Fishing Rhino

Great! Do it according to the instructions and you'll never regret it. I'll give you another tidbit of advice. When you start mounting anything on your boat, and you want to make a slick installation, say a Ram mount for a sonar, put a bead of silicone on the base of the mount about a 1/4" in diameter, barely inside the edge. Then, carefully put the base in place and tighten the fasteners just enough so the silicone starts to bulge. Stop there, and using your finger, run it around the base of the mount. You'll be left with a nice, tidy, small cove of silicone. Let it sit for 24 hours, or more, depending on the temperature. Once it sets up, you can snug it down. It will not ooze out. What you have done is created a silicone spacer which will allow the base to sit nicely on a slightly less than flat surface. I used white on this install. Had it been a different color I could have used clear, but most likely would have used black because it would match the base. I also used it on the antenna mount for the satellite receiver.

I'm arriving on Friday, right around daybreak. and will have room for two other fishermen, as long as you are willing to pay attention and be careful. Two on the bow and one at the stern. I've got more than enough PFDs. Had an incident last year fishing three on the boat at Kentucky Lake. The fellow on the stern was stripping some line off the real to clear a backlash. The wind grabbed it a billowed it into the air just as the other fisherman was casting. His bait grabbed the billowing line and it pulled the other fellows hook right into the bone of his thumb. Went to a clinic and they took an xray and sent us to the ER at a nearby hospital. They didn't want to mess with a hook that was so deep. There was no blame. The caster made no mistake. But for the billowing line, nothing would have happened. The guy who made the cast was a wreck. The fellow with the hook in his thumb is a trooper who took it all in stride and was back to fishing the next day. It was memorable, but a memory I do not want to see reenacted.

That's not going to happen as long as I'm around. I never understood the tatoo thing. When I was a kid, back in the 1940s and 50s, the only people I knew with tatoos were sailors, or ex sailors who got them while they were drunk, on liberty in a foreign port.

Sounds like you are trying to forget someone you used to love, who is now removed.

The visuals were spectacular, but, it's fairly easy to come up with something that dazzles technologically. All I can think of is that it was a very glittery, high tech, karaoke show, lip synching to the music.

Heck, why not resurrect Whitney Houston for the half time show. She could "perform" as long as she only had to lip synch. Lip synching is lame.

The chances are that fiberglass resin would do the job satisfactorily. But, you are doing a lot of work, tedious, messy, somtimes itchy work. You're not talking a lot of epoxy to repair/fill those holes. It would be mighty disappointing to go through all that, and then have a minor repair fail, particularly when you will not be able to get to both sides to effect repairs.

How stable is a boat with a 36" beam? Not very stable for me. Solid as a rock for someone with a good sense of balance. In other words, it's impossible to answer that question, since it has as much to do with the person as the boat. Walk to the side of the boat to relieve yourself and you'll likely end up in the urinal. Your main concern should be how forgiving is the boat when you make a mistake shifting your weight. A 48" wide boat is more forgiving than a 36" boat of the same style.

The question becomes. Should we buy an American company's product that is made in another country using that country's labor, or buy a foreign company's product made here, using American labor, or when you can find it, an Amercian company whose product is made by American labor, or, should I buy the one that gives me the most bang for my buck?

It's a two part system. The one I am familiar with is West System epoxy. It's usually a bit thicker than polyester resin and takes a bit more effort to wet out the mat or roving. But, it is waterproof and has a much stronger bond. It is also more expensive, but worth it for certain applications. It used to be Gougeon Brothers West System Epoxy. It was on all their containers. It seems they manufacture the West System products but have taken their name off the product. ?????? When you open the first URL, click on repairing your fiberglass boat. There are several articles, some of which might be helpful for you. It will tell you specifically which product to use for different jobs. http://www.westsystem.com/ss/ http://gougeon.com/

Are the holes in what is left of the transom? If so, feather the edges on the inside until you get a knife edge. How far out you taper the existing glass depends on its thickness. I'd taper it out to at least an inch from the edge of the hole. That will give you a three inch patch. Wax paper over the hole on the outside. Then clamp a board over the wax paper. You don't want to push material through the hole, beyond the surface. Tear progressively larger pieces of mat. The first should just extend onto the taper. Then apply a slightly larger piece over that. Continue until you have a thickness at the hole equal to the thickness of the material you are patching. It won't hurt to sand a bit beyond the taper just to clean that area. The last layer or two should extend onto that last area. When it cures, you can pull the dam and wax paper off. You should be left with a smooth flush surface that will require very little work to finish with gel coat, paint, or whatever you decide to apply to the hull. Use a belt sander or disc sander and dress the inside of the patch until it is flush with the old material. Consider using epoxy for patching the holes. It is much more durable and reliable than standard polyester fiberglass resin. It is not uncommon for new fiberglass work applied to older material to have a weak bond. The repair will be an adhesive, not a chemical bond, and epoxy will provide a much stronger bond.

