high and then the contour of the boat to the front ,the the rear piece we cut a 4 foot section in half so we could get it to fit under the boxes at the back of the boat if we would have tried to put a full section under there it would have been almost impossible to get it out to fiberglass it , but we now have all the floor fiberglassed and ready to go in after the foam is in place which is on order and on a slow truck here , but we have to wait now due to TROPIAL STORM ISSAC

thats where we are at so far and more to come !!

[diggin4grouper]

progress to report

it aint pretty but its in the boat and need to be trimmed to board height

[diggin4grouper]

and another step to completion

Good deal Diggin

thanks we hope to have the deck screwed down and fiberglassed in today sometime , and get it ready for the move down south and kiss Georgia good bye !! did do a little bit while the foam was rising and curing , we got both live well rigged and ready to go , they are rigged with a 500 gph for now and we will change that later if need be

[diggin4grouper]

well the deck is in but not fiberglassed yet it took longer to fair it in than we expected
we still have some fairing to to do to day but then we can lay the glass and then on
to paint in a day or 2 , because of the way the steering cable had to be ran it was put
in place before the deck was screwed down ...

[crashmister]

Looking great David! You gonna bondo the seams and screws or just glass over em?If you're just glassing over you may want to consider an epoxy base coat. A bit more expensive, but in the long run you'll have a much stronger base for lay up. frigging deck'll be almost bullet proof.

[diggin4grouper]

A early "welcome back to good old Florida," David! Wont be long now

thanks bro cant wait

Looking great David! You gonna bondo the seams and screws or just glass over em?If you're just glassing over you may want to consider an epoxy base coat. A bit more expensive, but in the long run you'll have a much stronger base for lay up. frigging deck'll be almost bullet proof.

that was i ment by fairing them in all the screws and seams are now covered and sanded with bondo with the hair in it , just need to wipe it all down with acetone and then were laying the glass in from front to the back , all i know is its a hell of a deck and way better than factory . my 300 lb ass can walk on it and it dont flex at all its rock solid ....

[diggin4grouper]

Hey Diggin

That is strong and apparently very well done no flex and all.

Bet that 1100er would be a different story lol

i think if he came walking down the dock i would have to say sorry no room !


but we didnt get the main glass down today , wiith all the fairing that still needed to be
done we got it done and started tabbing the deck back in to the hull and we decided we
did enough for today and called it quits as the sun was going down too , but it will be in by
lunch time tomorrow then its back to sanding and making everything flush with the hull

[crashmister]

Dave, the shadow in the 3rd pic makes the deck look like it has a huge bump in it lol. I'm looking at that thinking WTf oh it's the shadow. Think it's strong now, wait till you get the glass down. Probably have all the give of Al plate. May want to tac rag the deck instead of acetone to prep for final layup. The glassed wood is fine but the bondo may have issues depending on it's base. Found it with auto body. Tac rag or Lacquer thinner. For some reason acetone seem's to soften the surface of bondo. Ya end up with air seperation.

[diggin4grouper]

when laying that mush glass at one time you want to use the acetone to clean and prep the surface but you have to change the rags you are wiping with often the reason for useing acetone is to clean and then soften the top of the glass so that when you under coat the new layer of glass it will bond it and make it one piece

sand top of glass
wipe with acetone
spread resin out
fiberglass mat or csm whatever your using
and then spread resin like crazy till you can see though it

as far as the bondo the one we used with the hair in it had no problem with the acetone or resin it say on the can to use acetone before bonding anything to it .

but thats in the past the deck is now completely glassed in now , next were going to roll a top coat of resin like we were told to do by sundace boat company which is just around the corner from the house here in ga , and that is do to the type of fiber glass we used to put the deck down with the ridges in it a 2nd coat of resin will speed up the sanding time as it fills most of the voids and you dont have as far to sand .

most of what we learned has been info from talking to sundance boats company so i believe it to be some what correct with some of it going off track and we found an easyier way to do it but still be as strong

ill post pics later of the glassed deck

[CubanExpress]

Looks nice, David.

