Typical time frame for installing new carpet?

[Reel Northern Bass]

Just need an idea of how long it takes to completely install the carpet on a boat? My boat is in New Jersey at my Dad's girlfriends place, she has a large heated garage where he's been working on it.

It's 75% prepped for new carpet, just he front deck needs to have the old adhesive removed. Because it's so far away, and we both have conflicting schedules right now, It doesn't seem possible for us to get down there together more than once, and we want it ready for the first week of April in anticipation of ice out.

Is it possible to completely install the carpet on a 20' 3" boat in one weekend, and have the glue be set enough to tow the boat 5+ hours on the highway?

The goal is to head down early on a Friday, finish removing the adhesive on the front deck and put the carpet on the lids during Friday afternoon. Spend all day Saturday installing the carpet and the trim pieces on the deck. Spend Sunday morning re-installing the hatches, and drive home Sunday night.

Is that feasible, or am I out of my mind? We've NEVER installed a carpet before, so I don't know how long it will all take, especially for a couple of newbies. Thanks guys.

[wsmrff]

Ok buddy heres the deal the lids are going to be your hardest part, very time consuming everyone has there own way of doing things what i did was, i used liquid nails for a caulk gun and laid the stuff down on the lids glued everything down the key to all of this is on the lids is to go to home depot or lowes and get some clamps i bought some there yellow and black they come 22 to a pack all diffrent sizes for like 6 bucks. laying your carpet down in your boat will be kinda time consuming it took me 2 days to do that because on my boat 18'6" i didnt want to mess things up because you have to put heavy stuff on the carpet that way it has a solid addhesive. liquid nails has a fast drying time like 10 min working a 2-4 hours set up now saying that that doesnt mean ok i can go down the road i would allow to cure for 24 hours, but i would say in your situation i would do the carpet in the boat first and let the nails dry and the do your lids because the lids will be more time consuming. and that way after you carpet dries on the boat you can go ahead and put your lids on. if this makes since i just did mine for the first time and i dont have any complaits exept very time consuming. i would get some of those clamps i mentioned and also a a good exacto knife and some good sissors. other than that you would be ready to go now it my boat took about 12 tubes of liquid nails. so you can go off of that and make sure when you do it dont be stingy on the nails. good luck have fun and if you need more help we are all here to help.

[Reel Northern Bass]

Awesome, thanks for the help. I'm going to work my magic then and make the time to go down there this weekend. The goal will be to completely prep the boat as far as removing all of the old adhesive, and then we're going to tackle the top cap and work on getting the shine back to the gel. Then, I'll go back down in a couple of weeks, and plan on spending 3 long days getting the carpet installed.

[limitedex]

I've read average newbie takes 55 hours. But that's removing the old stuff too.

[wsmrff]

hey brother i forgot to metions as well if you have fiberglass lids use goo remover but if you have metal lids strip off the majority of the carpet and have a electric sander with you and use 60 grit sand paper works like a charm it'll be a little messy but works.

[Reel Northern Bass]

My Dad has already done a bunch of the tear down, and that's what he's been doing to the fiberglass, coating it all in goo-gone and then wiping up the crap, then scraping off what little is left behind.

[Nickk]

<table width="90%" cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 align=center><tr><td>Quote, originally posted by Snover &raquo;</td></tr><tr><td class="quote">Awesome, thanks for the help. I'm going to work my magic then and make the time to go down there this weekend. The goal will be to completely prep the boat as far as removing all of the old adhesive, and then we're going to tackle the top cap and work on getting the shine back to the gel. Then, I'll go back down in a couple of weeks, and plan on spending 3 long days getting the carpet installed. </td></tr></table>

That's what I'm doing but I'm extending my deck between the top cap work and the recarpeting. I got about a month to work on it and very little weekend time.

[PBR]

I used contact cement on everything. On my Javelin about a 3 month prosess. I only did a litlle at a time Takeing the lids off and cleaning is the longest part. I was able to use the old carpet from lids as a templet. Make sure you mark the direction of your carpet get it to go in the same direction . Dubbule check when you flip the lids over .

