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Hewes 21 Redfisher restoration.


Josh B

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3 hours ago, Moderator said:

The black hull 21 RF’s look so good on the trailer and even better in the water.  Will you do a black hull or have the white bottom ?

The entire hull is black, from the rubrail down. Or are you referring to the cockpit and gutters on the topside?

I had thought about doing the gutters & topside in black with a whisper gray on the nonskid areas. TBD. 

I need to get Photoshop fired up and see how each scenario look I guess... but so far it looks like 5 votes for whisper gray and zero for everything else! 

Josh B.

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20 hours ago, geeviam said:

I love white but the glare can be a bit much in bright sun.  Soft, light color is easy on the eyes and doesn't get too hot in Summer.  Whisper Grey would be nice.

Josh - a few thoughts here - Agree with Geevian that going brighter white will be have practical downsides - keeping it bright and clean is harder and when it IS bright and clean, it will be blinding.   

Grey is fine, but going with "modern" often means "good today, not so good in the future."   I mean, those 1970 awful oranges and greens were "modern" in their day but  . . . wow.   

My vote is to stay classic.   it's a classic boat, and the oyster white has a lot of benefits - still gives you that nice white, classic look, but shows dirt less.   Matches everything. 

Light blues - especially when you have white trim on the flat, non-textured parts - can be fantastic too, but not sure how that works with your hull color.

 

Have you considered a beige?

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I got a solid weekend of labor in this weekend. When I originally go this hull I thought the deck was in pretty good shape overall, my wife tried to convince me to just leave it as-is and use it but I knew I wouldn't be happy with trying to just patch/match the non-skid on the handful of larger repairs that were needed. 

So I started going over it all, inch by inch and geesh... once you really start looking for hairline cracks they just seem to keep popping up more and more. 

I spent an entire day just sanding off the existing non-skid. I originally tried 60 grit and then smartened up and found some 36 grit paper that helped considerably. Then I got out the die grinder and started cleaning out all the cracks. Some areas that just had a small hole would instantly open up with larger voids between the gelcoat and fiberglass. 

All of the larger gaps, anything more than 1/4" I filled with an epoxy/cabosil mixture. I let that setup, sanded down and then filled the remainder with 2 part epoxy fairing compound. I also had some repairs to do in the plastic liners for some hatches. I had to cut out sections to access repairs when doing the inside of the hull... so that was a little more effort. They are actually made of plastic, not fiberglass which made my life more difficult. I used a combination of a heatgun and plastic welder to fix those areas. Then sanded them all down with a fairly rough texture and epoxy coated them as well. They are very solid and should be fine. 

This week, I'll work in the evenings after the kids go to bed to sand down the fairing compound and apply a second coat where needed. Once I'm finished with that I can sand the entire thing with a finer 80 grit before spraying some high-build epoxy primer over the entire topside. I also have to sand and paint the inside of all the hatches and start on all the lids. 

Plenty of work left to do!

Josh B.

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Good gosh, Josh, that's some serious work!   I'm curious about your plastic welding process.  Many of us MA guys are dealing with the recessed battery box under our front hatch cracking.   The idea of several hundred pounds of batteries breaking free and slamming into the bottom of the hull is terrifying.   I've tried to come up with a solution/fix, but have been unsuccessful.   How exactly did you fix those plastic hatches?

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I am leaning more toward the traditional white. As to the question regarding the non-skid.  I am sure you know what you are doing but if you need to see some options "Boat works today" has a video on what he uses when he redoes non-skid on his sail boats and other yachts.....So far what you are doing I feel is going to look awesome...Please keep pictures coming.

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On 2/13/2023 at 1:49 PM, Moderator said:

How will you add the nonskid now ?

MM

So after I get the fairing sanded down, I'll probably have to do another round of touch up fairing as it's rarely perfect on the first try. Once I have it as smooth and straight as possible then I will spray a coat of high-build primer. Like the name suggests, it's just a little thicker base primer that bonds to the existing. The high-build fills in fine voids better than a standard primer, so it should help. The majority of that highbuild will get sanded down until everything looks consistent on the surface. Then a finishing primer will get sprayed and sanded before applying paint. I'll spray the entire deck including all the waterways and gutters. After it cures, I'll tape off all the areas I want to remain slick and then scuff the non-skid areas. Then spray another heavy coat of paint and apply the Soft-Sand fine rubberized non-skid material. Then remove the masking tape, let it setup over night and then spray a third coat over the entire deck and gutters again... and then probably a 4th coat as well. I'll nail down my game plan a little tighter when i get closer to doing that. 

23 hours ago, whichwaysup said:

I'm curious about your plastic welding process.  Many of us MA guys are dealing with the recessed battery box under our front hatch cracking.   The idea of several hundred pounds of batteries breaking free and slamming into the bottom of the hull is terrifying.   I've tried to come up with a solution/fix, but have been unsuccessful.   How exactly did you fix those plastic hatches?

