What did you do to your boat today

aero3113

@PickleRick , I feel for you. It was annoying getting wet wet sanding my transom. I could only imagine laying on your back doing the bottom of the hull.

PickleRick

Im 6ft 2 with a little over 6 ft wing span.  I wont have to do much laying on my back as i only have an 8ft beam boat. I can reach nearly all of the hull sitting on a bucket beside the trailer.   

I will first paint what i can access with the boat sitting in place.  I will do the boat in sections with the rollers by blocking it at strategic points.  I just need it raised enough to unbolt the rollers in that section then paint. 

PickleRick

Another approximately 2x3 ft section done

The flat portion of the hull is harder to reach. I found that my arms are like noodles and it was easier to apply pressure by laying on my creeper.  I rolled user the boat and got this knocked out in about an hour. 



By Monday evening the starboard side will be done other than under the rollers.  

Once im done with what's accessible now i will start the blocking process.  I will take pics for those asking about trailer painting. 

In have the a frame at my dad's, i may cheat and use a strap to lift the front of the hull rather than the jack.  

aero3113

I waxed the bathroom “head” today. I also steam cleaned my cabin floors. They say you shouldn’t  steam clean wood flooring but if your careful and don’t leave it in one spot too long, it works great. Once finished I put on some Murphy’s soap oil. In the first pic you can see where the soap oil was put down. Looking at the steam cleaner head it definitely pulled up some dirt.

boatman37

Have my swim platform off for the winter for repairs so today finished the Spectrum gelcoat paste on the topside. Still have some touch up on bottom. Also washed the back of the boat where the swim platform mounts and did the whole transom. Buffed with Presta gel coat then waxed with Meguiars Flagship so I am about ready to put the platform back on

PickleRick

The section at the very center of the hull is a pita to get to.  I may be using what's left of my respirators and an abrasive pad on a side grinder to get this off.

rasbury

Hey, who sees the bottom?

Aqua_Aura

The owner and that's all that matters 😁

PickleRick

I trialer every weekend so anyone heading down the freeway!

Last summer i was getting ice and had a guy ask how long the boat had been sitting.  The bottom has to look pretty bad yo get questions like that.  Especially since it was used every weekend from may to October other than our keys trip

PickleRick

Had some issues reaching the mid belly of the hull between the trailer fenders.  I only have one dust mark left at home and one at work.  I need to make this last.  Im going to show off some anti covid bling. 

Using this to extend my reach and puts out less dust than the side grinder



Dust masks, toilet paper and hand sanitizer.  Worse than both furby and tickle me Elmo Christmas shortage dilemmas combined. 

PickleRick

Say parkour and it's easier to get under there.  

PickleRick

Starboard side is done until i finish port side and start blocking.   The goal is to start painting next weekend.  Weather pending.

Liberty44140

Aero, replacing my blower ducts on the 342 was such a frustrating job, pulling the hard old crap out and then running new, realizing the ducts were bad too and having to order them to do it right. Nice job getting that done. Floor looks good, your boat being newer should have had an oiled floor so I’d think steam cleaning is fine since it’s not “sealed”. 

aero3113

Thanks @Liberty44140 , that makes total sense with the floor. I’m almost done with the ducts, just waiting on 2 couplers to arrive to finish the job. The ducts are probably one of the biggest safety items on the boat, in the condition they were in none were pulling air overboard, just blowing it around the engine compartment.

Liberty44140

I meant the grills were bad outside the boat so I did those too, they were too brittle to connect the ducts to. My boat didn’t have intake ducts so the air and rain just came right in through the grill and the rain went everywhere. I added 2-3’ of duct on the intake grills to be sure the rain went down to the floor and not on to my genny and batteries And that also brought fresh air lower in to the room. There are pics on here of what I did. 

PickleRick

Ordered new manifolds/risers (oem) and. 4 new flip back helm seats.  

rasbury

Well glad your Trump check went to good use! I really need to get busy with my boat...

aero3113

I saw some water stains where my transom locker hand rail mounts. I pulled it off and straightened the threaded rods (they were slightly bent from tying to it for shrink wrap) and sealed with 3M 4200. Would be nice to do this to everything that’s through mounted to the hull.

