1980 HydroStream Vamp resto-mod

All set, and they have a nice smooth finish to them too thanks to the tinfoil. With some of the extra thickened resin, I was able to patch a large hole that was in the top of the hull the last guy put the antenna for his radio in. I still need to taper it and put some filler to make sure I dont end up with a perfect circle crack in my gelcoat.

Tomorrow I probably spend the whole time grinding and sanding the hull, I think I will be focusing on getting the seems on the rear caps flat and finished up. Then move on to cleaning up the backside of the transom where I patched some other holes.

This weekend I plan to pull the boat out with the help of my son. Then get the remaining bit of the top hull sanded and blocked out as well as finishing getting the lounger area up front all sanded out and cleaned up. There are a couple more screw holes in the top hull I need to patch up, but I need to figure out which ones I need to keep and which ones I want to plug. Some of the holes in the lounger area are for snaps that keep the front cushions from flying away.

Once the thing is all patched and blocked smooth I will go over the boat very carefully and mark out anything I still need to fix.

One thing I am debating on doing it gel coating the entire top half (at the hull seam) before starting work on the bottom half of the hull. Once I gelcoat, glitter and clear the top, I can just tape and plastic wrap the top to keep the dust out.
The bottom needs some work, but not nearly as much as the top did. I know of 2 JB weld spots that I need to grind out and patch, and there are a couple of impact spots with cracking gelcoat that need to be sanded out.

I also still dont know if I want to just gelcoat the bottom half black or if I want to glitter the the bottom also. Im leaning more to just black and save about $300 in material costs for the clear and glitter.


Another thing I need to do is look into the trailer and figure out what parts I need to get for it. I know I need a winch, winch tower, all new rollers, new bunks, wiring, lights and tires. Other things I would like to get is a new axle, bearings, leafs, wheels, and a full repaint. But I need the first couple of things first so I can bring the boat up to the shop to get the transom drilled.

 

One side filled and blocked out. Need to build up a little more filler on some edges to get a good transition, but its looking pretty good.

 

Next layer put down, going to block it out after work and it should be good to go.

 

All smoothed out and clean, I put a straight edge along it and its perfectly inline with the rest of the fiberglass. Couple of small touch up spots needed, but I will hit those when I mix up some more to fix the remaining holes in the gunnels.
I filled 6 of the 8 holes on the top of the back caps, the 2 I left open will be the rear mounting holes for the cleats.

 

Is that the Kitty Hair filler?

 

Yep. Generally you dont use this stuff as a final coat as its pretty rough, but gelcoat is so thick it fills in the sanding marks and imperfections.

 

Marine grade finishing filler has been ordered along with another gallon of resin. The resin is for misc small repairs that I might need to do, but really I am pretty much done with all the fiberglass work.

The marine grade filler I am going to use in the splashwell. Sanding such a large surface flat will end up with me taking off more material than im comfortable with for a structural area, so I will be building it up a little bit with filler, then sanding it back down with the block. Also fiberglass doesnt sand very fast, but this filler is designed to sand faster. The kitty hair would work in this spot too, but kitty hair doesnt sand the best, and such a large flat area would take forever to sand with kitty hair.

Next week I will be picking up 2 gallons of black gelcoat with wax. The waxed gelcoat dries to a hard finish so it can be sanded. Gelcoating the top half before my final gelcoat job is being done so I can block the surface one more time and to seal in all the work I have done on the topside while I start on the bottom side.

 

First layer down on the splash well. Going to let it cure, sand it down then do the sides going up the splash well. Then sand the sides and go over the whole thing one more time with a thin layer to fill any pinholes and low spots.

 

Decided to pull the sides up while its still a little wet, so lots of sanding due soon when this cures hard.

 

So due to the amount of block sanding I need to do, I have decided to order a air powered block sander.... Should be here next week and I can take this down real fast.

 

We are men - the solution is always to buy more tools.

 

Damn right! I ended up with so many new tools and duplicates of tool that I already have just from this job. Like angle grinders... I had a 6 inch, but I needed a 4 inch, then the wire was getting annoying on the 4 inch so I got a battery one.

This new sander will have only one other use and thats for sheetrock, after all my sheetrocking is done though, its going into the tool box to never get used again

 

...or for next winters boat project.


You have busted @$$ on this one, I know it has been a lot of work but I bet it passed the time too.

 

Funny you say that, I was looking at other boats to restore. I want to find something with good resale that I can flip for a profit, the boat market is trash right now, so I could get something pretty cheap and hope the market rebounds.

 

First application has been sanded smooth. Not a perfect flat, but I have built up the center enough that I can apply another layer to level it out.
The edges were the glass is showing are where I have chop mat under the 1808 fiberglass, so its slightly thicker there than the rest of the splash well.

 

Ordered sandpaper for the new air powered sander, should be here next week.

Also ordered some more grounding blocks so I can figure out my wiring.

Right now I have the following for power
Starting battery -
- engine
- tilt/trim
- gauges
- bilge
Aux battery -
- Radio
- nav lights
- LED mood lights
- 12v ports (a couple of them placed around the boat)

I have -
- ANL blocks for the main power lines x2
- 4 blade fuse block
- 6 blade fuse block
- 10 pole ground
- 4 post ground x2

Grounds will be tied together for both batteries to allow easier grounding, power will be separated into 2 systems, one for each battery.

I think I am going to start mocking up wire harnesses for each system and label them. Will make setting it all up when its ready a snap. But I should probably figure out where I can mount all these fuse boxes first.
The aux system will have its fuse box and ground bar up under the dash by the steering. This will allow me to run just a single power and ground cable from the back up front to power everything there.
The starting battery will end up with the 4 blade fuse box to run the gauges and bilge with 2 extra spots, motor and tilt/trim will be right to the anl fuses as they draw a fair amount of current. I might need to add another small ground block to the rear to support the 4 blade fuse box.

Im trying to avoid having tons of wires running into each battery like every boat I ever see... it ends up being a wiring nightmare when you need to troubleshoot something or isolate a system. Most of the boats I have worked on there are always a couple wires just hanging out in the battery box... no one knows what they hook up to. So my goal is that each battery will just have 2 wires that run to a distribution panel and all systems will connect to these panels.

 

I was not super happy with my patch job at the bottom of the stairs, I felt thats a spot the kids are going to be jumping on a little more than the rest. So I ground out the filler and reinforced it with 5 layers of chop and a layer of 1808. Just need to let the resin cure and I can fill it again and block it flat, Im not too concerned about getting it perfectly flat as there will be carpet over it, but I would like it halfway decent.
In total there are like 15 layers of fiberglass along with 1/2 inch marine ply there... That spot is not way over built now.

 

All filled, this feels much better. Just need to let it cure and I can block it all down.

 

Late last night I spent some time blocking the base of the stairs. Im happy with them now.
But, while there I decided I should start grinding out holes that I am going to fill. So, with the dremel and a little drum bit I started grinding screw holes, I have to finish out the screw holes that are in the stairs today. Not going to fill any of the holes until I can sand the old resin off the whole front end, the filler will bond to the old resin, but the old resin is not bonded well to the hull. So its got to go before I can put the filler down.
So big day of sanding today. Right side of the front end should be pretty easy, left side has all that silicone glue that needs to come off first, and anyone who has removed silicone glue from fiberglass knows its a pain in the ass.

 

Well that was a pain in the ass... spent 2 hours sanding. I got 70% of the dash done, blocked the top and side of the gunnels, finished removing the rivets in the front that held the trim clips on, and started removing the silicone glue from the lounge seats. Im just using a drill with a wire cone brush, seems to be working well but its hell on my wrists.