Skeeter SK2000 Transom(and more) Replacement

[ChrisH]

Scott, Im gonna open a 24hour Marine Supply next to your shop. I'll make a killing. Great job dude! Your gonna be happy with it when your done. Either that or its gonna sink from all that glass.

[boostedone]

I'll have the only bass boat with a 18" draft....

[javelin90]

Gosh Dude, i thought i could get worked up over the rebuild. I was reading your post and felt my blood pressure start to rise. LOL J.k
I wished i was as far along as you are with your boat. How much foam do you have left and how much do you figure you went through??
Trying to get an idea of how much foam i'll need.

It is looking good and sure it wont be much longer.
G.

[boostedone]

Hey G...
What can I say.. I had to vent. And going out last night helped a bit too :) I went over today and ended up using some 1700 cut in strips to make up for the lack of 12oz tape. I was nervous about using it because I have step changes in the elevation between two soles, but it worked out rather well.
As for foam, I think I have went through right about 3 gallons(1.5 kits). I still have to make the floatation boxes that sit above the sole though, and I know they are going to use a bit as well. But like I said, I'll hook you up with what I don't use. It should be almost enough, if not just right for yours since yours is a little smaller. And yeah, I don't remember where you posted it, but you were commenting on the two brands and that I liked one more than the other. Thats not the case entirely. E-Boad has a picture of Polybond foam on their site where you order it. Thats what I bought from the local supplier. The stuff E-boat now sells is some generic steel cans that have "Part A" and "Part B" written on a label with a sharpie and thats it. I used the stuff from Eboat just because it was a few steps closer to me. I haven't touched the name brand stuff at all, but I would be willing to guess its just as good.

Well, my boat now has sole! I finished taping in the rear soles, and I made up the angled panel for the front sole.

BTW, here you can see what a sh*thole my shop has become.. This is why I can't wait to finish.. I don't even care to go fish, I just want the boat out of here and my floor back :(



Pad for the bow eye:
I basically laid a big big wad of putty down(left over from filleting the rear sole) and then ran to resin coat a peice of 3/8 meranti. From there, I had resin left over from the coating so I glassed it in using 3 layers of 1700.





Rear soles:







Front sole angled panel:



Birds eye view...

[javelin90]

Looking good. Looks like your ready to set the top cap.
G.

[boostedone]

Its gettin there. Still gotta make my floatation foam boxes, rebuild the rod lockers(they extend to about halfway across the front sole), put the rigging on the rear of the hull(livewell pumps and drains, etc), do some exterior work on the bow eye area and paint the hull.

I also gotta do some work on the cap. At a minimum, it needs to get the trolling motor area beefed up, and I am adding some cleats to the deck for tie off. I need to repair the livewell in the front where one of the pipes for rigging the cap ripped out the frame(ouch...).. And I may redo my old repair of the floor there.

Fun fun fun..

[Carlos H]

How goes the battle Scott???

[javelin90]

Carlos, i think Scott lost the battle and surrendered...... J/k
I'm sure work has him pinned down. His restore is coming along nicely and i have learned somethings from him and others on here.
G.

[boostedone]

Its going. After doing the stuff in the pics on new years, I went over Weds and did some vacuuming and figuring out a plan of attack to rebuild the rod lockers. I then started putting the holes back in the transom for the bow eyes, engine, etc. Then I got out the DA and began prepping the rear of the hull atleast for paint. Maybe this weekend I will get the blue/silver on the hull redone. Im gonna go buy some paint now that the paint store is open. I didnt even go over on Thursday or Friday, because we had a cold front come through and it was just too damn cold in the shop. It was down in the low 30s in the evening for a few days there.

I gotta see if I can get the paint guy to put my primer on the shaker while Im there. I got a 2 gal kit of epoxy primer in 2005 but never even cracked it open because I went with urethane high build primer on the project. Im sure its definately all collagulated on the bottom...

[Carlos H]

How did the primer shaking go???

[boostedone]

It went!!


I spent all Saturday at the shop hitting the side of the boat with 80 grit on an orbital sander. Man, that kicked my ass. From the factory the side of the boat is blue, with a silver insert in the rear and silver on the bottom. Where the bottom is silver I am going to do a black epoxy/graphite mix. For the above the water line I am doing the same viper blue I used on the cap.

