Texas Flats Boat

[Jeff]

wwsmith, Nice tool!! Glad you had no problem with the storm. So far, none of our customers/builders seem to have been impacted by Beta!! But still waiting to hear from a few in Galveston!! Jeff

[wwsmith]

BB, I didn't get a video, but here are a few photos showing how it looks. Maybe not the best way, but it goes really fast and not much effort. The edges are over-filled enough where there should only be about 10-20% of holes to fill after sanding down this first pass. Then hopefully done. If anyone chooses to try this rather than building a form and filling up to it, it's important to know you can only rake it off once. If you go over it a second time in an attempt to square it up more, the filler becomes more liquid/runny and you lose it all. I put it on with a plastic spreader, then rake it once with the edge tool, and let it set up. We'll see how it looks after sanding.

[BB Sig]

Cool trick. Thanks.

[wwsmith]

Was becoming hard to find the low spots, so put a coat of primer on. Luckily there weren't many, but still a few areas need fairing. Close to finished with this step.

[Jeff]

Nice progress wwsmith!!! Jeff

[wwsmith]

Nothing much to update here other than some encouragement for anyone wondering about flipping a boat. I had been wondering how to do it on a larger boat (2 of us could flip the LM18 pretty easily). Started by following a suggestion to suspend it from the carport but became worried about putting too much pressure on the sides. Ended up calling in reinforcements and the three of us were able to lift it and flip it pretty easily. I think a 4th person would have only been in the way.

Went with graphite and epoxy on the bottom. 5 coats, then wet sanded, then a final coat. Not very happy with the finish and it still does not withstand abrasion well at all. It seems like S3 yacht primer is a more durable surface than the epoxy. Was deliberating what to do about the level of finish until I crawled under the LM18 to see what 18 months of use looked like. It was so scratched up, I realized I'd be crazy to spend any more time trying to make it look better. We fish very shallow areas and the bottom just scratches the boat all to hell. Might have to try to gator glide one of these days. If your boat never/rarely touches the bottom, then I'm sure the graphite/epoxy is fine.

[gstanfield]

Looking good!

[Jeff]

Looks great wwsmith!!! That was a bunch of puzzle joints!!! Jeff

[wwsmith]

Thanks, all. Yes, I'm a big fan of the puzzle joints! They really made those connections easy and strong.

[wwsmith]

Glassed the inside of the hull and dropped the frames in. All fit pretty well, but lots of little trimming to do over the coming weeks. All framing gets 3 layers of 12oz tape each side, so I plan to chip away at that for the rest of the year. Don't intend to hit it too hard during holiday and hunting season. Really want to cut that transom off, but trying to remain patient...