NICKYPOO's Ballast Thread

[Wakeman22]

With this huge project you have taken on I now feel confident I can do a regular ballast install in my 24ve. Wow lots of work you have done. Very industrious. Great job!!!

[NICKYPOO]

I had my coating specialist come by today and take a look. He had a sample of some new rubberized stuff that was pretty bitchen but pretty spendy. He suggested going with some bedliner. I think I will.

Got the two main partitions cut and roughed in. I still need to cut the angle for the seat back but I have lined out ant they are looking dead nuts on the mark or at least close enough. It's not the easiest thing in the world to make a square box inside something that has zero square surfaces. I guess the year I spent building interiors for custom busses is finally coming in handy.

Meanwhile, a shadowy shape lurks on the other side of the garage, waiting for some love.

[NICKYPOO]

Got the new bulkheads roughed in today. Took me a good 4hrs. Lots of in and out of the boat, making templates, trimming, checking, scribing, more the checking, more trimming, more scribing, in the boat, out of the boat. I must have made that climb and descent 50 times today.

It's coming along. One piece at a time.

[IDBoating]

I totally respect what you're doing and going through. Fine tuning my battery shelf (also using a wood template) involved countless climbs in and out of the boat just to shave a tenth here, an eighth there.

When you're done, though, it's totally worth it!

[chpthril]

Progress is looking great is that an International all camo'd in gray primer and housewares

[NICKYPOO]

Progress is looking great is that an International all camo'd in gray primer and housewares

Not a piece of farm equipment. That is my '72 K10. My first truck (I've never owned a car). I bought it off my stepfather (who bought it '73) for 4k back in '91. It's currently cocooned in a three layers of super primer. The interior looks like the back of my boat. I just found the original factory AM radio for it. You can see it on the dash. I used to tow my buddy's '72 Cobra Jet with it. He and I decided we need to have a race to see who can restore our vintage hotrods first. His project is a little easier than mine. The Cobra is an 18' jetboat (Sanger mold) with a 427 Chevy and Berkeley 12J. Together, they are a bitchin setup.

[chpthril]

Not a piece of farm equipment. That is my '72 K10. My first truck (I've never owned a car). I bought it off my stepfather (who bought it '73) for 4k back in '91. It's currently cocooned in a three layers of super primer. The interior looks like the back of my boat. I just found the original factory AM radio for it. You can see it on the dash. I used to tow my buddy's '72 Cobra Jet with it. He and I decided we need to have a race to see who can restore our vintage hotrods first. His project is a little easier than mine. The Cobra is an 18' jetboat (Sanger mold) with a 427 Chevy and Berkeley 12J. Together, they are a bitchin setup.

Cool, it looked like it may have been a Scout.

[Wakeman22]

Very good progress and as said before "VERY INDUSTRIOUS".

[NICKYPOO]

Got a little more done today. Dado'd the bulkheads in and notched the tank floor and partition around them. I also cut the angles for the seat back into the partitions. Also managed to get a small splinter.

[Wakeman22]

Thats not a splinter, thats a shard.

Looking nice.

[topaz surfer]

Progress looks good. That's sweet that you are motivated to put in all that work. Nothing like a little sacrafice for the project, nice splinter that should give you that extrat room for more ballast. LOL

[NICKYPOO]

It's finally starting to look like something.

[duffymahoney]

How big of sacs are you going to be able to fit?

[jason@wakemakers.com]

Looking good! Are you just going to use an epoxy resin to treat that ply, or are you planning on glassing over it as well?

[NICKYPOO]

How big of sacs are you going to be able to fit?

I had FH make me some 24x24x28 customs. The space isn't quite that big but, total distance "traveled" by each surface will be very close to that. My best calculations are right at 475#. Not much compared to real surf machines such as your's but, for a D-Drive its pretty respectable. It will effectively double my previous capacity and its location should make it twice as effective. I'm hoping for some hot rubrail on water action. I don't have much freeboard so it ain't that hard to accomplish. Hopefully now it will just be a flip of a switch and 5min. That's my goal. Its almost hard to believe I've happily been surfing this boat for nearly 10 years on such a hokey set up. Thinking about how much fun I've had with it up to this point really motivates me to get this far superior set up done.

Looking good! Are you just going to use an epoxy resin to treat that ply, or are you planning on glassing over it as well?

Thanks man. I'm still not set on finish. I've been looking at every truck bed lining I can put my hand to but, they are all so coarse. I know the new sacs are tough but, rubbing on that stuff constantly can't be good. I really want something more rubberized. I might just go with some stuff my buddy brought over. Being that its a trunk, I don't need it to be bullet proof, I need it to be waterproof and friendly to the sacs. My loose plan right now is to get everything constructed and fit and then finished and then reassembled. Everything will be removable except the bulkheads. Those will be sealed off and locked in. I might go the resin route for those just to make sure they are on lockdown. The rest of the stuff I'm not too overly concerned about considering the pieces I took out were just 1/4" marine ply with zero treatment besides carpet. I happily boated around like that for 10 years so anything I do to them will be a huge improvement.