- Location
- Texas
Nice Work.
Should be fun to ride!
Should be fun to ride!
300/440/550 550sx Hull Modernization Build
- Thread starter Mobile Chernobyl
- Start date
- Location
- 80127
No new progress for the weekend. First off it was too hot! Secondly I scraped the 
outta my leg loading my 440 into the water (slipped off the trailer and snagged a bolt with my leg, leaving a nice 6-7" gash and some fresh skin on the bolt lol) , then the starter finally went out on it (woulda been possible to fix too, but I'm just gonna buy a new '93 sea doo starter for $60 and throw the old sea doo starter from my 550 on the 440) .
So it's official that I need to sell something to continue funding this hobby lol - namely my precious DH bike that I havent been able to ride in a year.
This whole fiberglassing thing was a lot funner to do when the air temps were under 80 on a hot day!!
outta my leg loading my 440 into the water (slipped off the trailer and snagged a bolt with my leg, leaving a nice 6-7" gash and some fresh skin on the bolt lol) , then the starter finally went out on it (woulda been possible to fix too, but I'm just gonna buy a new '93 sea doo starter for $60 and throw the old sea doo starter from my 550 on the 440) . So it's official that I need to sell something to continue funding this hobby lol - namely my precious DH bike that I havent been able to ride in a year.
This whole fiberglassing thing was a lot funner to do when the air temps were under 80 on a hot day!!
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- Location
- orlando,fl
Saweet work!!
caseville9036
BLRider
- Location
- SE MI
What DH bike do you have?
GrantWarden
Not new, just new.
- Location
- San Diego
UPDATESSSSSSSSS. Also, let's see that bike!
- Location
- 80127
Lol you guys are really interested in the bikes!
I just sold this guy:
Then bought this guy with some of the money:
And I've had this guy for a while as my XC/AM bike:
Luckily I sold the DH bike for enough money to pretty much finish off the procurement stage of my 550 project! I'll have spent a tiny bit over $2K when this project is done - but that factors in the cost of the 550 itself and the title swap as well as the title swap on my trailer. So I guess I could have bought a SN SJ, but hopefully this thing is fun enough that it won't bother me!
I just sold this guy:
Then bought this guy with some of the money:
And I've had this guy for a while as my XC/AM bike:
Luckily I sold the DH bike for enough money to pretty much finish off the procurement stage of my 550 project! I'll have spent a tiny bit over $2K when this project is done - but that factors in the cost of the 550 itself and the title swap as well as the title swap on my trailer. So I guess I could have bought a SN SJ, but hopefully this thing is fun enough that it won't bother me!
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- Location
- Baytown Tx
Sweeeeet
- Location
- Charlotte, NC
cool bikes, now back to jet skis! haha
swapmeet
Brotastic
- Location
- Arlington TX
So I just went through the entire thread. Hadn't seen it before.
Holy S dude... Like... HOLY figgen S....
At first, I was like....
And then I saw the rocker/ foot holds taking shape and I was like...
And then I saw the nose piece and tray take shape.... and now... I'm like...
Seriously... great work. I dig your humor, now finish it and go nose stab a Croc.
Holy S dude... Like... HOLY figgen S....
At first, I was like....
And then I saw the rocker/ foot holds taking shape and I was like...
And then I saw the nose piece and tray take shape.... and now... I'm like...
Seriously... great work. I dig your humor, now finish it and go nose stab a Croc.
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- Location
- 80127
Lol thanks everyone for the motivation! Lately I've been in need of some. Having pissed away the good weeks of early summer and going through the third heat wave here in the east coast - I'm beginning to go crazy not being able to enjoy the outdoors!
I have actually ben making progress on this - only in completing my purchasing of odds and ends for it. It's reallly hard to motivate yourself to come home after a 10hr day working and set up shop in 97deg humid weather!!!
I recently blew the starter motor out on my 440 so I haven't been on the water at all - combined with getting that hardtail bike I've been riding bikes a lot more (which is great because I'm horribly out of shape between school and working on this thing all summer so far) - it seems that a single speed hardtail is a lot more reliable than a watercraft - go figure!
So I've got a new sea doo starter I'm going to throw in the 550sx, and I'll swap the 550's starter to the 440.
Things that need to get done yet:
Glasswork
Tubbies
Bondrail
Chine Extentions
New mounts for chit in the engine bay
Hood Baffle
Airbox?
Metal work
Handle Pole
Pole Bracket
Footholds
Battery Box
Airbox?
Body work
Body filler everywhere!
Sanding edges of hood rounded
Paint everywhere
Padding and Turf
And then I can look at reassembly!