So on my 21 RF there is a shelf that is built in to the hull below the front hatch. The front hatch battery tray (box) rests on that tray so the plastic liner is not supporting the weight of the batteries. I completely agree that if the shelf was not there I would not trust the plastic to hold the weight of the batteries. If you don't have any support under the tray/box I would look into adding something. I'm going lithium batteries for mine and still planning to put them all in the console, so my box up front will only be for additional storage. All that being said... the plastic welding is a fancy term for just melting the plastic together... there is no actual welding taking place. They selling "plastic welders" but they are literally just soldering irons that have a variety of different tips that make the job a little easier. I've done this a few times, I repaired a Hobie Kayak a couple years back and it worked out really well. As long as you can find some HPDE plastic that is of the same material you basically just melt it together. What I do is rough up the surface on each side so the material has something significant to attach to. Then I use a heat gun to get the plastic very soft on each side of the crack or opening. Take a piece of rigid aluminum screen and press the screen down into both sides of the repair. It will squeeze down into the plastic and bond the two sides together. Then take your plastic filler and melt it down and press it over the areas needing repair. You normally have to work it a few inches at a time until you get all the way around. With some practice you can make it look good... but it never really looks great. Once it hardens up then I sand it all down flat with the DA and 80-100 grit. Depending on what you're going to do with it and how nice you want it to look you can then either fair it out with epoxy, sand and paint. That's what I'm doing, but even after that I'm planning to line most of my hatches with a cheaper SeaDek knockoff. I've done this in the past and it helps keep things in place and from banging around as much in the hatches. 

Plastic Welding Repair Kit - 80W Iron 20 black Rods, Sandpaper,Stainless  Steel Mesh, Portable Use - Welder Tools for Car Bumper, Kayak, Canoe,110V  Only : Amazon.ca: Tools & Home Improvement

20 hours ago, RacerxV6 said:

As to the question regarding the non-skid.  I am sure you know what you are doing but if you need to see some options "Boat works today" has a video on what he uses when he redoes non-skid on his sail boats and other yachts.....

Andy is incredible and I love his channel. I've watched dozens of hours of his content, he does a great job. I'm basically doing what he did in the AlexSeal with Soft-Sand video. I may actually end up rolling it like he did instead of spraying as it's easier to do small areas at a time. When you spray you have to clean up all your gear pretty quick and it's more difficult to do a small area, clean up, start over, clean up, etc. 

More to come... 

Josh B.

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19 minutes ago, Moderator said:

I think Whichwaysup’s restoration effort was also world class. He showed a lot of Class dealing with the damages along the way. 

True.....his was a challenge and he got it done !!!

 

20 minutes ago, Moderator said:

So many other beautiful restorations we forget..

Let's not forget the Holy Ghost :) LOL

Mod Mark...

Why don't you put a permanent link for these (WWU, Josh, the ghost)  so they won't be lost to the community....

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9 hours ago, Moderator said:

I often look at that, for a special thread.. There are so many filler comments to delete and then move it.. Maybe I will use the vintage sections by make..

Definitely need to preserve for the future..

MM

yeah, lots of comments from the peanut gallery...but, who cares....just keep for the future...

I print out these types of threads....it's the little details that help.

 

dc

 

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17 hours ago, linesider 159 said:

Whisper gray and black no brainer, easier to clean deck with the tint of gray. 

Also, no need to switch to rhodan, I had my saltwater ulterra modified black. Ordered all the freshwater shell parts and had the steering and trim motor painted black. Alas, a saltwater ulterra that is factory black

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First off its kind that I've seen...

dc

 

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On 2/16/2023 at 10:56 AM, linesider 159 said:

Also, no need to switch to rhodan, I had my saltwater ulterra modified black. Ordered all the freshwater shell parts and had the steering and trim motor painted black. Alas, a saltwater ulterra that is factory black

If I was still on the Johnson Outdoors program I would consider that, but not worth the price/effort for now. 

Looks like the JL Marine motor is ready for the masses, so hopefully it checks out and I can get that on the deck in the future. Have you had a chance to use one yet?

Josh B.

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Here's the latest update... a lot of work, but just doesn't feel like much progress. 

You always hear people complain about sanding and it's just one of those things that takes a lot of time and when you're done there's not much visual stimulation to be had. I sanded and sanded and sanded and still some more to do. 

This past weekend I worked on the hatch liners. They were all pretty nasty, so I cleaned, sanded, cleaned... made some small repairs, sanded, cleaned and then painted with Total Bilge Epoxy paint. This stuff is pretty potent, but I like it because it dries very hard. Hopefully that will keep the hatches from getting scratched up. I also did the inside of the livewells. I had thought of going with a darker color, maybe blue like others have done... but I already had a gallon of white and didn't want to buy more. I've never had an issue with white and they are all dark when the lid is closed, so whatever. 

I'm going to lightly sand them down and apply a second coat as one coat does leave some visible thin spots. 

Next I have to finish sanding down all the smooth areas, the washways, drains, etc.

Hopefully more updates after this weekend. I'd love to get some primer sprayed on the deck, but something tells me I won't have enough time.

Josh B.

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