Plastic Classic Forum

Hello folks - I poked a few holes around my ballast and into the keel void on my Vanguard. Drained lots o water. Found a lot of mung around the ballast soaked balsa I believe and some wonderful foam smells delicious. Anyway I plan to barrier coat the bottom in the spring and want opinions on wether...

We are avoiding Lexan on our 28 footer this time around. The coating tends to fail after a few years. Looks ugly. Especially after repeated taping for varnish.

New portlights will be tempered glass.

I would agree with the previouse replies. Epoxy with reinforcement sounds great, but, unless you are absolutely sure it will be a good bond, there is the risk of cracking under stress. Cracking leads to leaks. 5200, on the other hand, has some "give" to it and acts as a sealant as well as ...

Thats a pretty nice celooking bilge there Tim. Is that paint? If so, what did you use? I am getting close to covering the bilges in certain compartments on my build out. I go back & forth between spraying paint or gel-coat. The wife says she wants gel-coat but spraying paint would be easier. -ro...

One advantage of the inhibited resins is that you can control working time by controlling the amount of MEKP used to "catalyze" the resin. With epoxy, you cannot adjust the amount of catalyst, to do so would risk an incomplete cure. The best you can do is use cataysts specially formulated ...

On buying or making gaskets... How much do you want to spend? For a point of reference... The simple small cast iron thermostat housing on our MD7A was corroded and leaking. Cost of a new one quoted from dealer == $325. That was ten years ago. I think the green paint contains some rare element found...

I feel for ya man. We had a volvo MD7A in our sloop till it gave up the ghost a few years back. It smoked quite a bit up until then. The raw water cooling was a PITA. We were always trying to clean out corrosion. We figure it blew rings in the rear cylinder. We suspect the exhaust installation had t...

Our sloop has a common ground for the masthead lights. We did it for simplicity when we rebuilt the mast. We ran a six conductor cable up the mast (marine grade, made by Anchor) to power all the lights. It was much easier to run a single cable through the PVC conduit in the mast. Plus, since we had ...

Not sure if this is your situation, but suffice it to say that keeping them on a "trickle charge", especially over the winter, will not preserve the batteries. They will eventually go bad prematurely. They should be "discharged" (not completely) and/or equalized periodically (ide...

How old are the batteries? Is there a chance there is sulfation? Have they been equalized periodically? I just recently had a similar issue with my house bank. After running the engine, they would not seem to "top up". This last trip we had a long day of motoring, so I ran three successive...

We are running a Honda BF20 (4-stroke 2 HP) behind a 9 foot Walker Bay RID. We used to run it behind a heavier custom fiberglass dinghy. It does not plane anything of course, but we are usually not in that much of a hurry. The engine is 20 years old. It looks beat up, but it always starts on the fir...

We have used Epiphanes high gloss on the heavily wooded topsides of our sloop. I havent seen any other varnish that gives such outstanding gloss that lasts as long as this stuff. Twelve original coats freshened with 2-3 coats a year lasted about 10 years in the Pacific Northwest. The other's I have ...

We have had the Link 10 in our 28' sloop for a few years. It was then branded as a Heart Interface, but even so, originally made by Cruising Equipment Co of Seattle (I think). Only had one problem and that was when we increased our battery capacity, I was unable to reprogram the unit. Their support ...

I didnt see anyone mention vinylester resin. This is often used for repairs that require secondary bonds. Yes it has it's pros and cons over epoxy as well. Pros: cheaper than epoxy easier to work with than epoxy flexes a bit more, not as brittle as epoxy (if that is appropriate for your repair, see ...

I used it on our Skookum 28 to remove bottom paint years ago. It works but you need to apply it "liberally" in order to get any performance. For bottom paint, I think we applied it double the thickness that was recommended in the instructions. And, you need to cover it with the "seali...