1980 Bedouin open bow Restore

Hello y'all.....

I am new here to the forum and have been on here for a few months now getting a lot of great ideas from everyone. I recently picked up a 1980 Bedouin 19ft open bow ski boat and wanted to share my restore (well, repaint that is) with everyone on the forum.

I picked this boat up from a client of mine. I am a residential and commercial paint contractor and we did some trade work. Having never painted a boat before I was skeptical about doing it myself. I took it to a guy to get a bid and was quoted $1,600 to do just the hull. More than what I wanted to spend on it. So I took to Google and Youtube Was able to find a lot of great videos and information on painting the boat myself and sooooo I went to work.

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Here is the boat when I got it......

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More before pics

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Before I painted the outside I decided to start with a few simple things on the inside...mainly the cushions. I read a lof of threads on here where guys had used the spray can vinyl paint. So I went to Autozone and bought a couple cans of white and red and decided to give it a try. $50 worth of spray cans was a lot better than $400-500 to have things reupholstered.

I used the Dupi-color vinyl and fabric spray cans. It took 3-4 coats to get everything to cover but turned out awesome. Gave the cushions about a week to dry....walked on them, sat and moved around on them and no scratches, paint removal etc. I like this stuff cuz it's more of a dye than a paint. So it dyes the fabric instead of leaving a film like paint normally does.

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Next came painting the boat.....

I was really nervous about this. I didn't know if I wanted to mask it all off and spray it or roll it out and back brush it. I spent many a hours on youtube, Jamestown Distributors watching videos. Ultimately I decided that I was going to roll it and tip it off. Being a paint contractor for the past 13 yrs I wasn't concerned about either method.

My next thing was to find what paint I wanted. I don't know anything about boat paints. Give me some latex or alkyd and I can talk your ear off. Haha. My boat will always be trailered and maybe spend 6-10 hrs in the water each time we go living here in Utah. I decided to use a topside paint for the bottom. I didn't need an anti-fouling paint or anything like that. I read that a couple other guys had used topside for the hull and it worked great for many years.

I went to Jamestown Distributors and went thru all their paints....Interlux, Petit, etc. Ended up going with Petit Easypoxy 1 part Urethane topside paint.

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Bought an orbital sander and went to work on sanding the whole boat. Used 100 grit to do everything. Decided on 100 grit cuz the boat had been painted before and there were a lot of paint chips, dings, etc. So I wanted a bit heavier grit to get down thru everything.

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Bought 4" black foam rollers from Sherwin Williams....I use these a lot for painting oil-base paints and they always leave everything looking like glass. Buying the black foam rollers is a must! Put the 1st coat of the Petit paint on and then tipped it off with a super soft oil brush. I could not believe how it laid out like glass. I was super impressed with how it turned out...and that was just the 1st coat.




This is after the 2nd coat. Couldn't have been more happy with how this paint turned out. Laid out like glass and kept a super gloss sheen.

Next I wanted to add some style to the boat and decided to paint some black stripes on each side.

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For the stripes I had a nice guide on the body to follow to do them.....but once I got to the end I had to kind of eyeball it to get the point. Not bad for a painted eh?!

Added 1 more detail on the back. Added a white section where I was going to put some lettering.

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Next came the topside....sanding, bondo and painting.

Yeah! My decals and lettering finally came....Me and the Mrs. came up with naming her "The Lady Bug." Thought of this since the colors were red, black and white, and also cuz we thought the kids would like it.

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Finally got to take her home and surprise the kids!!

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I think the kids approve :happy:

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One last thing....even built a swim platform and now just have to attach it. It's 6' by 2' and all in cedar. Bought all the wood, Screws (I screwed it all from the bottom so you wouldn't see screws on topside) and spar varnish from Home Depot all for a cost of $150. Went with Cedar wood cuz it's easy, there's lots of it, I love the look of cedar, and it's inexpensive. Spent another $60 on ebay for the swim ladder and I bolted it to the platform. Looks and works great! Now I just need to some some type of brackets with a release design system so I can put it on and take it off when I want to put a trolling motor on the back....I would say total cost for the swim platform will be about $325-350. A lot cheaper than $800-1,200 for a fiberglass one. Even used teak ones on Ebay were $400-500. No thank you!

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Great job the boat came up very nicely! Did you also paint/die the white vinyl?Are you planning on coating the paint with anything to prevent oxidization and longevity? As for the swim platform i was looking into doing one, what kind of fittings are you thinking of using to attach it?

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Hey Rick,

Yes I did use the Dupi-Color spray paint to do the white and red seats in the back as well. The 2 fold down seats are only a couple of years old and in perfect condition so I didn't want to mess with those........being a paint contractor I've always learned one of the grrat things about painting is that you can always repaint something. You don't like the color, repaint it. If it looks old and dingy, repaint it...hahaha. Easier said than done for some I guess.

As for the swim platform I haven't decided on how to attach it. I want something that gives me the ability to put the platform on and off at my leisure. The back of the boat is fitted to attach a platform, which I have, to fit a trolling motor on for fishing. If I attach the swim deck permanetly then I wont be able to puttng the trolling motor on.

I've seen some bracket systems that attach to the transom and then the supports are attached to the deck and you just slide the deck supports in the brackets. The only problem I have is the top of the transom is not flat. It is curved and so I may have to find out about getting some brackets specially made.

Does anyone have any ideas?? The other thought is get some old tubular supports and find a way to put the troll motor on the bow.