36 Skater Project
 

or . . . . . "Skater repair 101" :D

Been a while since i started any threads and with a few interesting projects coming into the home stretch i thought I'd share some of the fun. This 36 is the X Snakeman racing outboard boat currently owned by board member da*****rcury (as well as previously owned by Okie Tunnel). The boats going through a complete restoration and re-rig from tripps to quads and just about new everything else. Heres a few pics before i dug into it and in its previously life.

she's a keeper :drink: . . . .

First order of buisness was to address the tanks. When the boat was purchased from Okie it came with a set of custom aluminum drop in tanks. The original tanks were already cut out and these needed to be glassed in so i built all new floor sections epoxy encapsulated on all sides and cleaned out the original tank well. Dropped in the supplied tank pads and foamed in the tanks. The foam was put in in stages to bring it up the sides and allow it to completly surround the tank. Once the sides were done the excess was trimmed to allow room for one final dose of foam once the floor is in. Those are the tanks sitting on the sides of the cockpit kind of a mess at this point but this was the only pic i had of the tanks out of the boat

New floor sections were epoxy laminated on all sides, fit and glassed in. Easier to get around the cockpit now without the Bermese tiger trap to fall into.

The previous glass work needed some attention so it was decided to re do most of it. The dash was in primer but on further inspection it was found that all the holes were superficially filled with epoxy and a light fairing filler. Its a good start but would never hold up on its own so i decided to completely cap the dash on the face and on the back. At the same time i cleaned up the center section and trued all the surfaces.

All new seat risers and foot wells were constructed and completly encapsulated in epoxy and glass. Much easier to build these things outside the boat and simply tab them in. First pic is before old tanks were cut out.

Early on in the project David was weighing the options of quads over tripps and after the decision was made to go with quads we decided to go back to a clean slate on the transom and fill everything in. At the same time the single center pod had to be removed and the boat was fitted with two new pods made at skater. Taking the old center pod off involved cutting through the sides and core to get the bulk of it off then then the entire footprint had to be carefully (and arduously lol) ground off without disturbing the original surface laminate. They were originally just bonded on with a thick bed of some kind of high density filler.

more pics tomorrow (or later today actually lol). . . . get'in tired :D



zzzzzzzzzz

Ok thats plenty of sleep :D . . . . .


check out this shot of a 36 Cig next to the Skater . . . . . It amazes me how big this boat looks next to anything thats been parked next to it :eek:

Or how bout a teeny tiny lil 'ol 31 Awesome cat (sorry Richard (Rotax454) :D)

gotta go . . . . more pics coming later today.

It is amazing how big they are. Good job. Quit sleeping, and get to work.

This is when the fun really started. Dave and i had discussed some concern with a previous repair up in the port sponson after inspecting it from the inside and outside the the surface laminates seemed a bit loose. It was decided to drill a few test holes to see what was going on in there. I poked i few half inch holes in the suspected area and the drill went through with pretty much nothing coming out. I put a vacuum pump to it and got some moisture and a dis heartening gurgling. At this point it was decided to drill several more larger holes and see exactly whats going on. Half a dozen holes later and eight feet away from where i started the plugs were bringing up the wettest most rotted core i had ever seen (I can say that now because it has been repaired but its the kinda thing you want your customer sitting down for lol) I ended up roughly twelve feet away from where i started but the good news was it was isolated to just this sponson and did not extend under the tank. . . . . the one i had just finished glassing in:eek: (another bit of luck) Dave took the news well and said I'd rather learn about that kind of thing now lets get it taken care of. So away i went with the Metabo cutter and every other cutting device i have on hand. Heres some shots of excavating the carnage . . . .


Some of the pics have not been seen . . . . if you are squeamish please look away :D

This boat is epoxy and Kevlar and terribly difficult to cut. The biggest problem isnt necessarily with cutting through the stuff that just takes time. The biggest problem is joining the corners of cuts you made where they meet at a bulkhead or stringer. The cutting wheels are to big to get very close so you are left with a few inches that are impossible to get at and contain very thick overlaps of Kevlar. I got around this by taking a carbide hole saw (without the drill bit in it to minimize the risk of catching the outside laminate) and poking a inch and a half hole in each corner then joining all the holes with a standard seven inch carbide wheel on a Metabo cutter. (Metabos kick azz!)

not pretty . . . . .

out with the bad . . . .



Getting it cleaned up in here. Using the hole saw method leaves a nice clean border to work with. The stringers were in great shape and when i weighed out the effort it would take to get them out it was pretty much a wash with the added labor of working around them. If they were not Kevlar i probably would have removed those to.

In with the good . . . .