This project could have all been avoided and I could have been riding for the last month at least if I had just bought a damn superjet! Listen and learn kiddies!
I have actually ben making progress on this - only in completing my purchasing of odds and ends for it. It's reallly hard to motivate yourself to come home after a 10hr day working and set up shop in 97deg humid weather!!!
I recently blew the starter motor out on my 440 so I haven't been on the water at all - combined with getting that hardtail bike I've been riding bikes a lot more (which is great because I'm horribly out of shape between school and working on this thing all summer so far) - it seems that a single speed hardtail is a lot more reliable than a watercraft - go figure!
So I've got a new sea doo starter I'm going to throw in the 550sx, and I'll swap the 550's starter to the 440.
Things that need to get done yet:
Glasswork
Tubbies
Bondrail
Chine Extentions
New mounts for chit in the engine bay
Hood Baffle
Airbox?
Metal work
Handle Pole
Pole Bracket
Footholds
Battery Box
Airbox?
Body work
Body filler everywhere!
Sanding edges of hood rounded
Paint everywhere
Padding and Turf
And then I can look at reassembly!
This project could have all been avoided and I could have been riding for the last month at least if I had just bought a damn superjet! Listen and learn kiddies!
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- Location
- Charlotte, NC
sure buying a superjet is an easier way to go, however your ski will be way cooler than a run of the mill superjet!
GrantWarden
Not new, just new.
- Location
- San Diego
It will be 10000 times cooler than a SJ, and nobody else in the world will have one. That's cool.
- Location
- 80127
Lol I know, it sure can be frustrating not being able to be out on the water when you have the components from 2 running skis in your posession though!
I'm hoping with the bond rail mod and tubbies - this thing will be fun as hell. Just throwing the flaired sponsons on my 440 and ripping off the stupid stock training wheel it converted it from an old feeling hull to a fun, yet still slow carver (which still slides on a dime). Everyone that has ridden it before and now with the new sponsons agrees as well - so with everything eventually done to the 550, and about 20 more HP's or so, it should be a hell of a fun little squirrel yacht.
I'm hoping with the bond rail mod and tubbies - this thing will be fun as hell. Just throwing the flaired sponsons on my 440 and ripping off the stupid stock training wheel it converted it from an old feeling hull to a fun, yet still slow carver (which still slides on a dime). Everyone that has ridden it before and now with the new sponsons agrees as well - so with everything eventually done to the 550, and about 20 more HP's or so, it should be a hell of a fun little squirrel yacht.
Jetpilot106
Kickin it old skool
- Location
- Kansas City,Missouri
summers not over yet drink some monster and build the beast.Im half temped to cut up one of mine now this winter
haha.
haha.
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- Location
- Tucson, Arizona
Any Progress??? You got me drooling like a dog looking at a fresh steak!! lol
- Location
- 80127
Lol - July has pretty much been a wash for me. I have another Water-oriented Vacation planned during end of august so I'll use that as the motivation I need to push me to finish this!
These projects are really best off during winter! When being inside doesnt seem like your being put in a jail cell away from the outdoors lol
These projects are really best off during winter! When being inside doesnt seem like your being put in a jail cell away from the outdoors lol
- Location
- 80127
What's that I smell? PROGRESS MUTHA TRUCKA'S!
Well I got through the July doldrums which I seem to fall victim to every year...
I decided tonight that I will start caring less about what's under the fiberglass - and more about laying the fiberglass!
The tubbie's have long been a burden on me because they were seemingly a large job. Even with my shotty hot wire foam cutter I knew it was going to be a challenge. And... it sorta was?
Basically I started with making a paper template on the side of the ski to represent the basic footprint of the tubbie. From there I used this template to cut out 2 1.5" foam blanks which I sandwiched together and sanded until they were relatively the same - this was done because the later steps would use 1 set of templates so that I could essentially "mirror" from left to right - and without them being nearly perfectly similar - it wouldn't line up.
So with the blanks cut out - I needed to design a double miter'd profile for the tubbie. I decided to opt for a simple Tubbie 1 like design (knowing that I could always carve an extra "chine" into it after it's in place)
To test out the compound profile mitering setup on my hot wire cutter I need to be confident it would work first - Here is my first attempt.
It worked! Hell yea! I've been sweating this step for a month now and I'm glad I just pulled the trigger on it.
Onto the real thing now!
My miter guide rails are in place (top and bottom plane) to achieve a compound profile for the tubbie.
And after some slow hot wire cutting and inhaling lots of fumes that most likely contain bath salts I came up with this:
America - yea!
So I got the lower profile carved out - the upper profile would seemingly be simpler to set up. It basically follows as such:
The upper inward edge will be the "cut to" edge, so I set up a guide rail parallel to it the entire length.
