Beginning my first rail job (turf) HELP with edge

[Shifty]

My girlfriends ski is back from the painters, looks pretty bad a$$ for a 650sx I must say. It is the new chevy blue and pewter. All the SN Superjets surfaced as soon as this thing was being painted so she will have to sport the Kawi for now.

I started the turf around the bow and will work back from there. I skuffed everything well with a sanding block and taped the hull just above the bond line. Everything went pretty smooth except a few minutes after brushing on the contact cement, the paint started lifting pretty bad in one spot. This is at the front of the ski where there was a bubbly surface to begin with. I am affraid it wont stick work a damn because of it, so I malleted the crap out of it. I used allot of heat gun and wrapped the turf well arount the edges but there is still an annoying gap with glue fragments in there. How do you keep this from happening? I have the rear pieces to do tonight and want to get these right.

 

[Crab]

You should be bonding to the gelcoat or glass, not paint.

 

[Mark44]

yep remove all paint before you glue or it will come up.

Mark44

 

[Shifty]

It appears as though I missed a step! Why is this, because gelcoat, smc, doesn't bubble I assume?

 

[Crab]

It appears as though I missed a step! Why is this, because gelcoat, smc, doesn't bubble I assume?

Its not affected by the solvents in contact cement. I too learned the hard way on my X2 fresh from paint, but it bubbled up and just made a huge mess I had to scrape off.

 

[Shifty]

Well this is a setback but, oh well. My plan was to get the rear done right (no ugly glue seam) and and redo the nose. I will sand down to the smc on the two rear sections before laying the glue.

How to you get the seam flawless? I think the tape was not helping much, when I pulled it up it was lifting turf a little and pulling the cement out.


Thanks for the tips, seems like I dont remember ever reading this fact on any write ups?

 

[Zerfman34]

Well this is a setback but, oh well. My plan was to get the rear done right (no ugly glue seam) and and redo the nose. I will sand down to the smc on the two rear sections before laying the glue.

How to you get the seam flawless? I think the tape was not helping much, when I pulled it up it was lifting turf a little and pulling the cement out.


Thanks for the tips, seems like I dont remember ever reading this fact on any write ups?

ya me too. i'm about to do my first noob turf job so i'm glad this thread got out there. how did yours turn out?

 

[z00m]

shifty nice looking ski i have the sx 650 with the grafix ant turf , where did you get your rail kit from , im in the uk and still waiting for my suppier to come up with the goods,

also have you turfed under the the lip of the rail or just stopped at the edge
mick

 

[steveyz250fpilot]

It looks like you glued the edge of the turf and or the small section on the "side" of the hull. The way that I have done this in the past was to only get adhesive on the horizontal part of the rail and on the bottom of the turf. After everything is tacky, I push the side of the turf tightly against the hull and then commence to getting it on the top of the rail. This leaves little or no gap. I leave it too long and wrap it around the edge and then trim and sand. On this boat, I also trimmed the part of the turf on the rail that hits the hull at a 45 degree angle.