Fishing Rhino

Hitting any object does not produce stress cracks. They are impact cracks. Stress cracks are produced by excessive flexing. When it comes to stress cracks, the thicker a gel coat is, the less flexible it is. Stress cracks in gel coat do not necessarily reflect a problem with structural integrity. In most cases, they don't. They are an undesirable cosmetic problem.

Count me in. I'll be glad to make a contribution to the kitty to help cover the costs.

LOL, my thoughts as well. Ain't no dead man or woman who is smarter than me, and I don't care who says otherwise.

I got mine at the town hall last year. Town clerk's office. My buddy gets his hunting license there as well. He's going to get his combo (sporting) license on line. Last year he wanted a doe permit for the deer season. He had to go to the Cape where the state had an office to sell them. Long, long line. So he did not get it. If he had got his license on line, he could have gotten his doe permit on line. Apparently the state doesn't reimburse the towns or cities sufficiently so some towns and cities have stopped offering the service to cut expenses.

Leave it to taxachusetts. I go by the town hall several times a week. No problem to stop in and pick up mine. This is the last year I'll need to buy a MA license. As a senior, I get a discounted rate. At 70 years of age, fishing/hunting/sporting licenses are free. Here's the question. When a license is sold at a town hall, does all the money go to the state, or does the town get a "handling fee"? Do it online, and the town gets nothing. By adding a convenience fee, the state gets even more money. Slimeballs, the whole bunch of 'em.

Just like in a car, uneven wear is an alignment problem. If the inner edges of both are wearing, it is possibly a bent axle. To picture this, imagine a hinge in the middle of the axle, and the hinge is pulled toward the ground. That will cause the tires to run on the inside edges.

Here's some critical thinking regarding that topic. It's not as simple as that. Nature runs in cycles. Nothing is constant. There is no ideal population number for any species, including man. When there is plenty of prey, the population of predators increases, diminishing the population of prey, which in turn diminishes the number of predators. Then the prey population increases. What about year classes of fish? Sometimes nature conspires to kill of an abnormally high percent of the young. Other years it provides ideal conditions for spawning and survival. Why do we have bumper crops, and other years where weather wipes out crops. When, and if, humans reach the saturation point, nature will take care of things. Man is but another animal on the face of the earth doing what comes naturally. Some folks think they know what's better for the earth than others. Pesonally, I don't think they have enough to do. Too much idle time on their hands. They'd prefer we all go back to living in caves, with no boats or automobiles. This question, by a previous poster, says it quite nicely. On a serious note: Philosophically speaking, why haven't members of the VHEMT committed mass suicide yet?

Google is your friend. http://www.ehow.com/facts_7874074_oil-vs-standard-wheel-bearings.html http://www.ehow.com/how_4901026_change-trailers-wheel-bearings-hubs.html

Lund, you are correct about the little steps in the topside of the boat. While fiberglass can be worked into large corners such as chines, it is only because there is sufficient surface resistance to prevent the material from lifting away at the corner. You can work the material into corners with a step of an inch or more, but it's very time consuming. Get down to less than three quarters of an inch and it's nigh impossible to get mat and roving to stay tucked into the corner. You can do it, but it takes tearing mat and working the torn edge into the corner. Can be done, but it's not practical. You can also "flood" those corners, as you stated, with resin by using a chopper gun. We use Aerosil which is powdered silica. It is mixed with uncatalyzed resin to the consistancy of heavy grease. When we make a piece with a step. After the gel coat applied to the mold has cured sufficiently we will take an adequate amount of this paste and catalyze it. Then using a bondo spreader we fill the corner with the minumum amount needed to support the glass. Then the mat is put into place, and impregnated with resin. Since I'm in the process of retiring, I'll let you in on my secret for working resin. I use a paint roller. A six pack of cheapo 9" rollers from Home Depot are cut in half. The nine inch rollers are too long to fit into some of the hollow contours of the mold. Four and a half inches will go anywhere except into sharp corners. There are fiberglass rollers specifically made for production fiberglass work. They have a perforated core. They are mounted on a special handle. Resin is forced through the tubular handle and out through the perforations. The flow is controlled by a trigger on the handle. The handles can be quite long, to allow laminating things such as a bass boat without having to get inside of the mold. Most of the fabricators I've seen will wet the piece, then apply the material, and roll it with a grooved roller. The problem with the rollers, though they do remove air bubbles, is that they also move the strands of the mat around, making them thicker in some areas and thinning them out in others. Paint rollers don't do this. After the mat is wet out, the stitched roving goes on, and is wet through. The beauty of the roller is that you end up with very consistent pieces. If too much resin is applied to a piece, you can pick up the excess with the roller, and move it to the next piece. Once the mat has been wet out, we use the bubble busting rollers to get rid of any air pockets. The material in the roving will not shift like mat does, so you end up with a very uniform piece. The mat stays put beneath the roving. To get perfect uniformity by getting rid of any excess resin you'd have to vacuum bag the piece. The vanes on wind turbines are vacuum bagged in order to make them as strong as possible, and so they will all weigh the same, or very nearly the same, so they will be in balance when assembled. Takes a pretty large bag. As an aside, I also do some metalflake bodies. I will match the finish of my product, right out of the mold to any bass boat on a showroom floor after it has been buffed and waxed, and my piece will have a better finish. My pieces come out with a wet shine. By the way, black and other dark colors are the worst. Every slight imperfection in a mold shows up. Leave a finger print in the mold and it will be in the finished piece. A quick wipe with cleaner/glaze or cleaner/wax will take care of it. The same for the haze that naturally forms when a piece is made. When the haze starts to appear, we strip the haze from the molds with a cleaner, then apply six coats of hard carnuba wax. White is the easiest color. Haze does not show.