The lower edge will determine the "girth" of the tubbie from front to rear. I decided to have about 8-10 inches of full girth at the "belly" of the hull per say. From there it would taper to Zero girth at the front, and .5" girth at the rear to achieve a nice body line and hopefully perform street magic and make for a good handling hull!
Laying out the "Girth profile"
Okay, here's where things got sketchy.... Mr. Hot wire decided to be a baby back bitch and snap on me during every attempt to cut this. So it was not the cleanest cut. But at this point - I must reiterate what I said in the second sentence, I really don't give to manys about whats under the glass now.
You can see the wavyness which was a combination of wire snaps and my poor technique. This was worse - I sanded it down to achieve a desirable surface over 75% of it. the low point will be addressed later on and I'm actually pretty happy with it.
I just wanna mention how I put it on the ski now - I found this stuff called "Carpet tape" which is essentially like the Area 51 of double sided tapes because I had never heard of it before, but damn this stuff is awesome! It's a single layer of fiberglass with super monkey nuts adhesive on it that is ridiculously strong! I will now opt to use this for all "laminated foam" layups I don't have to do from here on out. It attached the tubbies to he hull in such a way that in order to remove it - I will have to destroy them!
[/Sticky Tape Endorsement]
Putting it on the ski instantly made it look a lot better!
Like I said - the wavyness looks a lot worse than it actually is! it will only take about an hour of finish work to get it smooth a silk again. I have the ability to shape this however I want - but given that I will have to lay fiberglass over it, and don't yet have a vacuum bag setup to help with concave layup's, I'm going to opt for no concave "chines" like the Tubbie2's have. Lets not forget what else is going on this yet:
Widened Matrix/Rickter/Superfreak Bond rail AND Lengthened Skags/Deepened Chines
So Either way - I'm not going to need to depend purely on the Tubster's for handling, hopefully I'll help alleviate some "chine walk" by not adding another chine too.
I could have just bought the MIII's or #Zero's tubbies but with my rocker nose mod - I'm glad I made my own at this point!
I'm gonna use the Japanese Samurai saw to cut the right side since my patience is gone with the hot wire cutter - it did the part it needed to (the lower profile) pretty damn well though!
Glad to be back in action here! Gonna try and make some huge progress now! :Banane35:
Well I got through the July doldrums which I seem to fall victim to every year...
I decided tonight that I will start caring less about what's under the fiberglass - and more about laying the fiberglass!
The tubbie's have long been a burden on me because they were seemingly a large job. Even with my shotty hot wire foam cutter I knew it was going to be a challenge. And... it sorta was?
Basically I started with making a paper template on the side of the ski to represent the basic footprint of the tubbie. From there I used this template to cut out 2 1.5" foam blanks which I sandwiched together and sanded until they were relatively the same - this was done because the later steps would use 1 set of templates so that I could essentially "mirror" from left to right - and without them being nearly perfectly similar - it wouldn't line up.
So with the blanks cut out - I needed to design a double miter'd profile for the tubbie. I decided to opt for a simple Tubbie 1 like design (knowing that I could always carve an extra "chine" into it after it's in place)
To test out the compound profile mitering setup on my hot wire cutter I need to be confident it would work first - Here is my first attempt.
It worked! Hell yea! I've been sweating this step for a month now and I'm glad I just pulled the trigger on it.
Onto the real thing now!
My miter guide rails are in place (top and bottom plane) to achieve a compound profile for the tubbie.
And after some slow hot wire cutting and inhaling lots of fumes that most likely contain bath salts I came up with this:
America -
yea! So I got the lower profile carved out - the upper profile would seemingly be simpler to set up. It basically follows as such:
The upper inward edge will be the "cut to" edge, so I set up a guide rail parallel to it the entire length.
The lower edge will determine the "girth" of the tubbie from front to rear. I decided to have about 8-10 inches of full girth at the "belly" of the hull per say. From there it would taper to Zero girth at the front, and .5" girth at the rear to achieve a nice body line and hopefully perform street magic and make for a good handling hull!
Laying out the "Girth profile"
Okay, here's where things got sketchy.... Mr. Hot wire decided to be a baby back bitch and snap on me during every attempt to cut this. So it was not the cleanest cut. But at this point - I must reiterate what I said in the second sentence, I really don't give to many
s about whats under the glass now.
You can see the wavyness which was a combination of wire snaps and my poor technique. This was worse - I sanded it down to achieve a desirable surface over 75% of it. the low point will be addressed later on and I'm actually pretty happy with it.