Anyhow, yeah. On Saturday I spent all day sanding the hull with 80 to roughin up the gelcoat. I then masked off the rubstrip and put a line of masking tape along the silver/blue interface on the bottom so I could dupiclate the countour, as where it curves up in the front I dont want to be trying to free hand that later...

I then hit the whole area thats gonna be painted with PPG Uro 2K primer. I was going to use some epoxy primer I have since its non hygroscopic, but said screw it because the Epoxy primer is 3 years old and I didnt feel like experimenting with if it was any good. The Uro primer is only 7 months old.

I also spent a good part of the day with 275mph leaf blower blowing dust out of the shop and throwing scraps of wood and glass away so I could walk around the boat..







Sunday I was so beat from working on this thing I didnt get off the couch until 7pm, haha. Monday I had to do some other work and didnt get to touch it. But I made progress tonight!

I went over tonight and hit all the primer with 220 grit. Gave it a quick once over with laquer thinner and mixed up my base coat.



Here it is after one coat of base...





And some pics of the final result...













I tried to take some good pics, but they really do it no justice. Its Viper Blue(paint code PBE) and Silver from a 2002 Jetta. I used DuPont Chromabase for the base coat, and Nason clear. The clear isnt the greatest, but I had it and decided to try it out. I can't say enough good things about the Chromabase though.. THAT is some nice paint.
I considered painting the boat with some of those bland colors that Interlux sells, and although this stuff costs alot more(2 quarts of blue base coat was like $220, plus base maker, plus the clear coat), it looks SOOOOO much better. And you'd have to put a gun to my head to get me to gelcoat a boat after seeing this...

[skeetzx225]

I love reading through this post, great job! I just hoped the boat was completed by the end of page 5 (I'm sure you feel the same way ) so I could see the end result. Now I have to keep checking back in

[boostedone]

Yeah, Energizer should get rid of that bunny and just use my boat for their ads... It keeps going and going and going and going and going.....

Have their been any other projects on this board that were this sh*ttyas far as the total amount of work? I think I hit just about every possible facet of repair, LOL




Modified by boostedone at 6:10 PM 1/9/2008

[Trent_in_BG]

Keep up the great work. Can't wait to see the final product.

[Carlos H]

Scott, great job man! You can see the light at the end of the tunnel...well kinda anyway!!!!!

looks dang good man!

[SwatDawg]

You getting there

[jnamo]

I too check in daily to see how your doing...

You have an audience developing...

Go man go!!!

[boostedone]

Well, just a quick post to whats new. Had alot of other work to do this week, so I didnt make much showable progress after paining on Tuesday. But at this point, my main things to do is trim the knee braces for the splash well, build the flotation boxes that went above the rear sole, and reconstruct the rod locker in the front. I also gotta reinstall the gas tank and all the thru hull stuff. Oh, and build up the exterior area for the bow eye and reinstall that.

Thats all pretty much stuff i could knock out in a weekend. I chose NOT to do all that this weekend, as I can do that kind of thing peice meal in the evenings, but rather go get the cap back from my friends house and get it in the shop.The way the shop is set up and the neighbors, moving trailers and the vehicles in and out this has to be done on the weekend and the middle of the night. So Saturday evening I went over to my freinds to get the cap, and got some 2x6s and plywood on the ride back.
Between this and that I finally ended up at the shop around midnight. I got the vehicles out of the shop and pushed the hull backwards all the way to the other end and halfway out and me an a shop neighbor backed the cap up into the shop using the riding mower and centered it under the lift.

At that point it was 2 or 3am and Ian went off to go to bed. The rest of it should be preferenced with 'HEY YALL, WATCH THIS"... Which for those that don't know is the most the most common redneck's last words...

SOO, anyhow, I put peice of 3/4" plywood on each side of the lift resting on the arms. I then C-clamped with these cheesy little C clamps to the top of the post that rides up and down with the arms. I then screwed a 2x6x12 to the top of the plywood on each side. I then made some corner braces out of 3/4" to tie in cross beams to those 2x12s. After that, I made some "hooks" out of 3/4" plywood down drops and 2x6s for the rear. In the front Im using chain and a 2x6 through a hatch in the front deck...

I worked on it until noontime and was exhausted. Or maybe it was 1, 2 or 3.. I cant remember.

Now that I can not worry about how I will get the cap set, I can go back to finishing up the rest of the job. Hopefully in a few weeks I will have the deck all down and bonded on

[ChrisH]

starting to look like a boat again

[SwatDawg]

Looking great