1975 V-Mate II Restore

[bigredinohio]

Scribed and trimmed up so it fits better.


Scribing on the seat boxes. This will probably be the last thing I glass down after I re-rig the boat and right before I install carpet. I want to make sure the seats are where I want them.


Checking out the bucket seats in the boat.


My daughter was anxious to test them out with the aid of the steering wheel.

 

[bigredinohio]

Dry fitting the bench seat. I unfortunately made the seat rest a little too tall. To fix this, I will simply angle the seat itself to accomodate for the extra length.


A look at the angle.


Transom knees/bench seat supports installed.


Front piece installed.


My side seat supports are installed. They just need trimmed and the bench seat will be ready for paint.


Quarter profile. The only thing that might get glassed will be the front board. I'm running low on my epoxy and will wait until the end before I glass that in with 1708. The inside has already been glassed with 1708 and more than strong enough to do the job.


The front bulk board is finally installed. As you can tell, I've been playing around with gauge placement. Hopefully I will get this resolved before painting starts so I can get the holes drilled. I shouldn't be too far away with prepping for painting of the topside.

 

[Will30]

Looking good Mike . Its nice to finally see this thing getting closer to the finished product . You are just about there . Again fantastic job

 

[Viper 1]

Great Job

Great Job Mike. You are going to have a Really Nice Checkmate when You are Done. Enjoy and Everyone Have a Great Weekend. Sammie-Action Marine

 

[yellowfiero88]

Looking good Mike! I was wondering if you had given up on her... When your ready to bottom paint, I got the mix and a little info in my playmate resto, post 181. Also if you want, the offer still stands on the help!

 

[bigredinohio]

Thanks Brian. The bottom of the boat is fine with the VC Epoxy that I sprayed last year. I'm going to sand the sides and repaint them with Brightside with hopefully better results. I'll let you if I need some help when I start the painting phase.

 

[yellowfiero88]

For some reason, I thought you still had to bottom paint it. Your farther ahead than I thought!!! LMK on the topside, I will lend a hand there as well!

 

[JT Patroni]

Lookin GOOD

Mike, that is some real nice progress you are making now. I think the angle cut for the rear seat bottom will make it more comfortable to sit on. Even if you didn't plan for it, it was a good decission. I bet you can smell pouring gas into it already.

Glad to see you will be in the water this year. Great family fun close at hand.

Jim

 

[maagee79]

i love what u r doing here i stayed up all night lastnight reading ur thread. i have a friend that has this same boat that has been setting behind his barn for the past 2 yrs. im going to take a look at it tomorrow and see if i can tackle a project like yours. hopefully it doesnt need all those repairs now so i can play a little this summer but im not counting on it. i love all of the pictures it has given me a perspective. i was looking into the seacast for transom if needed. after doing what u have done would have went that route or done it the same way?
thanks agains for all ur post.

 

[bigredinohio]

Thanks for the kind words. I hope this thread gives you some useful info should you dive into a project...just find something worthy of such a task.

For this project, I would do the transom replacement the same with regards to taking the top off, removing the wood and inner fiberglass skin and starting from scratch. The one thing that I found out afterwards was just how much the transom bowed out prior to the new transom install. This boat sat for a long time with a motor on a bad transom. I really don't know how one would straighten everything using Seacast.

With that said, I am contemplating using Seacast on an old tri-hull boat that I have just so I don't have to pop that top off.

 

[maagee79]

thanks i hope things go well tomorrow. i dont believe i can go wrong all he wants is 200 just to get it out of his field an it has a 150 merc on it.

 

[bigredinohio]

I'm so pissed right now with the painting phase of this boat that I'm ready to chainsaw this POS in half and send it to the dump!

I honestly don't even know where to begin to ask for help.

 

[Will30]

Brian should be able to help you hes pretty good with the paint ...

 

[kalugs22]

thanks i hope things go well tomorrow. i dont believe i can go wrong all he wants is 200 just to get it out of his field an it has a 150 merc on it.

If you don't buy it...I WANT DIBS!!!

I'm already restoring 1 v-mate II why not another...

 

[maagee79]

I got it and I have replaced everything. I'm ready to paint also that's something I've been trying to figure out. Thinking about just taking to paint shop. But curious about the roll and tip. Trying to find more info about it having troubles and wondering if it looks cheap or looks nice or not. What r u planning on doing?

 

[JSmitty]

I got it and I have replaced everything. I'm ready to paint also that's something I've been trying to figure out. Thinking about just taking to paint shop. But curious about the roll and tip. Trying to find more info about it having troubles and wondering if it looks cheap or looks nice or not. What r u planning on doing?

See my First-timer's Follies - Paint post from last year:

One thing that is different from the post is that I repainted my wind screen area (twice) using a Gramercy ox hair brush (badger brushes aren't sold anymore ... what they advertise as badger is really dyed and chopped china bristle). That came out pretty good as long as I used about 30% thinner. It only required light wet sanding afterward.

The reason I repainted twice is because of tape bleed-through. First I tried auto masking tape. That seeped through the edge. Someone suggested Frog tape, but that only works on water-based paints. Then I tried Scotch Edge-Lock. That came out very good except for a couple of bleeds. So I ordered a pinstriping tape called Edge. That worked perfectly for what I needed, although it doesn't bend around curves.

If I had to do the whole boat over again ... I'd spray.

 

[kalugs22]

I got it and I have replaced everything. I'm ready to paint also that's something I've been trying to figure out. Thinking about just taking to paint shop. But curious about the roll and tip. Trying to find more info about it having troubles and wondering if it looks cheap or looks nice or not. What r u planning on doing?

Check out my resto thread. You can see how bad my gel coat was and with a little DA sanding then some wet sanding and a final buff it's going to look pretty damn good. It's definitely the worst condition of gel coat that I have brought back. I have the whole bow done now the DA really saves alot of time and work.

http://checkmate-boats.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=20975

 

[bigredinohio]

I sprayed two coats of primer on the boat and sanded between coats as what the can says. This past weekend, I sprayed Brightsides but it had a really bad orange peel that I've spent the past two day sanding out. Now I have areas where I've sanded back all the way down to the original gel. I haven't spoken with Brian yet but I've been told to up the thinner and/or increase air pressure. I was already at the 10% thinning ratio for what Brightsides recommends as max but I guess I need more. This absolutely sucks being a novice with this paint, at operating a spray gun, not to mention this is the third year of working on this boat that has yet to see water. I'm about to go the Wallyworld and buy some rollers and brushes to do the tip and roll but I fear the outcome probably won't be much better. So right now, I'm taking the weekend off, going to run a 5K & 10K race and start fresh next week and pray that I can still make the Cumberland deadline.

 

[yellowfiero88]

Don't worry Mike, I'll get you going!!

 

[JT Patroni]

Good help is hard to find, but it is there!

This is what this forum is all about, help from another Checkmate owner
when the help is needed.