I just wanna mention how I put it on the ski now - I found this stuff called "Carpet tape" which is essentially like the Area 51 of double sided tapes because I had never heard of it before, but damn this stuff is awesome! It's a single layer of fiberglass with super monkey nuts adhesive on it that is ridiculously strong! I will now opt to use this for all "laminated foam" layups I don't have to do from here on out. It attached the tubbies to he hull in such a way that in order to remove it - I will have to destroy them!
[/Sticky Tape Endorsement]
Putting it on the ski instantly made it look a lot better!
Like I said - the wavyness looks a lot worse than it actually is! it will only take about an hour of finish work to get it smooth a silk again. I have the ability to shape this however I want - but given that I will have to lay fiberglass over it, and don't yet have a vacuum bag setup to help with concave layup's, I'm going to opt for no concave "chines" like the Tubbie2's have. Lets not forget what else is going on this yet:
Widened Matrix/Rickter/Superfreak Bond rail AND Lengthened Skags/Deepened Chines
So Either way - I'm not going to need to depend purely on the Tubster's for handling, hopefully I'll help alleviate some "chine walk" by not adding another chine too.
I could have just bought the MIII's or #Zero's tubbies but with my rocker nose mod - I'm glad I made my own at this point!
I'm gonna use the Japanese Samurai saw to cut the right side since my patience is gone with the hot wire cutter - it did the part it needed to (the lower profile) pretty damn well though!
Glad to be back in action here! Gonna try and make some huge progress now! :Banane35:
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- Location
- 80127
Alright now that I'm back in the swing of it... let's try that again!
Well I figure if I'm gonna go all out on my tubsters I may as well make them as best I can. I opted to up the ante for a 2" wide tubbie rather than my anemic 1.5" ones. I also read through a plethora of tubbie threads and decide to add A LOT more girth to the front side of my tubsters.
First off - My wire cutter should have worked a lot better than it did. I unfortunately do not have NiChrome wire for it, so that is why it is either too cold, or too hot - no good current regulation. Well I mustered up a simple way to fix that:
I also threw a 1lb spool of mig wire on there for the cutting wire - this way I could put a fresh wire on it every new cut (I only needed to do this twice, so this was overkill 100X)
And now, fabrication of the 2" Bubba Tubsters
Sanded on top - raw on bottom. The raw this time was A LOT smoother, barely any sanding was needed to remove the cutting marks.
And for the secondary miter I opted to use the Samurai Saw - this worked well as usual. If you don't have one - set $10 aside and go to harbor freight - you'll thank yourself later!
-Basically I use the lower piece of wood as a cut-to guide, and the top line I re-adjusted for every saw motion so that it would be nearly perfect... Again, this method allowed me to have very little finish sanding.
Threw them on the ski and they look pretty bad ass!
Turns out my monkey nuts carpet tape can't muster up the adhesive strength to hold these guys on -
For anyone that has done something like this - Can I just 5200 them on? I'm planning on trying that!
Just another step towards completion. Getting re-amped up again! Consuming massive amounts of caffeine to work into the wee hours of the next days morning.
Well I figure if I'm gonna go all out on my tubsters I may as well make them as best I can. I opted to up the ante for a 2" wide tubbie rather than my anemic 1.5" ones. I also read through a plethora of tubbie threads and decide to add A LOT more girth to the front side of my tubsters.
First off - My wire cutter should have worked a lot better than it did. I unfortunately do not have NiChrome wire for it, so that is why it is either too cold, or too hot - no good current regulation. Well I mustered up a simple way to fix that:
I also threw a 1lb spool of mig wire on there for the cutting wire - this way I could put a fresh wire on it every new cut (I only needed to do this twice, so this was overkill 100X)
And now, fabrication of the 2" Bubba Tubsters
Sanded on top - raw on bottom. The raw this time was A LOT smoother, barely any sanding was needed to remove the cutting marks.
And for the secondary miter I opted to use the Samurai Saw - this worked well as usual. If you don't have one - set $10 aside and go to harbor freight - you'll thank yourself later!
-Basically I use the lower piece of wood as a cut-to guide, and the top line I re-adjusted for every saw motion so that it would be nearly perfect... Again, this method allowed me to have very little finish sanding.
Threw them on the ski and they look pretty bad ass!
Turns out my monkey nuts carpet tape can't muster up the adhesive strength to hold these guys on -
For anyone that has done something like this - Can I just 5200 them on? I'm planning on trying that!
Just another step towards completion. Getting re-amped up again! Consuming massive amounts of caffeine to work into the wee hours of the next days morning.
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the WaTeRhAwK
fryin' up a/m electrics..
- Location
- okc
subscribed.... : )