Banana 24 restoration progress

[Air Dog]

Trojan,

Great job so far!

You went with the exact color scheme I wanted when I did my restoration, so it is fun for me to look at what you did and see the results.

Cabin Doors

As for the doors for the cabin, I recommend using starboard instead of wood. I bought a large piece for the door, then one for the top hatch. Never got to it, I just painted the plexi "original" one white and it looked almost as good. Still have the starboard if your interested. Definately stay with the double split doors as I tried a single door and it is just too big for the size of the cockpit. No room to put it anywhere unless you lock the co-pilot passenger in a box. I had the double folding door, but I like the split door that opens to each side. I bought a complete Pantera 28 interior that I was going to install in my Banana Race boat and it had a glove box that the split door would have worked well with.


Hatch

As for the top hatch, make one solid piece and then order a latch like the one I had. I bought one for around $120. Sounds expensive, but I tried about 4 or 5 cheaper ones prior with no sucess. I have attached a couple pictures of the one that had. The original split hatch seems cool, but in the ocean, I found the hatch banged around too much. A single hatch would be much quieter.

Fairing

I cut down the center of my original fairing as it was more aesthetically pleasing, sanded it and painted it white to match the boat. I then began constructing a fiberglass one with a wood core and never installed it. I gave it to the guy that bought my boat. My plan was to make a fairing about 2" think and bolt it to the deck. Only problem was it was a ***** to construct so I went with the original style that bolted to 1" strips that bolted to the deck. Close enough and allowed for some flex in the ruff.

Concerns

The only thing I see that might be a problem is that you fiberglassed your dashboard to the cockpit side and that is a flex point.

You might find that the dash starts to crack away from the side.

For this same reason, I would not fiberglass a fairing to the deck. Your asking for future stress cracks to appear if you do this.

Pantera's are built with balsa core in this area so they don't have that problem, but any Banana older than 2007 will have stress cracks no matter what you do.

Good luck and keep the photos coming!

[oldschoolfan]

Wow that is a great looking boat. I wish my boat looked half as good as yours.

Josh

[Trojan-man]

Originally Posted by Air Dog

Trojan,

Great job so far!

You went with the exact color scheme I wanted when I did my restoration, so it is fun for me to look at what you did and see the results.

Cabin Doors

As for the doors for the cabin, I recommend using starboard instead of wood. I bought a large piece for the door, then one for the top hatch. Never got to it, I just painted the plexi "original" one white and it looked almost as good. Still have the starboard if your interested. Definately stay with the double split doors as I tried a single door and it is just too big for the size of the cockpit. No room to put it anywhere unless you lock the co-pilot passenger in a box. I had the double folding door, but I like the split door that opens to each side. I bought a complete Pantera 28 interior that I was going to install in my Banana Race boat and it had a glove box that the split door would have worked well with.


Hatch

As for the top hatch, make one solid piece and then order a latch like the one I had. I bought one for around $120. Sounds expensive, but I tried about 4 or 5 cheaper ones prior with no sucess. I have attached a couple pictures of the one that had. The original split hatch seems cool, but in the ocean, I found the hatch banged around too much. A single hatch would be much quieter.

Fairing

I cut down the center of my original fairing as it was more aesthetically pleasing, sanded it and painted it white to match the boat. I then began constructing a fiberglass one with a wood core and never installed it. I gave it to the guy that bought my boat. My plan was to make a fairing about 2" think and bolt it to the deck. Only problem was it was a ***** to construct so I went with the original style that bolted to 1" strips that bolted to the deck. Close enough and allowed for some flex in the ruff.

Concerns

The only thing I see that might be a problem is that you fiberglassed your dashboard to the cockpit side and that is a flex point.

You might find that the dash starts to crack away from the side.

For this same reason, I would not fiberglass a fairing to the deck. Your asking for future stress cracks to appear if you do this.

Pantera's are built with balsa core in this area so they don't have that problem, but any Banana older than 2007 will have stress cracks no matter what you do.

Good luck and keep the photos coming!

Thanks Airdog. I bought the boat after the fiberglass work was already done, I just picked the paint colors. I am going to finish the inside with livorsi platinum monster gauges and an all white interior.

Good call on not fiberglassing the fairing to the deck, I can see that being very difficult to deal with in the future.

Where did you buy your hatch from? I board mucho starboard to do the project, hatch included. Have you guys had much luck painting starboard?? I have never worked with it before. Starboard is what I meant when I said marine plywood on the previous post.

If the dashboard starts to crack, I will just cut it and clean it up. Personally I don't like the dashboard and would rather have glasses a new one. It is too low for most sit down bolsters, and it is not big enough to include all the guages and/or trim indicators. I would like to raise it up about 6" and build it into the back of the fairing some how but that is more than likely not going to happen

[Trojan-man]

Originally Posted by oldschoolfan

Wow that is a great looking boat. I wish my boat looked half as good as yours.

Josh

Thank you Josh. It is coming together much slower than I anticipated, but we are making progress

[oldschoolfan]

are you going with stand up or sit down?

[Trojan-man]

Originally Posted by oldschoolfan

are you going with stand up or sit down?

They are stand up bolsters, the lake I run in gets pretty rough, and I just prefer to stand up

[jefro0690]

Hey Trojan man that's 1 BAD ASS boat who did the work?

[jefro0690]

hey Chad you'll have to send me pics of the boat i lost the ones I sent you

[Trojan-man]

Originally Posted by jefro0690

hey Chad you'll have to send me pics of the boat i lost the ones I sent you

the ones you sent me I scanned and posted on oso. I will take more pics as the work progresses.

[Trojan-man]

Originally Posted by jefro0690

Hey Trojan man that's 1 BAD ASS boat who did the work?

some Yankee from Bwoston named Jeff

Hows the sutphen runnin ???? Somebody misses that boat bad !!!