Uh oh. 1958 Skagit 20 Hardtop

[Kelly]

Correction: 406 not 404. I've definitely used too much product in some areas. I'd say the biggest lesson learned this far into it: drill and fill before major sanding, especially on a boat with thin gelcoat. Sanding too much only creates more issues as pin holes pop up everywhere. Sucks.

[Helmar]

hope so! I've mastered mixing epoxy and 404! I've been using your trick and saved half a dozen apple sauce containers (lunch box size) and it's worked great. 1 pump of each and 3 tablespoons of 404 (on average) gives me a perfect working amount. I've only had 1 pot go off early and it was smoking hot...literally. 1 out of 30 pots = acceptable loss.
I re-use the containers as much as I can.

Here are a few more tips .
When mixing Resins, if you just mixed one up, cracked open a cold one and just sat and watched that last pot of resin (If you mixed up a quart, you can see it go faster) you can see that it will start to kick in the center of the pot, cup or whatever.
So, if I am working on a big pot, I will pour it out into a paint tray.
I put in a transom laminating 1/2" sheets together and it was just crap plywood I was told to use. I use the epoxy as it was thicker to start with to fill the voids (ended up costing more using Epoxy Resin than Fiberglass Resin).
Same with that quart pot, pour it into a paint tray, goes a lot slower in the warm dry weather..

Another thing I learned working in a body shop on Corvettes was filling and fairing voids. Never put on any more than you need too. The amount of time it takes to, Take off the excess is way more labor in time that it would be to go back and add more if needed. Anything in excess will have to be block sanded off.

The other thing I learned is to try and not put on product that is harder than the surface your sealing or filling. Just takes longer to block sand that flush.

Over the years I have learned short cuts and what not to do with this stuff..

Opinions are like arm pits , Everyone has them but if your not sure about something, ask for others opinions.

That boat is going to look Beautiful for sure Kelly

One of our friends Doug Griffith (20 Skagit, called 3D's) had his so nice that he almost didn't want to use it, but after the first scratch, then he was good to go Like me building my hot rods in the early years, they were Trailer and Show queens as I never wanted to drive them. The last two I built were not show cars, they were nice to be driven on the roads.
I think this is why I came up with the 20-20 thing. Looks good at 20 feet away and 20mph. Looks like your going for show quality

[Kelly]

[Kelly]

She will look better than New off the showroom

hope so! I've mastered mixing epoxy and 404! I've been using your trick and saved half a dozen apple sauce containers (lunch box size) and it's worked great. 1 pump of each and 3 tablespoons of 404 (on average) gives me a perfect working amount. I've only had 1 pot go off early and it was smoking hot...literally. 1 out of 30 pots = acceptable loss.
I re-use the containers as much as I can.

[Helmar]

Added roof stiffeners around the hatch. This area had a pretty bad flex to it, enough to make me uneasy about it. Now, nice and rigid.

Any flex will start breaking down the gelcoat so yeah, any place you can stop her from flexing is a good find and fix

[Helmar]

Grinding and filling 8,342 gelcoat cracks...

She will look better than New off the showroom

[Kelly]

Added roof stiffeners around the hatch. This area had a pretty bad flex to it, enough to make me uneasy about it. Now, nice and rigid.

[Kelly]

Grinding and filling 8,342 gelcoat cracks...

[Kelly]

strange, I'm on a different computer and can see the pics. I don't know why you can't see them Helmar.

[Helmar]

can anyone see the latest pics I posted?

I can't see them....Might send Ed a message as the resizing is set to Yes.

[Kelly]

can anyone see the latest pics I posted?

[Kelly]

Here's some updated pics, although I've done a little more since these were taken it's mostly just sanding, sanding and a little more sanding. As a struggling perfectionist, I'm of the mind this boat won't be perfect, but I'm o.k. with that as I'm finding it tough to get it there with only an hour here or there to work on it each day or a few times a week. Pics...

Wrapping my head around it all...getting ready to drill more holes.




I've removed all of the white paint off of the burgundy on the storage "shelf"...it was driving me nuts.






If you know Skagit boats, then you'll see what we did here that is a stray from the factory wood work. I wanted to close off the floor completely in the cabin and essentially create another small bulkhead with storage capacity. Does anyone really care it's not factory? No. I am trying to keep it close to original though because the original design is what drew me to these boats in the first place.



I know some of these were posted before, but it's just another look at them.

Here's a shot of the transom put together..



This boat really has come a long way since saving her. Take a look again at these cabin photos...gross!









Pretty sure I'm out of my mind, but oh well. Throwback to the day I brought her home...

[Kelly]

Burning the midnight oil ... pics soon...

[Kelly]

Ok boys and girls, picking my boat up soon! Stay tuned!

[Kelly]

Updates are moving along...

One of them I wanted to share is from last week when Helmar and I joined forces to conquer some of the remaining "to do" list. One of the list items was to get rid of the old original fuel tanks. After some discussion it was decided it might be best to cut them up first before attempting to dispose of them properly at a Hazo-house. Plus I really wanted to see how potentially bad they could be from the modern fuel. Part of the cutting up discussion was to keep the facial side of the tanks because it was all fiberglass and a nice flat piece. Helmar and I share the same mental disorder of "you never know when you can use it, so don't throw it away..."

Fast forward...

Later we had a discussion on how best to fill some larger holes in the helm box and other places. Good ideas were had however we had an "ah-ha" moment and after some measuring and measuring again it was decided that we could utilize the old cut up fuel tanks to fill the holes on the boat. It was after all fiberglass and, it was original Skagit pieces that would be going back into the Skagit. I must say I absolutely dig the idea of being able to reuse Skagit fuel tanks to help the Skagit boat and keep it living on. Once the gel-coat or paint goes over it you'll never know it had holes filled.

The funny part of the idea was coming up with the right word for using the old fuel tank to fill the fuel tank filler holes. The best we came up with was "cannibalism" as it seem to fit the situation.

Pics show the story..
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