i aint told yall bout the bad news i got th other day..
my source for industrial resin has dried up.
fortunately i can still get the high quality cloth i love so much , but no more 5 gallon buckets of lay up resin for 35$, im payin $18 a gallon from a retailer now like anybody else. gelcoat used to cost me 40$ for a 5 gallon bucket , and that has also dried up an blown away :cry:
after talkin on here with Justin bout the weight of my boats- an then the resin trippling in cost - i got seriously motivated to try an make a lighter boat with the same lamination schedule , by stretching my resin as far as possible and using automotive paint for a finish and axing the gelcoat.
i broke out the groover roller and put alot of work into stretching my resin out. i mixed a quart at a time instead of a gallon, and worked it over and over with the groover until i had the cloth completely saturated and translucent , yet super lean. the lay up that used to take me an hour and a half , took three hours. i even soaked up excess resin with throw away shop rags when finishing the lay up -instead of just spreading it out evenly.
i rolled out fiberglass resin into the mold for the initial skin , instead of spraying gelcoat like before. i was a lil nervous bout this whem i made my pull - but she came out nice and glossy and looking just right. i used a buffing wheel and some rubbing compound to take the gloss off the surface before spraying her down with some OD green paint on the outside , and some flat white on the inside. i drug the boat acros the yard to the lake for its first wetting , and there werent any places where paint had peeled or scratched off . out on the water i stood up in it and bounced a bit , she showed all the strength of her resin rich gelcoated siblings.
so far so good, time for the weigh in...
when resin an gelcoat was cheap as dirt , these boats weighed in at 50 - 55 lbs with the bench seat in em. when resin was so cheap , i didnt really pay attention to how much i used - just concentrated on getting everything soaked down real good. this time around , near as i could figure, i cut my resin use by bout a third with all the extra attention and labor. considering that, and completely eliminating gelcoat, she felt somewhat lighter and i was sure i dropped a good 5 lbs atleast...
fellas, she weighs in at just over 40 lbs
:shock: :shock:
have to add another 2 or 3 hours labor for doing that lay up and prepping for the paint job- but its cheaper to build , just as strong - and damn near 15 lbs lighter. unreal... i'll never use gelcoat on anything ever again. those groover rollers are really something else. they gotta be worth their weight in gold for doing laminations. no way i could have gotten results like this without one. i am one very happy camper ~ allen
my source for industrial resin has dried up.
fortunately i can still get the high quality cloth i love so much , but no more 5 gallon buckets of lay up resin for 35$, im payin $18 a gallon from a retailer now like anybody else. gelcoat used to cost me 40$ for a 5 gallon bucket , and that has also dried up an blown away :cry:
after talkin on here with Justin bout the weight of my boats- an then the resin trippling in cost - i got seriously motivated to try an make a lighter boat with the same lamination schedule , by stretching my resin as far as possible and using automotive paint for a finish and axing the gelcoat.
i broke out the groover roller and put alot of work into stretching my resin out. i mixed a quart at a time instead of a gallon, and worked it over and over with the groover until i had the cloth completely saturated and translucent , yet super lean. the lay up that used to take me an hour and a half , took three hours. i even soaked up excess resin with throw away shop rags when finishing the lay up -instead of just spreading it out evenly.
i rolled out fiberglass resin into the mold for the initial skin , instead of spraying gelcoat like before. i was a lil nervous bout this whem i made my pull - but she came out nice and glossy and looking just right. i used a buffing wheel and some rubbing compound to take the gloss off the surface before spraying her down with some OD green paint on the outside , and some flat white on the inside. i drug the boat acros the yard to the lake for its first wetting , and there werent any places where paint had peeled or scratched off . out on the water i stood up in it and bounced a bit , she showed all the strength of her resin rich gelcoated siblings.
so far so good, time for the weigh in...
when resin an gelcoat was cheap as dirt , these boats weighed in at 50 - 55 lbs with the bench seat in em. when resin was so cheap , i didnt really pay attention to how much i used - just concentrated on getting everything soaked down real good. this time around , near as i could figure, i cut my resin use by bout a third with all the extra attention and labor. considering that, and completely eliminating gelcoat, she felt somewhat lighter and i was sure i dropped a good 5 lbs atleast...
fellas, she weighs in at just over 40 lbs
:shock: :shock: have to add another 2 or 3 hours labor for doing that lay up and prepping for the paint job- but its cheaper to build , just as strong - and damn near 15 lbs lighter. unreal... i'll never use gelcoat on anything ever again. those groover rollers are really something else. they gotta be worth their weight in gold for doing laminations. no way i could have gotten results like this without one. i am one very happy camper ~ allen