The problem with that method is that the cured product is hard to sand. You can use that, but I'd suggest filling any pockets or irregularities with bondo. It sands much easier. Keep in mind, fiberglass resins are plastic and when you sand them they will heat and melt plugging your drum. Bondo is a polyester product and thus a plastic but, it is formulated to sand easily without plugging sanding products. The other thing you can do, using the fumed silica, is to make it like the consistency of peanut butter. Put it in the corner, then apply a layer or two of mat, wetting out with a four inch paint roller, before it cures. That eliminates the need for sanding. It will cure along with the mat/resin composite. Don't go crazy with it. Go lighter with the catalyst to give you working time. Nail a couple of boards together to form a corner. You can practice on that to get the feel for it before starting on the boat. You can save money by getting a six pack of paint rollers, 3/8 nap if I'm not mistaken, for about eight dollars. Cut them in half and you get two four and a half inch rollers which will work just fine on four inch roller handles. You end up with a dozen rollers for eight dollars. Be sure to get the roller off the handle before the resin cures and the handle will last just about forever. Let me know if you have any questions. You can ask on this thread, but you're likely to get a quicker answer if you send me a pm. If you send me a pm, I'll reply with a pm, but will copy and paste it on the thread, just in case someone else can use it.

My GMC pickup, and I would guess some Chevies as well come from Mexico, some from Canada. Suburbans, Yukons and other pickup based SUVs are made in the U.S. of A., at least some of them are according to the price stickers I've seen on dealer's lots.

Here's another suggestion for you to consider. Before you start laying fiberglass into the corners, put a concave radius of bondo into the corners, where possible. It's also called a "cove". You . It will accomplish two things. It's easier to lay up the fiberglass in the corner and more importantly it's stronger and much less likely to crack. It's why they radius corners and edges on connecting rods and other engine components. It eliminates what are called "stress risers". A half inch radius should work just fine. To make the radius from bondo, take a plastic spreader, and trim one of the corners to make the quarter circle with a half inch radius. Carefully apply the bondo to minimize the amount of finish sanding you will need to smooth any irregularities. To sand the cove. Get a piece of bull nosed wood. Bull nosed is the half round you find on the edge of a stair. If you cannot find a piece of board with a bull nose, get a length of half round molding and fasten it to the edge of a board. Make it a comfortable length and width for holding. I'm guessing about four inches wide and six inches long would be about right. If it's to cumbersome, size it to suit you. Wrap a piece of 80 grit paper around the board. It should make short work of smoothing the bondo for a good bond with the fiberglass. It's not likely to plug the sandpaper, but if it does, just move the paper to put a clean area on the radiussed edge of the "sanding block". You can also buy sanding drums for hand drills at hardware stores. This would be my choice.

I'll have an open seat(s) for the duration. Check with Long Mike. He usually coordinates these things.

Fiberglass it, inside and out, then paint it. You need to paint it because the commonly used fiberglass resin is polyester. It will absorb moisture. Paint will seal it. Vinylester resin is waterproof, but not commonly available. You can also coat it with Gluvit, an epoxy product. Before applying anything, be it fiberglass or Gluvit, Fill all the knots and imperfections with bondo. Construction grade plywood, while made with exterior glue is notoriously porous and rough. It's fine for sidewalls, subflooring and roofing, but not much else. It's made to be "economical", and used in places where cosmetic blemishes and imperfections do not matter. Do not coat it with fiberglass resin only. It will not last.

A1, well done!!!!! I knew you would do it.

The customer ordered three of them yesterday.

Mike. There is no need for you, or anyone involved in the organizing, to apologize. It's whoever was responsible at Val Monte that needs to apologize. For whatever reason, they kept stringing you/us along. They accepted reservations. They misled your special agent a couple of weeks ago when they had to know what was going on. What they have done is not very nice. I have no doubt that all who attend will still have a great time. It's the group that makes the road trip special.

Tell that to the credit bureau that put it on our report. Keep in mind, back then, you didn't get a social security card/number until you went to work. You could get one, but you did not need it until you got a job, farm work not included. Now, you are issued a card and number when you are born, or very shortly thereafter. I didn't even get my card until 1959 after the high school basketball season ended. Prior to that I worked summers on three farms in town, one chicken/egg farm and two dairy farms. Started that when I was eleven years old, grading eggs and shoveling out chicken houses into a manure spreader, then spreading it on the fields. Mowed a few lawns in the neighborhood as well.

Maintenance is key. Today's vehicles are good for 200,000 miles or more, provided they get serviced at the recommended intervals. Heck many get their first tune up with new spark plugs at 100,000 miles.

Of all the fiberglass race car bodies I've made, this one is my favorite color scheme. The body is 13 pieces. All the color is in the gel coat. On top of the color, (actually it's the first thing sprayed into the mold) is a Metalflake Spindrift gold/red flake. On the red it looks reddish, orange on the orange and gold on the yellow. The first body I made for this customer was yellow in the front and transitioned to red in the rear. Then he was in a bad crash, and reversed the colors, hoping to change his bad luck. The entire body from front bumper cover to rear bumper cover weighs less than 80 pounds. I'd love to be able to spray the gel coat in the molds and produce a bass boat that looked like this, colorwise.

God bless you, man. You are doing it the right way. It's a great project if you've got the patience for it. I don't. But at 70 years old, I want instant gratification.

An update. The thirty days of research plus another seven or so to process the dispute are out the window. We received a letter today, six days after the dispute was lodged, that they had corrected the error. Amazing, simply amazing. Actually it has been five days including Saturday and Sunday. We lodged the dispute on Wednesday. That was on the 24th. The letter was postmarked on the 26th. That makes a lot more sense to me than the 37+ days they initially stated to confirm my wife was not deceased. They have resurrected my wife. There goes the insurance money.

Bass Pro Shop closes at 7:00 p.m. on Sundays. I'm not going to be able to make it for that meeting, but I'm about as flexible as it gets to participate in the "get togethers". Retired for all practical purposes. No kiddies to worry about, and an understanding wife. Gramp, Tate and I are pretty much on the same page. It's important for everyone else to participate. Time to get started. Fishing season is around the corner.