Did you guys lay cloth/chopped mat all the way up to the gunnel, or just the deck?

[diggin4grouper]

Looks nice, David.

Did you guys lay cloth/chopped mat all the way up to the gunnel, or just the deck?

no there was no need too , all we did was tab the deck back to the hull about 8 inch up
the side of the hull and 6 inches on the deck with a bi-axial cloth whiuch was about
23 or 24 oz cloth ... seen here



and here is the deck glass and the tabbing together



and just more photos

[crashmister]

Works for me David! Looks like in the bottom pic they went 4" or more up the side with the edge faring Denny. Looking forward to the pic's. You gonna do like a granular non skid for the surface coats before paint? If so and I reccomend it, be careful you don't make it too rough. It's hard on bare feet and it's much harder to keep clean. There's lot's of products out there, but in the end I found mild silica with a resin top coat and a couple a coats of paint works as well as any of em. Quite a bit cheaper to.

[CubanExpress]

no there was no need too , all we did was tab the deck back to the hull about 8 inch up the side of the hull and 6 inches on the deck with a bi-axial cloth whiuch was about 23 or 24 oz cloth ... seen here

That's some heavy duty cloth. How much resin was needed to wet everything out?

[diggin4grouper]

no there was no need too , all we did was tab the deck back to the hull about 8 inch up the side of the hull and 6 inches on the deck with a bi-axial cloth whiuch was about 23 or 24 oz cloth ... seen here

That's some heavy duty cloth. How much resin was needed to wet everything out?

right about 4 gals of resin was used for the entire deck and that was with rolling a top coat to kinda fill some of the groves from the glass so that there wouldn't have to be a lot of sanding .

Works for me David! Looks like in the bottom pic they went 4" or more up the side with the edge faring Denny. Looking forward to the pic's. You gonna do like a granular non skid for the surface coats before paint? If so and I reccomend it, be careful you don't make it too rough. It's hard on bare feet and it's much harder to keep clean. There's lot's of products out there, but in the end I found mild silica with a resin top coat and a couple a coats of paint works as well as any of em. Quite a bit cheaper to.

we found some stuff from line x that you roll on top of the paint and its a rubber based product , and we dont care if we have to roll some more later on after it wears out its all good

[crashmister]

That's the stuff they use for truck bed's and such. Good luck wearing that out.

[diggin4grouper]

That's the stuff they use for truck bed's and such. Good luck wearing that out.

we said we were going to do the boat the right way lol guess that was it

[crashmister]

You pick a paint & color yet?

[diggin4grouper]

yea the inside is going to be all white and we have blue lights that will accent the boat at night

[crashmister]

Sounds cool. Can't wait to see it.

[diggin4grouper]

might be after we move befor any one sees it , we still need to pack this house lol

[crashmister]

Well ya know where to pack all the boat parts

[diggin4grouper]

Well ya know where to pack all the boat parts

i think all the boat stuff and the fishing gear will be in the boat ! that way when the truck is un packed i can head to the closest water possible and wet a line for a while and cool off lol

but its now official i hate sanding fiberglass be glad when it done and the boat is painted !!

[diggin4grouper]

well this is where we are at , we kinda rushed the sanding of the deck and after we did
that we seen places that needed to be fixed and we decided we will fix them later
since we are moving we wanted to give the paint time to dry before messed with it any
more , yesterday we had a very long day as we put the motor and things on the boat
the consoles are in place and screwed and 5200 to the deck , still need minor stuff done
like wires ran for lights , live well , bilge pump , ect hopefully the switch panel we ordered
will get here before we move and we can get it all wired up , but its looking more and
more like a fishing boat .......

[diggin4grouper]

today's progress

wires ran for navigation lights
live well pump wired and ran to console
bow light fixture installed
stern light fixture installed
seat for front of console hinged and retainer strap put back on seat and console
one rear seat hinged and strapped
bow rails installed
rear grab rails installed

that was it for today will work on the other seat and the splash guard tomorrow