1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

[chriscraft254]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

Tremendous improvement with all that bottom paint off.

Its not all off, but its getting there. can't wait to take the final pics after it is all off and wet sanded and shined up. Got a long way to go though.

 

[GT1000000]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

Although, I can say, probably not more than 100 rounds through all of them. To busy working on the boat to burn money at the range, lol

Just wait and see how nice they start to work when you get them broken in...not always, but 300-500 rounds is just about right, they start to get silky smooth...I have two excuses for burnin through that much ammo...
1- I roll my own
2- I am an assistant tactical firearms instructor and an NRA Range Officer as a part-time hobby, when I'm not doing a bazillion other things...hehehe:facepalm:

 

[chriscraft254]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

Just wait and see how nice they start to work when you get them broken in...not always, but 300-500 rounds is just about right, they start to get silky smooth...I have two excuses for burnin through that much ammo...
1- I roll my own
2- I am an assistant tactical firearms instructor and an NRA Range Officer as a part-time hobby, when I'm not doing a bazillion other things...hehehe:facepalm:

Yeah, I know they need to be shot more. I"m just a former Marine that has to have some play toys.lol There just part of who I am. I hope to never have to use one again for there main purpose. Just like to know I have an option.

Thats awesome that you have that as a hobby. I would think you get to see the best of the best as far as firearms go. I can't beleive some of stuff thats out there now. i wouldn't even know where to start if I wanted to get into a tactical rifle these days.

 

[GT1000000]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

Believe it or not, the same one you used as a Marine and me as an Airhead S.P.
The old faithful AR-15 or if you want a little more ooomph...the AR-10
Just as reliable as an AK or a SIG or most anything else out there you could think of, and yet the most Customizable of them all, and pretty darn accurate, too...plus you can get into a basic one for around 500-600 bucks New, and tweak it to your hearts content later on as you find what you want to add to it...

 

[chriscraft254]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

Believe it or not, the same one you used as a Marine and me as an Airhead S.P.
The old faithful AR-15 or if you want a little more ooomph...the AR-10
Just as reliable as an AK or a SIG or most anything else out there you could think of, and yet the most Customizable of them all, and pretty darn accurate, too...plus you can get into a basic one for around 500-600 bucks New, and tweak it to your hearts content later on as you find what you want to add to it...

Thanks man, I will probably pick one up once I am done with this boat refurb which I am hoping will be in the spring/summer. Would like to start hitting long range targets again. The accessories are really what I was talking about, they have come a long way since I was deployed.

 

[chriscraft254]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

The scraper to the right in the photo is the one I have had best luck with, but I have tried the entire arsenal.

This is a good representation of what I am left with to wet sand after scraping. I am still feeling very lucky, looks like the bottom is going to come off really easy. This was about 15 minutes worth of scraping when I got home today.

This is the other side bottom, you can see where I ran the scraper up the middle of it. This took about 2 minutes.

Wet sanding will still take some time but my god thankyou.

 

[chriscraft254]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

Can't let a little bit of flurries and the dark stop me. I got out there after work tonight and started to 320 grit the stern where I had scraped off the paint underneath. Got a couple knicks back there to take care of, but nothing major.Need to go get some more wet sand paper tmrw, the stuff wears out pretty quick. Should be ale to get mst of the bottome on one side stripped off this weekend.

Anyway, her are the pics.

 

[GT1000000]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

Looking sweet CC

 

[chriscraft254]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

Looking sweet CC

Thankyou sir! When are our smileys and avatars gonna be back. There IT guys must be pulling there hair out.

 

[chriscraft254]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

pretty productive half a day today. Focused on just scraping as much as I could on the port side bottom. All the bottom paint on that side other than whats under the rollers is removed. Scraped right off down to gel.

Tomarrow, I hope to have all the bottom paint removed!

After that it will just be wet sanding for a while.

pics, hard to get pics of the whole bottom,lol

 

[chriscraft254]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

Had to add this to my thread here. I am on the fence on a project I am considering. Here is the thread link. http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=532232

Any opinions appreciated.

 

[chriscraft254]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

The starboard side is kicking my butt. shoulders and arms have had enough, but I kept on trucking.

Not completely scraped off, but getting closer. Should be onto wet sanding her soon. Found a couple more repairs that need to be done, but again nothing major.

Starboard bottom pics

 

[chriscraft254]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

Got about an hour to play around today with the wet sanding before it got dark on me. Clean up the driveway a bit to. What a mess I had. I hit the starboard bow area again and the chines. Every little bit gets me one step closer.

 

[GT1000000]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

I know when this baby is in the water, you won't be able to see all the hard work you have put into getting the bottom looking this AWESOME, but it sure does make it look pretty when it is out of the water...kinda like a bigger boat, I don't know, whatever it is, it definitely is looking GRRRRRR-8...
Inspiring stuff, man...keep up the fine work.

 

[chriscraft254]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

I know when this baby is in the water, you won't be able to see all the hard work you have put into getting the bottom looking this AWESOME, but it sure does make it look pretty when it is out of the water...kinda like a bigger boat, I don't know, whatever it is, it definitely is looking GRRRRRR-8...
Inspiring stuff, man...keep up the fine work.

Thankyou sir, I know what you mean, I like seeing the chines on a boat, couldn't be happier with the way it has gone so far. I hope to see a improvement in speed by a mph or more. Also, the paint I took off so far was atleast 50 Lbs. Add a little to the engine cover, gain a little back on the bottom of the boat.

Can't wait to be done with the wet sanding and on to polishing. To bad I have to work this week, suppose to be back in the 50s again here.

 

[chriscraft254]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

Well, here is the next project. Adding teak trim and rgb lights to the wa area. Here is what I have going. I first made a sample piece to get the profile I wanted.

The rgb lights will install under the trim piece facing downward to light up the walkway. They will be completely hidden. The teak trim will be varnished to match the rest of the teak.

This is the profile end and the lights set right in there. The pofile will be cleaned up and be deeper so the lights can not be seen at all and they will shine the light straight down the gunnel wall.

 

[Friscoboater]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

I got tired just looking at all the scraping you have done. Nice work

 

[bear_69cuda]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

Hey CC254,

Great work getting that bottom paint off! She's gonna be super beautiful in and out of the water!

Love all the teak trim! Fantastic boat!

 

[chriscraft254]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

As posted earlier, I got lucky on some teak off craiglist very cheap. I am using some of that for this project. Each side will get 4 pieces, 1 1/2 inches wide by 3/4 thick but chanfered to match the profile of the raised rib around the gunnel.

This was the first piece to be sacrificed for the project. These were actually seats for a very old starcraft from like 1970. Haha

Ripped down.

 

[chriscraft254]

Re: 1990 Chris Craft 254 Seahawk ( Refurb and upgrades)

Failed to get pics of the moldings made up, but here is some pics of it installed.

Used a countersink bit every 6 from center of each piece. I put 2 screws at each end where the joints come together, 4 inches from each end and 1 1/2 apart.. This should not allow for any splits in the future. It also is helping me bend and twist this trim into shape for the curve.

You can see the screw pattern in this pic.

Tapered the end by the steps so it deadends into the angle.

Then install a couple mor pieces, bending it and twisting as needed. Drill one srcew hole and installed one screw at a time as I worked my way forward. These were all very straight when I started.