hokeyhydro

When I paint aluminum I use a cleaner and "conversion" prep. Available at your nearest real deal auto paint store. I seem to recall the cleaner etched the aluminum a tad, and the conversion coating sometimes turn the AL a faint purple shade, depending on the alloy. Paint stuck after that. Did a 10' john boat and several outboard midsection units.

This is true. One of my boats came from the manufacturer with a snapped tight vinyl curtain over a rear compartment that was just the right size for a 6 gal portable outboard fuel tank which I used on long hauls to supplement the 20 gal on board tank. Solution: I removed the curtain. Tank in plain view, well ventilated, USCG inspection was good to go.

4-stroke storage. I believe a 4-stroke engine can not be stored laying down because of the oil problem. They can be tilted forward like when you raise the engine all the way up, and allowed to turn to one side or the other to the steering stops, but not placed on their side. Might be able to store them sort of flat on their nose. Check your owners manual . . .

Well, if it's your wedding I understand, but if not - RSVP regrets and haul tail for Mystic! There's a 50% chance you'll be able to attend their next wedding

How beefy is a BRS15 transom? A small outboard doesn't require a lot of beef. On my racing hydroplanes I built transoms 1 3/4" thick to accommodate the clamp brackets on the racing outboards, 15 c.i. to 20 c.i. and mid-30 hp. the motor board - thick part - was balsa cored to save weight. Boat speed mid 60s. I never had a transom break. If I mounted a small outboard bracket I'd go about 3/4" - 1" total with big ss fender washers under the bolts/nuts. I would also beef up any nearby connections, transom to bottom, side, and deck but I wouldn't go nuts with huge timbers, just double the existing glue area. The actual small motor board on the bracket may have to be thicker for the clamps, and safety tie the clamps after cranked down tight. If the clamp handles have holes in the end, and they usually do, a large cable tie (zip tie) will do.

build your own sail. Sailrite may even have a kit sai for your boat. If not, just get the sail plan from B&B, a book like Marino's "Sailmakers Apprentice", order up the material (Sailrite or Duckworks), score a good used sewing machine (mine is a Snger portable $35 USD), and stick & sew! Jib I built is about 75 sq ft, main about 100 sq ft. Build your own mast as well. My mast is a 22' birdsmouth construction.

Be nice to know the tide schedule and rise & fall. I neglected that detail once and woke up at dawn to a boat high & dry on the beach. EEK! Anchor on beach - I bury the beach anchor in the sand to prevent the ol' midnight stroll feet carnage similar to "bedroom fracture." If I set the boat off the beach to prevent grounding when the tide recedes I'll set an offshore anchor and a beach anchor with the boat floating free of the beach. This may involve wading or a means to let the offshore line free while you drag the onshore line to retrieve the boat.

Scraping. Look up "cabinet scrapers" to get an idea. I use Red Devil scrapers and an 8" fine mill file to keep the scraper edge sharp. You can scrape all the runs and ripples off while the epoxy is set up but still green, as in you can dent it with your fingernail. Even after the epoxy is cured hard a scraper is the best and fastest way to get the surface level. Keep the mill file handy and dress the scraper edge every few minutes. You want a "burr" feel on the edge - fingertip test.

I have a semi-flexible star shaped fiberglass sandpaper backer for a 10" rotary angle grinder. Got it at an auto body paint shop. Even with a honking 10" tool one can feather and fair with the star shaped backer. It also "floats", as in can spin a little relative to the drive arbor. But near the end - gotta use a longboard and sweat equity.

I did that. By adjusting the height of the router bit I made staves that had no overhang. The inside and outside corners were perfectly mated when glued up. I did not round the mast, just knocked the sharp corner edge off with a plane.

Right, Tom, the old Hot Rod B and Sidewinder B are a tad faster than a Mercury 20H which is no longer used in Stock class B, and rarely seen in Modified. I love the boat building contest. Last year as a spectator I prowled the display boats and then parked on a bench for an hour or more to watch the wood shavings fly. I think a TV crew should film the contest. 4 hours fits the sports event TV sports frame, and the event would be easy to edit down to a couple hours or even one hour to make a super cable TV show! Might be me, but I would rather watch that than the usual cable drivel that sends me fleeing to the workshop. P.S. I won! Best of Show in Row category = "Missy" my 9' cedar strip dinghy.

All projects passed inspection and was superb workmanship! By the way what was the name of the engine on the hyroplane? Sidewinder. Manufactured by Racing Outboards LLC. It is a redesigned American Hot Rod engine which was a rotary valve induction 2-stroke and capable of 9,000+ RPM. The Sidewinder is reed valve induction, less RPM but easier to start, and has the Lectron carburetor mounted on the side of of the crankcase - the reason for the name "Sidewinder." The Sidewinder is available in several displacements. The one on the hydro was 20 c.i. and is raced in the BSH and 20ssH classes. For more info > http://www.apba-racing.com/index.html

Yes indeed! I was there with three boats. My cedar strip dink, a 14' beach cat I built for my daughter, and my friend rounded out our eclectic display with a racing outboard hydroplane, BSH class. Speed range for the three boats, about 2 knots for the dink to 67 MPH for the hydro. We were in the back corner of the Museum parking lot under a nice shade tree - very comfortable. Erecting and taking down the 22' cat mast was a bit tricky since it was kind of stuck up through the tree branches, but we managed. So Tom Lathrop was one of the crew with clipboards? First clipboard lady asked us where our numbers were. Darling Daughter replies, "Oh, we haven't sent on the state registration yet." Nonono, sez the clipboard lady your boat show entry number. My bad, I was so busy getting the boats set up I hadn't opened the manila envelope.