I stuck to a laminate schedule pretty close to what Pete put in there. Several layers of 18 and Kevlar tabbed over an inch of Baltek. I was not able to get any shots of the materials going in as my hands were kinda full (and covered in epoxy). Kinda dusty and the white cloudy stuff is a filler used to fill gaps and level the core at the steps.

Decided to fill in the naca ducts on the deck. These weren't to bad, had to work upside down. On the port side i made a nice tight core piece that snapped in pretty much holding everything in place, was able to do everything wet on wet (which is best for epoxy).

Starboard side needed a complete new core piece so that took care of that side. A trick i learned from this crazy old dude (just kidding AK :D) i know that use to work at Skater is to mix a bit of Cabosil in the epoxy, this allows it to kind of freeze in place while your working the area. Another trick is to break it down into smaller sections. With this i cut the core into strips three block or so wide and then i staggered wide tabbing tape over the top that. Worked great and is pretty bomber. Its also easier to pre wet everything out side the boat then cart everything in and roll it out.

Wahoo!!! A Glassdave thread!!! I love Glassdave threads. Always entertaining and educational :drink:

Nice Good to see another 101.

I like how you did it from the inside.Leaving the outer
skin and original bottom still intact.
I have removed the rotted Baltec with a air hammer with a
2 inch blade attachment. Snapon has them with a slight angle.
Im telling ya it worked sweet!

Great work. look forward to more pictures:drink:

Nice work! I used to race this boat back in 2000 and 2001 with the owner at the time John Robinson. The boat used to be Sonic Hedgehog and before that Ocean Outboard. This was one of the first 36 skaters correct?

Thanks, I'll see how well i can keep within the highly educational theme of the first 101 thread lol :drink:

No air hammer needed for this task. I literally scooped up handfuls of absoutly soaking wet mush (pretty stinky mush at that) Once the bulk of it was out i had to let it dry for weeks till i could get in there with a grinder, good thing there was plenty more to do outside.

The downfall of this boat was in how the deck drain was installed between the dash/canopy bulges. There was a cheap sink type drain installed with a piece of rubber hose that ran down and terminated in the sponson. This boat probably sat for years in Florida where, as you know, it rains daily. The core damage reached in almost equal directions from where the drain emptied in the sponson. There was almost no provisions to move this drain water out of the sponson other then the usual holes at the base of the bulkheads.

way cool, well she is getting a new lease on life. Yes i believe it is one of the first few built. What fantastic hulls these 36's are, haveing spent a lot of time with this thing its easy to see why they are so popular.

Flashback....................... I hate stinky, mushy core!!!!!!! I feel the $$$$ looking at the piles of core material. I guess it can almost always be worse......................:eek:
Very cool thread!

Great thread!

Hull #4 as I recall.

36 skater project
 

Side bar,
I thought it was Falcon racing before John Robinson/Snakeman had it...

Dave , those naca ducts actually where buttlers glassed in .

I ,quess you still can learn a few new tricks from old farts and yes it does PAY to PAY attention every once and a while .:grinser010:

You ought to smell it when you are tearing it out when it has been soaked in blood for a long period of time.

I agree ,and very stout .

:cuqui:And not one ounce of finish fabric (chesse) to hide the seams on the layup . HMMMMMMMMMMMMM

So , Dave where you using 4 or 6 inch /17oz , Kevlar when tapping everything in ?

Dave see how nice cheese looks on a lay uphttp://i40.tinypic.com/rlfhua.jpg.:grinser010:

Dave looks gooooooooooooooooood .:cool-smiley-027:

More pics come'in. I have to sort through some files, got a bad habit of not naming pic files consecutively and they end up scattered in the selected file folder and pretty much out of order :picard1:




messed around with the Skater logo on the side, none of these will be used but i thought I'd post 'em as part of the process :drink:

Dave , i like the third one down because it does not clutter up the rest of the boat and leaves room for something else because everyone will know its a SKATER .

The pics don't lie. I have seen it in person-----The sponson's are huge. Well compared to mine that is.
My vote is on design (top to bottom) #2. Dave's work and attention to detail is beyond words.

Dave , funny thing your thread shows up on new posts and my 32 Skater thread with pics never hits first base in the general boating discussion. he he he:drink:

Cool stuff!

just found this thread! thanks dave

Thanks all. More pics come'in kiddies got to sort some stuff out. :cool:

You are correct sir! After some fact checking, it seems the boat history was; Falcon racing, Accurate marine, Sonic hedgehog, then Snakeman Racing. Ocean outboard was the cut down 36 triple outboard.
Thanks to Ronnie Rossie for clearing that up for me! He had some fun letting me twist in the wind for a while on that one! Thanks buddy!