They hold up better than any other fiberglass bodies on the market. One layer of 3/4 ounce mat, and one layer of 1603 stitched roving. They are very flexible, and the roving holds them together pretty well. All the others use just mat in their construction. When the get smacked they sometimes explode like an egg shell. The front fenders are the most vulnerable. Very little material at the wheel opening. The front end, by virtue of its suspension is weaker than the solid axle rear end, so the wheels provide little support. Some of my customers have hit the wall and bent the rear clip over a foot, and the quarter panels were still fit to use. The concrete wall ground off the gel coat, but they stayed in one piece. The side by side bumping in the turns doesn't damage them at all. It's when someone hooks into the wheel opening the front of the fender gets torn off. I've had a guarantee from day one. If any of my body panels shatter into several pieces I'll replace it free. It just doesn't happen. A customer in Maine told me his quarter panel broke into several pieces. I shipped him a new one. Some of his fellow competitors were so impressed they began getting bodies from me. Even if his story wasn't true, the public relations of giving him a fender paid off handsomely. I used to go to the different tracks with a quarter panel, place it on the ground, good side up, and let them drive a truck over the length of the panel. It would crack along the top, but when the truck got off it, it would pop back into shape. Sometimes it would actually fold the other way. I'd pick it up, give it a swift kick on the inside, above the wheel opening, and it would snap back into shape. It didn't matter how many times that quarter got run over, the damage did not get worse.

For those who may wonder how I know about fiberglass, here are a couple of my products. They are not painted. The color is in the gel coat. The bodies, as I produce them weigh about sixty pounds. And, just for the record, beginning in 1996, and for five successive years running, cars with my bodies took home the top prize in the race car division at the World of Wheels car show in Boston. It included drag cars, circle track cars, etc., from all the major divisions.

A chopper gun is used for making shower stalls, bath tubs, etc. This is a photo of a chopper gun in use. Note the long "cord" going to the gun. It consists of a bundle of long glass filaments. The gun chops them, and they are fed into resin which is being sprayed onto or into the mold. Typically they produce a resin rich mixture. Which makes for a weaker, more brittle product than a hand laid up piece. It's the necessary evil of a chopper gun. Mat is really just a filler, roving is what gives fiberglass construction greater strength. There are several types of roving, woven roving being the most common type. It looks like very coarse burlap, and is made up of continuous filaments that run the length and breadth of the roll. The "fabrics" provide the strength, and the resin provides the shape. Thats it in a nutshell.

So you're saying I have low expectations? Not at all. Realistic expectations is more like it. It was intended as a compliment about Cat customers. Some folks buy a Nitro and expect it to be like a Cat or a Skeeter. Guess what? They will not be satisfied, will they? Realistic expectations gets you the customer service of many of the other companies, Ranger has decent customer service (friends who own them) and so does Skeeter. However, what about a company that literally goes out of the way to make sure their customers' well being is taken care of? Treating customers like family is not a 'realistic expectation', but they do it. Like I said before, one does not even have to buy a new boat or even from a dealer to be accepted into the 'family', just have a Cat. 1971 or 2011 models the BassCat owner is personally taken care of by the company staff for any situation. It is not about realistic expectations, but surreal customer service. God bless 'em at BassCat. Sounds like they are in the running for the best company. I'll agree with you on that customer service thing. I'd never buy an Allison. Too much money, even if it is good value for the product. I could never justify spending that kind of dough for a boat that I would not catch one more fish from. My Z7 will do close to 60. Most of the time I cruise at 40 - 45. If I don't use 60 mph, I'm certainly not going to use the 80 mph of an Allison. Last year on the road trip Roadwarrior and I went with a guide. He had a BassCat. Nice boat, nice ride. I can see why some guys swear by them. For 19,300, this works just fine for me. For the record, I initially had a few complaints about the rig. Wiring running through bare holes in the trailer frame, a feeble license plate bracket that snapped off somewhere in PA on my way to the Pickwick road trip in TN last year, and a couple of other penny ante shortcuts that rubbed me the wrong way. No complaints about the boat or motor, other than they installed the wrong prop and the boat had trouble getting on plane. Took it in, and they asked me if I changed the prop, which I hadn't. When they swapped the prop the problem was solved.

LOL. I'm pushing 70. To me, 28 IS like new.