[bassdad]

I used contact on the lids and had them done in a day.Just make sure you cut the corners the right way. Put guide arrow marks on your lids / underside of carpet so that the grain is always the same way. Also mark your lids for the screw hole locations before you carpet so you can locate the piano hinges. Put masking tape on the inside of the lids to avoid getting excess glue - remove before stick down. For the deck, I used Roberts Outdoor Adhesive to give me wiggle room. Used a good carpet knife and change the blade every 3-4 feet. Cut and glue on a 20 ft should be about 16-20 hours.

[PBR]

Ice pick works good for relocating hing holes

[Reel Northern Bass]

<table width="90%" cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 align=center><tr><td>Quote, originally posted by bassdad &raquo;</td></tr><tr><td class="quote">I used contact on the lids and had them done in a day.Just make sure you cut the corners the right way. Put guide arrow marks on your lids / underside of carpet so that the grain is always the same way. Also mark your lids for the screw hole locations before you carpet so you can locate the piano hinges. Put masking tape on the inside of the lids to avoid getting excess glue - remove before stick down. For the deck, I used Roberts Outdoor Adhesive to give me wiggle room. Used a good carpet knife and change the blade every 3-4 feet. Cut and glue on a 20 ft should be about 16-20 hours. </td></tr></table>

I planned on that guide arrow idea. I knew that the replacing the carpet was a project I was going to jump into when we bought the boat. Since then, I've been following every resto project on here, and that #1 rule always stuck in my head, "make sure the carpet grain is all going the same way". Then I realized that drawing a bunch of arrows with a sharpie on the underside of the carpet would really help me avoid putting it in the wrong way. Sometimes, I can be smart!

[bassdad]

How were your hinges installed? I ended up using 3/4 in #8 stainless bolts with small spring washer / nut to attach hinge to lid and then s.s. screws for lid to box. Originally, everything was riveted.........enjoy your week-end......mind your fingers....

[Reel Northern Bass]

Good question, and I don't have the answer. My Dad was the one that broke the whole thing down. All of the lids are off already. I wonder how much it's going to cost us in new hardware when we re-install everything.

[JerryT]

Is the hardware bad?? Everything on mine is stainless...hinges nuts and bolts.

[totalbeverage]

On that Ranger should be SS hinges, just clean it up and put it back on the lids. As far as time usually takes about (2) 30 packs of Miller Lite or just one 30 pack and a half gallon of Crown. Your choice

[Reel Northern Bass]

Just asked my Dad, it's all stainless hardware so we'll clean it up and re-use it. On our way down now, stuck in traffic on the mass pike. His iPad makes it not suck as much. This thing is pretty badass, I love technology! it's actually really going to help out telling my Dad what we need to do, he doesn't listen to me, he needs to see where I get my info from before he will listen.

I will post pics of the progress when I get back into town.

[totalbeverage]

Sent you an IM. On the Ipad you got to go to settings and allow popups. Or you can just go into your profile on BBC and check it there.

[Reel Northern Bass]

Good god I never thought stripping old glue off would require that much effort!!! Good news is that it's 100% removed, going to tackle buffing the top cap tomorrow.

Question though...on the underside of our lids, they are cracked pretty bad, just cosmetically on the surface. Any suggestions on how to repair/cover it up? I will post pics tomorrow hopefully.

[Reel Northern Bass]

Wow....that was a lot of work. Put in more work than I thought it was going to take just to remove the carpet and glue. Good news is that every piece of carpet we took out, came out without tearing. So we have our templates for the new carpet.

The bad news is that my Dad and I apparently move slower than cold molasses so this project is going to take an extra weekend longer to get done I think. Unless I can get my friend to come down with us for a weekend, and we put in a Friday-Sunday.

The boat is 100% prepped. All, and I mean ALL of the old glue is off of the boat. I may have gone overkill on cleaning and stripping the old glue...but with the amount of work involved to do this, I'm not taking any chances. I scraped and scraped...and scraped some more. Then I covered the area in Goof Off, and scrubbed til my shoulders felt like they were going to tear...then scrubbed some more. I'll be damned if anyone can find a single spot of old glue left over on that boat!!

Just need to order the carpet, and the black stripping for the decking, and we're good to go on the next step. Won't be able to get down there for another 3 weeks though.