Cableguy Greg

Nice work. The only difference that I would have done is use 4000UV verses 4200. I don't believe that 4200 is UV protected and will yellow over time. I use 4000UV for pretty much everything above and below the waterline, unless it is a thru hull below the waterline. In that case, I use 5200. 

aero3113

@Cableguy Greg I only put enough 4200 on so it won’t squish out. No 4200 is exposed to any UV.

Cableguy Greg

Did you crawl into the locker to get to the nuts? That looks tight under the shrink. It's almost time to let her breath some by cutting the wrap off. 

aero3113

Cableguy Greg said:

Did you crawl into the locker to get to the nuts? That looks tight under the shrink. It's almost time to let her breath some by cutting the wrap off. 

Yea, I’ve been scrunched in there working. I’ve been waiting to take the shrink wrap off, want to see if my marina will be open. We can’t put the boats in till the second weekend of May anyway.

Cableguy Greg

aero3113 said:

Cableguy Greg said:

Did you crawl into the locker to get to the nuts? That looks tight under the shrink. It's almost time to let her breath some by cutting the wrap off. 

Yea, I’ve been scrunched in there working. I’ve been waiting to take the shrink wrap off, want to see if my marina will be open. We can’t put the boats in till the second weekend of May anyway.

I took my cover off last weekend to find my leak. Now that I found it, I need to seal it up. Just need to find a helper to work with me to get it sealed. The admiral is less than willing at this time and I can't hold a lock nut inside the cabin and turn a screw from the deck at the same time. Hopefully I can con her in to helping for a hot minute. 

PickleRick

I have not gotten my Trump check(the dems added a good bit to that package)  but i did have some spare change to spend.  Maybe when the stimulus check arrives I'll get a magna grill and a charter fishing trip for the family when we get to visit the keys again.





The manifolds arrived today.

Dream_Inn

Cableguy Greg said: Just need to find a helper to work with me to get it sealed. The admiral is less than willing at this time and I can't hold a lock nut inside the cabin and turn a screw from the deck at the same time. Hopefully I can con her in to helping for a hot minute. 

Time to try for that second child!  Make it a boy!   I had my son tearing apart the lawn tractor yesterday!

Ian

Cableguy Greg said:

aero3113 said:

Cableguy Greg said:

Did you crawl into the locker to get to the nuts? That looks tight under the shrink. It's almost time to let her breath some by cutting the wrap off. 

Yea, I’ve been scrunched in there working. I’ve been waiting to take the shrink wrap off, want to see if my marina will be open. We can’t put the boats in till the second weekend of May anyway.

I took my cover off last weekend to find my leak. Now that I found it, I need to seal it up. Just need to find a helper to work with me to get it sealed. The admiral is less than willing at this time and I can't hold a lock nut inside the cabin and turn a screw from the deck at the same time. Hopefully I can con her in to helping for a hot minute. 

Don’t do it!, Get a buddy to help, you don’t have to live with him if he doesn’t follow your instructions properly and you yell at him. He’ll yell back, tell each other you are jerks, laugh and move on.

aero3113

I was able to seal and tighten my anchor pulpit bolts on my 242 by myself. I uses a pair of vice gripes on the nuts, when I turned the screw it turned the nut till the vice grips hit the hull and held it in place. Maybe you’ll get lucky and that will work for you @Cableguy Greg .

Cableguy Greg

aero3113 said:

I was able to seal and tighten my anchor pulpit bolts on my 242 by myself. I uses a pair of vice gripes on the nuts, when I turned the screw it turned the nut till the vice grips hit the hull and held it in place. Maybe you’ll get lucky and that will work for you @Cableguy Greg .

I am going to try this method first. I have done it in the past. This is just and odd place on the boat.

Cableguy Greg

I had a friend help me remove the screws holding the bow rail where my leak was at. I replaced the screws with longer ones and squished a good amount of 4000UV into the holes. Hopefully this fixes the leak so I can get my interior back together. 

aero3113

Nice @Cableguy Greg , I would say that would stop the leak!