Re: 1965 Crosby Sea Sled restoration (present for wife, need advice, with VIDEO)
Thread necromancy time! Bringing this thread back from the dead...
My work on the little boat has been stalled. I bought a book on fiberglass repair and watched a lot of Youtube videos, and studied i386's thread and his picture album, and got rather overwhelved.
I wound up taking the boat to a guy that works out of his house. Retired kindly old fellow. He tapped away on the hull with his multitool, and had lots of valuable insight. Yes, the pretty blue color is the gelcoat and the ugly brown is the fiberglass, and the ugly yellow in between is probably a primer to keep the pretty blue gelcoat a nice light color. He pointed to a bit of delamination, but stated that it oculd be fixed without disassembling the craft like i386 did. He pointed to a place on the hull that was either an unsufficiently sanded patch or some sort of damage. He also pointed out some other flaws that were caused by voids during the construction process that were not structurully significant, and could be faired out. He prounounced the little boat sound, but explained in detail why it didn't make economic sense to re-do the boat. He pointed out all the little cracks and crevices that needed to be sanded and smoothed and faired out, representing many MANY hours of work. The materials were no big deal, just a few hundred dollars worht of paint and supplies. But at any halfway reasonable labor rate, the number of hours would wind up costing a few thousand dollars. He pointed out that if this had been my father's fishing boat or had been in the family and had sentimental value, it might make sense. But for the cost of having another person fix it up, I could go out and BUY a complete pretty fishing boat, secondhand, already set up the way I wanted it. And this was a 400 dollar hull and trailer that I only just bought.
He was so kind and patient and really laid it out there and was able to explain things in a way that the book and Youtube videos can't. I offered to pay him for the 45 minutes he spent with me, but he refused.
I cam back to the house, defeated. My wife swears that she likes the boat just fine the way it is, and that it doesn't have to be pretty.
I've already got a sander and plenty of sandpaper, so she shouldn't mind me attempting to sand off the ugly paint that's on top of the gelcoat then. It will only improve the looks of the boat, I think.
AutoZone sells six inch disks in the various ranges I need, as well as a sander/polisher for for 90 bucks. But I see Harbor Freight sells another size, Grainger has other sizes... I'm worried about not being able to get the right disks.
