Reply With QuotePictures paint a thousand words, photo of the transom layout before with the twins
Everybody likes a bit of DIY so thought I would do a quick thread, I'm punching this out quickly so don't bash me for my grammar and spelling
History- Its a 2004 7.5m Assassin Hardtop, I've owned the boat for 5 years, and brought it within 6 months of moving to Karratha in WA. It was my first boat, I brought It from my boss and whilst I didn't want something this big initially, it's been a great boat. The learning curve with 7+m boat was steep and there are not so fond memories of arguments at the boat ramp with my wife [IMG]file:///C:/Users/Ryan/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.gif[/IMG], trying to go mud crabbing in the creeks (one mates remakes of the day was I've never been 4wding in a boat before) and beach launching it in 8m tides in Broome one Christmas with it blowing a gale side on and my wife trying to hold it whilst I try to get it on the trailer. There have been plenty of good memories though with trips in the Dampier Archipelago and Montebello islands.
The boat came with twin 90hp Merc carbi 2S and it was thirsty, averaging 1L per 1km to 900m. It was always a $200 weekend to take it out. Which I didn't mind but when a 2nd hand 08 Yamaha F250B came up I jumped on it. The engine came of an ex-commercial boat out of Broome, 1000hrs, full service history, with the lower unit just replaced. The paint and cowling were a little banged up but i got it for a steal. The bloke brought the boat a 8.5m open centre console at auction repowered it and had the engine sitting on the stand for a couple years. He was moving back to the east coast and had to get rid of it that week and posted it for sale on one of the local FB pages at a great price. I jumped on it 15 minutes after he posted it for sale. I then had it resprayed for $500 at the local panel shop and then managed to sell my old carbi 2s’s for $3k.
The Plan (That Snowballed)
The initial plan was to simply weld up the old holes, respray the transom and hang the engine. Things then snowballed into simply respraying the whole boat, then again snowballed to stripping the whole boat. After all the effort of stripping the boat by hand things snowballed again and I told myself that now would be the best time to do some ally work. I decided to do kill tanks, underfloor storage box and a simple shade structure. Unfortunately the engineering company didn’t do a very good job, I won’t go into specifics but their quality and some of the things they did structurally was no good and refused to fix it. In the end I had to engage a private contractor to rectify and complete the works.
The original plan was to paint it myself in my drive way (naive) and then I got put onto a local guy in town who was a painter by trade working for one of the bus fleet companies, and I was to rent their bus booth on w/e’s. This was knocked back by the company’s senior manager so I came up with the idea to setup a DIY booth in a mates yard in the local light industrial area. I did a deal with the painter to give him the setup as part payment to paint the boat as he wants to get into doing other cash work on the side. For anyone thinking of doing the same the booth consists of the below
- 10mx5m marquee $579 + 200 freight http://alwaysdirect.com.au/commerica...t-marquee.html
- 32OD steel pipe to extend legs 1.1m to get the height I needed $100
- 2x 750mm pedestal fans $200 (Masters had them on special for $99 each they are normally 149-199 at Supercheap and the like)
- 2x work lights $80 https://www.masters.com.au/product/1...in-led-20w.jsp
- 4x second hand sheets of form ply to make the fan boxes $100 (if you send me you email I can send you a photo)
- a stack (20 sheets probably) of old 1200x1800 formply to make bottom walls where I extended the legs. Borrowed from a mate who owns a concreting company for 2 cartons
- roll of black plastic for the floor $90
- painter provided the filter material for the fan boxes which he got from work when they replaced theirs
- 300m gaffa tape (could have done without this, I was pedantic about making the booth air tight to prevent dust getting. In the end I turned the fan blowing in up to 3 and the one pulling air out to 1 to provide a slight positive pressure)
To get the job done I also brought
- supercheap compressor package (compressor, spray guns, 15m hose)
- extra 15m hose
- regulator with moisture trap
- Random orbital air sander
- 10 rolls of 50mm masking tape
- A stack of 80, 180, 240, 320 grit sanding disks (80c each from Atom Supplies)
We did need a little more air when spraying the top coats so the painter brought his little 2hp compressor and we manifolded them together with a T piece and some couplings
When it came to the paint work I went a little OTT regarding preventing oxidization, we sealed the surface by mechanically sanding to a bright finish for a max of 2 hours at a time, then applying alodine (used in aviation to prevent oxidation on planes) to that area and then move on. The reason for the maximum of 2 hours is I was instructed by a professional boat painter that the time to seal aluminium after removing oxidisation is within 4 hour period, It took us a week alone to seal the whole boat. We then applied 1 coat of Wattyl PR250 adhesion promoting Primer, 1 coat of International Paints zinc oxide primer Interguard 269(used on submerged sea structures), 3 coats of International Paints Interplus 1180 heavy high build primer and finally 1 coat of Wattyl UC230 high build primer to make for easy sanding and shaping.
Before the high build primer welds where filled (U-pol Dolphin Glaze) and shapped to provide clean lines. The primer was block sanded with 80 grit to remove the minor highs and lows, then random orbital sanded with 180, 240 and finally 320 grit to a flat polished finish. Top Coats are Wattyl Poly U400 Polyurethane, I was put onto this paint by Perth’s main rec boat painter who, does work for top tier builders like Rip Tide and Stag Boats. The top coats are thick, 3 full coats (two passes) were applied then light 320 grit sanded and another 3 full coats applied. As a comparison boats are generally painted with 3 full coats if they were final sanded with 180 grit or 2 full coats if they were final sanded with 240 grit then and that’s it. There are plans to clear the whole boat in a blue/green pearl but after the spraying the top coats the other day the level of gloss the painter achieved is fantastic so im not going to bother.
