'78 Hydra Sport 168vee Restore Project

[bbodin]

Re: '78 Hydra Sport 168vee Restore Project

I gonna post some updated pics tomorrow. Many have been asking for them. I'm now down to cleaning up the sides of the hull so I can Tie the bottom glass to the sides.
I'm now gonna have to shop for some wood for the stringers and the transom. Shouldn't be hard to find some good stuff here. I'm really wanting to stay away from pressure treated stuff. It is just sooo heavy and I don't think it will take fiberglass well. I really don't want my new glass from delaminating from my wood after all of this work. It would be a disaster on a transom!

Also, when ginding down some of the old no-good plywood toward the bow of the boat ( I'll post a pic tomorrow ) the very bottom of the boat at the keel was about one solid inch of pure fiberglass resin - no glass. Seems kinda fragile to me. So I had to grind it all out, which left a few holes in the bottom since there were places there where the gelcoat was rubbed off. More fixing to do. I'll have to build that up with an Oops peanut butter mix. That will leave a good level place to put my center stinger.
All that pure resin with nothing in it seems to me that water could be wicking thru there. Very brittle as well. I'm surely going to put a keel saver there when I'm done with this project. We do alot of beaching slightly at the river on sand bars so the kids can swim. The keel needs the extra protection.

 

[bbodin]

Re: '78 Hydra Sport 168vee Restore Project

I did some of the last grinding on the hull. There is only one spot left and that is the center stringer fiberglass. The stringer was rotten and totally missing at that point. I just left it cause it's simple to cut out and it still supplies a little support to the bow.
I'll post three picks.
The first one is the spot in the keel that I mentioned earlier where there was just a couple of inches of solid resin with no glass or anything. I had to cut that out. I was NOT gonna leave it.
The next two photos are of the hull. You can see in the center where i've laid my last piece of glass so far. It's about half way. There is also a hole visible in the middle where that was a large bubble that ran all the was thru the glass layers and into the gell coat.
Now I'm out of money so I'll have to wait to get some more resin ordered. I've got plenty of glass for now though just no resin.

 

[bbodin]

Re: '78 Hydra Sport 168vee Restore Project

Okay, I've got that spot in the very bottom of the hull repaired. I laid down two layers of csm then a layer of cloth tape then two more layers of csm. That built it up to the proper level as the rest. I just did not want a large spot of resin or even a peanut butter mix.
Got the rest of the hull cleaned up as well as the sides.
Now I'm at another stand still till I can get some more cloth. I got about 30 feet of csm.

 

[bbodin]

Re: '78 Hydra Sport 168vee Restore Project

I got a shipment of cloth in today and 5 gallons of resin. Bought some acetone as well. So tomorrow I'll have an all day marathon of
glassing. Can't wait. I really like laying glass but I hate grinding. Sanding with my sander is not so bad cause I can connect my shop vac to it to keep down the dust. Grinding gets it everwhere! If I had more time I would come up with a system to all but eliminate that but I want to be ready to fish by late winter/early spring.
I was on an Ambulance call this morning around 0230 and three bass boats passed by. Man those guys were nuts! 30 degrees outside at that time. Not me buddy!