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View Full Version : Winter revamp for the SJ



Rick90lx
10-01-2007, 08:20 PM
Well, I secured a place to start tearing the boat down this winter in an attempt to fix all the little nicks and scratches. The boat looks like it took some pretty hard hits into the rub rail through the yrs so I'm going to need to remove it and the channel it sits in. I noticed that its riveted in place, can I just drill out those rivets and remove everything and start with the repair? Also, I haven't bought any books on fiberglass repair yet, but I've been searching through all the posts trying to find the answer to a few questions. It seems like fiberglass matt is used for building up spots after you grind out scratches, and I saw a post where a guy filled all the holes in his dash and used a piece of cloth to cover everything so he could block it down smooth. I'm going to assume, that like traditional bondo, you use the marglass/duraglass for slight imperfections?
I have to tell you guys that when I found this forum I was pretty happy to read about everyones experiences and glad that I found a network of people with expertise I could tap into, but since I've been here, you guys have me finding things to do to the boat I had never thought of before. For instance.... I got under the boat yesterday to take a look at the hull. THAT WAS A MISTAKE! Dad's been doing high speed beaching of this thing for 20+ yrs, needless to say it needs some work. I'll have to take some pictures of the damage and see what you guys think, but I know now I'm going to have to flip the boat and get to work patching some deep gouges and putting some sort of a finish on it. The bottom half of the boat feels like concrete, as in running your hand across a sidewalk! There's no gloss to it whatsoever, as if it were sandblasted completely off. If there are any good links you know of to point me in the right direction to get started, I'd really appreciate it. I've really got my work cut out for me. Thanks,
Rick