Assassin build strong boats but aren't known for there paint finish, though its a lot better in the last 5 years. My paint was 11 years old, and the previous owner didn't put a cover on it, there was a lot of flaking and lifting so I took the whole thing back to bare ally. Alot of weekends have gone into it but it came up looking magic. Ive probably put 250 hours into stripping and painting so I now understand why the pros charge $8k-$12k just to paint ex stripping and no to the level of detail I finished the welds and corners. I suppose it's like renovating a house, if your going to pay someone else to do all the work its cheaper to just by a new one....
I'm now at the stage of doing the deck paint and trailer…
Pictures paint a thousand words, photo of the transom layout before with the twins
Pictures paint a thousand words.
The body shop used the wrong paint code in their system and the outboard was resprayed in the older darker 2s Yamaha colour. They offered to change it but I like it.
Pictures paint a thousand words.
That's a lot of work you have done it looks good well done.
Pictures paint a thousand words.
Pictures paint a thousand words.
Pictures paint a thousand words.
We dont have a local galvaniser with Perth (1600km) the closest option. I looked at other options and considered Hammercoat but apparently despite the name this has poor chip performance. I have previously used a product called U-Pol Raptor liner on the fenders, grill and bonnet of my Wrangler to protect it from trail damage with really good results.
The frame was in good nick with the galvanising doing its sacrificial job so is dismantled it and knocked it all back to bare metal than a coat of kill rust for good measure. I've then applied a thick coat of Interguard 269 and a coat of Wattyl Poly U 400 whilst still in pieces. I then partially bolted it back together and applied a thick coat of Raptor liner.
The inside of the tubes are in good knick I routinely mix liquid lanolin and boat grease in a pot on the bbq, then pour this in one of those engine degreaser attachments with the under slung 1lt pots you get in the cheap 4pce air tool kits. whilst hot I shoot this down all the tubes a couple times a year. combined with dust there is a nice thick coating on walls. Simply if air cant get to it it wont rust.
Looks like an all out blizzard - not a snowball. You need to find another hobby. You will be so afraid to scratch it by the time it's finished you won't use it.
Seriously though, awesome effort and top looking job.
Great job really enjoyed the photos, only thing was i felt exhausted looking at all the work you've done, Congratulations.
WOW outstanding job mate ,I love the colour and the finish on the boat it will be tough as I would think and the alloy work looks the goods . Be interesting to see it finished ,keep us posted mate..Matt
A bad days fishing has got to be better than any day at work......
Update; I ended up shooting the white again as the painter only applied 2 coats after applying the initial 3 coats. Between the first and second spray we shot the black and because he had only shot 2 coats the black slightly bleed through in places. I had a falling out with the painter over it and ended up shooting the white myself. Im actually really happy with the result. The painter hadnt picked up his $600 Devilbiss gun yet so I gave that a go but couldnt get the paint to flow properly. I ended up using a $60 Repco gravity feed to shoot this.
I did get a couple small runs that I knocked the top off of the next day while the paint was still somewhat plastic with a fresh stanley blade and gave them a light rub with 320. I will give them another rub with 1500 and 2000 wet and dry before I cut and buff the whole boat to flatten it out once its out of the booth.
I started taping off for the texture paint to deck, foredeck, gun whale pockets, hard top roof, dive platforms, ladder steps, inside all the boxes and hatches and a strip on top of each roof rack. Its such a tedious progress, but a good paint job is all in the prep. I watched week I watched a youtube video of how to spray 2k paint and the old boy doing the video said that a good paint job is 99% prep and that actually applying the paint is the reward for all the prep done before hand, he's right. It reminds me of that Mr Bean episode where he paints his flat by wrapping everything in paper and put a fire cracker in the bucket of paint....
I plan to start spraying tomorrow arvo and should have it done over two arvos.
Once its done I will report back with some photos and tips on prep and application of this product which i have used a few times on other projects.
3x 4lt kits of U-Pol Raptor Bed Liner, thinned 10% with acetone, thinned and tinted with 1.5lt International Paint Interthane 990 (tinted blue) dosed with 8:1 by volume international paints Intergrip noskid texture additive.
Managed to only get the HT sprayed tonight as I ran out of light. Im really happy with the result though with plenty of texture. I ended up increasing the intergrip to 200ml per liter or 5:1 and it came out the gun no worries. Considering people will be climbing up there to get a better view from the spotting station i wanted a lot of grip. The TDS recommends a max of 8:1 otherwise it can clump up but im assuming they are spraying it with a LVLP gun with 2.0mm nozze. The shutz gun I brought a while back to shoot raptor liner in the tub of my Jeep has an approx 3mm tip and sprays a finner texture then a more common 1/4' (6mm) tip shutz gun.
I always pull the tap straight after the last coat, the box recommends 20min after last coat once its tacked off but I find I get cleanner lines straight after you just need to be careful to keep the removed tape of the surface to not ruin the finish. Another tip is when removing the tape roll it back on its self and into the sprayed area. If you dont you will get all these little tails along the edge that you will need to trim with a stanley blade the next day and even then it looks a little average. When you pull the tape early the tape cuts the edge cleanly and the edge springs back.
Another tip is not to load the product up on the edges to achieve clean lines, this finish is 3 coats and 3lt of material
1st coat I hit all the edges then infill to get coverage, I then get a small brush and touchup and missed bits on the edges. Material can come out the gun quickly and if you apply too much in one spot at once you will flatten the surface, so instead of trying to touchup bits with the gun its easier to dab a bit on with a brush.
2nd coat I build up thickness and stay just off the edges
3rd coat I added the intergrip with a quick pass over the edges to get some grit on them then empty the bottle building up thickness staying just of the edges
i shoot it from about 1/2 to 3/4 a meter away and let the material fall on the surface, to close and again you will flatten the finish. This was applied at 45psi
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