The Commonwealth of Virginia does the Trooper, County Police, or County Sheriff inspection on homebuilts, but here in NC I just fill out a registration form, get my sig notarized, and send `er in. With a stack of cash, of course :shock:

I use the TechiePhone. The WEST techie is very helpful, and the 3M techie as well. Other techies - Sailrite, and Duckworks. Gotta question, call or email and help is there.

The upside of a pure white finish is you can develop a full tan! Yep, tan under your earlobes and any other bare places where the sun don't usually shine. But white is major glare, hard on the eyes. I would go for an off-white finish. I would not go with sand. You will create sandpaper, and my personal experience with such finishes is they quickly remove foot callus and work on skin. If you sail hard and wind up taking a few tumbles or four-legged scrambles you could then drop in at your local biker bar and share war stories with a biker who didn't stay on the steed and wound up with Road Rash. I reckon you would have to call your wounds Deck Rash. My daughter likes a wood finish (bright) so I'll varnish the beach cat I'm building her. Beach cats are a wet ride so it should stay cool enough, and if the deck proves slippery I'll pop in the surf board shop and get whatever wax boarders use to keep their feet planted.

Odd - that no cleaning solvent info is offered by the paint manufacturer. Might want to call their *help* line. I have sprayed a variety of catalyzed auto finishes and never had a problem gun cleaning with the solvent which was also used to thin the mix to the correct spray viscosity. (Whan cup) And many moons ago I sprayed gel coat (polyester resin). The gun cleaner was acetone. There was always a bit of residue left. About every couple weeks of daily spray use I would take the gun apart, stick it in a large can with a couple inches of acetone on the bottom, slap a lid on it and let `er fume for a day or so. Ate all the residue off the gun parts - reassemble, back in production.

Anyone building a PJ 14? Dix used a slotted PVC tube on the mast for a sail slide. Cool. What I would like to know is what Dix used to glue it on and fair it in. I have all the WEST filler additives and I'm ready to mix to fair in my PVC tube sail slide.

Lead shot is hard to find, even down here in camo gear, gun toting Carolina coast. I had to order a bag of shot. Small shot that packs tighter than big stuff. I think is #9, but back in the day when we used shot/epoxy to weight R/C model sailboats we could get #12 and even #15. We also would pour lead - melted wheel weights - directly into the fiberglass hull or keel shell. To keep the polyester from scorching and/or crazing we would immerse the hull in water. Since the EC-12 hull and all the 36/600 and 50/800 keel shells were center seamed I would seal the seam with a couple layers of well rubbed down masking tape. That worked most of the time. The couple times it didn't was very exciting! One water/lead explosion from a tall skinny 50/800 keel shell peppered the garage ceiling with little balls of lead. It was a nice shot pattern, just like someone had planted the butt of a 12 ga. sawed-off on the floor and pulled the trigger.

I must be missing something RE mast base drain tube. It is a tube to drain water away - got that. At zero water pressure - check. Yet I'm reading descriptions of folks slobbering filled epoxy and even epoxy/fiberglass over the tubes. ??? Is there some theory that water molecules get their undies in a bunch when be drained away and try to fight their their way out the tube? It's a simple drain tube - connect it, strap her down with a couple cable ties = done.

The cup is the problem - way to organized. Sharpen a dozen pencils and go to work. Leave pencil at site of that task, move on to another task, leave pencil. Soon you will be able to find a pencil within arms reach no matter where you are in the shop!

Sure, you can do that. What you will wind up with is a nice tube with no useful utility that I can think of. The carbon Chinese sock offers very little stiffness in such a form. You are most likely right, Tom. I've never used carbon sock tube, just strips. And then there would be the problem, either material, of a BLACK mast, and a toasty sun heating that bugger up and possibly degrading the epoxy. Reckon one could paint it white, or . . . Back in the day of airplanes made of sticks and fabric, the prime coat on the fabric to prevent sun damage was aluminum paint. Yes, even colored paint is translucent, but the aluminum paint did a great job of keeping the underlying material in the dark. Aluminum paint base, and then the color of your choice. Sounds like work. I'll stick to a wood only mast. I have two birdsmouth spars built for the Cat - a 22' mast, and a 7'+ boom. finish: 2 coats of 105/207 WEST and several coats of spar varnish. If the Carolina sun starts to eat the finish I'll paint it.

Hmmm . . . Carbon is very strong. Not sure what size mast you want, but for a small sailboat you could shape blue foam to the size, wrap that sucker in carbon, maybe use the Chinese Finger Trap style carbon tube socks, let `er cure, and in a safer no smoking zone, dribble gasoline inside which will dissolve the foam. If you do birdsmouth the wood weight remains. But I guess you could do an ultra thin-wall birdsmouth core.

Shop space? Once upon a time I built a 9 1/2' hydroplane in my living room - told the curious neighbors it was an artsy coffee table. The wife was very understanding - the boat was for our son. And our racing crew of about 3 folks built a half dozen hydroplanes in less than three weeks. But we cheated. Used an air stapler to tack it together while the epoxy cured. And we worked under the "HokeyHydro" factory motto: Hammer to fit. File to shape. Paint to hide. How much can you pre-assemble outside of your temporary shop space?

Yep, all the tools mentioned above are sweet, especially "tuned" hand planes. If you have a table saw (mine is a Bosch 10") you can rip up lumber to specific sizes which is cool. The one tool a dearly like is my planer. It is an old - I'm talking decades here - Ryobi AP-10 planer.