Offshoreonly.com - 89 scarab 21 excel rebuild

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feels supraish from here

Hahaha... its actually pretty close to statement marines so far. My own twists here and there. Now from there on out I'll be running most of my own due to obvious boat size differences.

nice! im not familiar with this type of work. what happens when you sand down to the black felt? its not smooth is it?

First thing that's done after he makes the frame work and stretches the felt to contours is he soaks the felt in resin. This kind of turns it into a weaker fiberglass but gives it the rigidity and solidness required. This is the solid base that he puts the bondo on and then blends everything even better. I personally in the past have removed framework behind it and then put down chopped strand into the back of it for added strength, but still used the felt as the base for body filler and finishing.

I'm assuming he's planning on upholstering everything as it looks like he's just using bondo and no top coat which would be required for an even better finish with paint, but it's far more work. Where he is at now, you use a nice material and a thin foam liner behind it for cushioning and you'd never know the difference.

sdg if you're making up any other panels for the other side, you should take step by step pictures for some of the people on here that might be interested in this. It's a lot of work but it's really not as terrible as it seems

That felt is super thick stuff. No its not smooth until I sand it its like 36 grit sand paper. Two layers of that felt is over 1/4" thick once hardened. I have no clue what brand felt but it stretches awesome but takes over a gallon on just the dash alone. Yes I'm covering it all I'd love to paint it but I've already used a gallon of filler. Besides in a boat I want padded soft stuff around me... just sayin. I got a thick damn skull but still lol. I will remove most of the bracing on most panels. The front of my side console is going to house my switches. No need for inch thick fiberglass there. The dash has several layers of chop mat behind it all. Hard as a rock. It would look great painted but I have no desire to spend a month blocking all this down. Yes I will have more panels going up on the sides. Go big or go home right? I have my big sheet of shiney carbon fiber coming to lay down on top of the side console. Going to look insane with the aluminum shifters and stainless switches. Also thinking if red anodized gauge bezels since I have all red led light stips to hide too.