Been there, done that, last year. Didn't have jumpers. Thank goodness wing nuts were used for all the connections. Connected to a trolling motor battery, started up, and back to the ramp. Got the jumpers from my truck, switched the batteries back. Jumped the starter battery to a tm battery, and started it up. Ran around for a half hour or so to charge up the starting battery. The two bank charger does the two trolling motor batteries. A couple of times a month, I hook up my portable charger to the battery, and bring it up to snuff.

You better check out that motorcycle before you consumate the deal. You may end up hating it more than that Pontiac, and it will be worth less as scrap.

So you're saying I have low expectations? Not at all. Realistic expectations is more like it. It was intended as a compliment about Cat customers. Some folks buy a Nitro and expect it to be like a Cat or a Skeeter. Guess what? They will not be satisfied, will they?

OK now, let's see. We have three, with more to come I'm sure, criteria for which is the best bass boat out there. In this corner, we have Allison, with its advanced design, no wood, and a foam core construction. More buoyant, lighter, and will give you double the gas mileage of any other bass boat on the market. (This is from their web site). In another corner, we have Champion, or is it Skeeter, whose main claim to fame is that you can go full bore, spin the steering wheel 180 degrees, and the bass boat transforms into a Frisbee, skimming over the surface in a watery pirouette. In the third corner we have Bass Cat a five time (successively) J. D. Powers winner of the most satisfied customers award. Let's examine these arguments. First, the Allison. I have to tell you, I was impressed by their construction. They don't use polyester resin, opting for the more expensive vinylester. Polyester resin will absorb water. Vinylester won't. They lay up their hulls by hand, not chopper gun like Ranger. They don't use wood. Wood is ok as long as it's not a structural component. Balsa wood was the first core material. Fiberglass coated wood stringers are fine, provided the fiberglass "beam" formed by laminating on them is of sufficient strength. Sadly, it appears that is not always the case. Allison uses closed cell foam upon which to build the fiberglass beam. Lighter, and will not absorb water, while providing equal or greater stiffness. Allison uses the same type of construction as Boston Whaler. Two thin skins of fiberglass separated by a foam core. Very light, very stiff. Also more susceptible to being punctured than a thick glass construction. A 21 foot Allison weighs less than my Z7 Nitro, and thus, it sits higher in the water. They tout their "flotation pads" which prevent water from washing over the stern during deceleration or from waves. Guess which boat will drift faster in the breeze/wind. As for the Champion. The gymnastics or should I say ballet the boat can do are impressive. Sounds like something that should be on eXtreme boating, but it has nothing to do with fishing. I cannot see how that enters into the best bass boat consideration. Then the Bass Catt. Customer satisfaction has to do with expectations. Unrealistic expectations will always end up in disappointment. What the Powers survey tells me is that Bass Cat may have the best customers, not necessarily the best boat. I'm satisfied with my Z7. I paid 19,300 for it new last year. I did not expect it to be a Ranger, Bass Cat, Champion, or Allison, and it isn't. I got good value for my dollar, but the best boat is not the best value for the dollar, it's about the best boat. After doing a tiny bit of research, my vote would go to Allison as the best boat. The best value? That's another topic.

Yes, I did. It appears, if you read the entire story that even other players also took exception to his statement. His ill advised, off the cuff remark, revealed more about his inner man than the facade he apparently projects for public consumption. " 'The players are getting robbed. They are,' Peterson told Yahoo. 'The owners are making so much money off of us to begin with. I don't know that I want to quote myself on that.' .............................................................. Green Bay Packers running back Ryan Grant took exception to Peterson's comment, writing on Twitter: "Their is unfortunately actually still slavery existing in our world. Literal modern day slavery. That was a very misinformed statement." Added Grant: "But I understand what point he was trying to make. I just feel like he should have been advised a little differently." Saints fullback Heath Evans said he agrees with most of the Twitter responses about Peterson, which have been mostly negative. "We are all blessed to even strap a helmet on in this league!" Evans tweeted." If they aren't satisfied, do something else.

Your first concern for a tow vehicle should be its brakes. Not enough power is not dangerous. Not enough brakes is dangerous. It becomes even more critical if the trailer does not have surge brakes to assist in stopping the package. My gut instinct tells me you'd be better off with a full size pickup. I say gut instinct because I have zero experience with any of the smaller pickups. It's quite likely that you'd also get better gas mileage with a full size pickup when you have the boat in tow.

I do not wish to be a party to anything illegal. I'm fairly sure it is against the law to play a cello in Kentucky. But, you haven't lived until you've heard Long Mike recite Provencal poetry wearing his Iranian war helmet. Drat, guess I'll have to leave the limoncello at home.

Be sure to bring your ascot for the formal evening events. Don't forget the slippers and bathrobe. The Hugh Hefner look alike contest is a real hoot.

This is precisely why I gave up on professional stick and ball sports years ago. http://www.twincities.com/ci_17619356?nclick_check=1

My dad put it this way. "It doesn't cost you a dime to be decent to people." It was something his dad had said to him. Simple, yet profound.

We can't all fit in one boat. But we can all fit into one cabin after fishing, at least until the bs gets too deep.