Flipping couches for fun and profit

[WFO Speedracer]

Well I am back home and right now I am pissed , so it turns out the ski the guy wants me to work on was still at his lake place, I don't know if it was on a floating dock or a lift, I do know that it wasn't on a trailer ready to be picked up.

I toted the GTX RFI with me because I wanted to run it again , I am in Wetumpka , 1/2 a mile from the boat ramp and could easily have put it in , but instead I hauled it to the shop and put it in the gate , then I called the guy , oh he is having issues getting his boat running ( yeah they don't just neglect the Seadoo apparently ) anyway he has to get the boat running to pull the ski out a t the boat landing.

I think you know what is crossing my mind right now don't you , what kind of retard moron schedules someone to work on their ski when they don't have it ready to be picked up, shouldn't that be done before you even called me , anyway even though I am pissed I keep my composure, he asks if he can call me back when he gets the ski out, I say sure , you will see why later.

About 4:00 or a little after he calls up ,finally he has the ski out , that's great I tell him but , you had me drive all the way up here and wait on you for over three hours, I won't be able to complete the job today now , can I bring it tomorrow he asks, I say no , this was the time I had allotted to work on your ski , I brought all the parts and materials , you were not ready , I will see you after the 4th if you still want it done, I have other people waiting in line and you have now messed up my whole schedule.

WTF is wrong with these people ?

Three more months of this BS and then it's going to be a whole new ball game .

 

[Myself]

I simply CAN NOT handle stupid these days. This is EXACTLY the reason I DON'T do any dock or house calls at all. Bring it to my shop and put it in line.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I usually don't do lake or dock calls except for longstanding customers , I made an exception here , it bit me in the a44 , Tommy Pierce , one of my mentors from long ago had a saying, his saying was no good deed goes unpunished , it fits this business really well. there are not that m,any people out there anymore that can work on the older stuff .

I may be totally in the wrong here but , I think we are now in the position that customers should be seeking us out , the dealerships have abandoned them, if your ski is over ten years old , you are F'ed . The dealerships won't even work on a two stroke, they won't change the oil, wear ring or program a key to a ten year old ski , who thought up that business model ?

My motto was sop up the gravy , that's what it's on the table for and biscuits without gravy is just plain wrong.

From here on out I will not be subject to their flights of fancy or their whims , if they can't get it together they can go elsewhere , I lack the patience or the will to deal with this kind of BS anymore , it's going to be my way or the highway and some customers are about to get a rude awakening .

 

[Myself]

I usually don't do lake or dock calls except for longstanding customers , I made an exception here , it bit me in the a44 , Tommy Pierce , one of my mentors from long ago had a saying, his saying was no good deed goes unpunished , it fits this business really well. there are not that m,any people out there anymore that can work on the older stuff .

I may be totally in the wrong here but , I think we are now in the position that customers should be seeking us out , the dealerships have abandoned them, if your ski is over ten years old , you are F'ed . The dealerships won't even work on a two stroke, they won't change the oil, wear ring or program a key to a ten year old ski , who thought up that business model ?

My motto was sop up the gravy , that's what it's on the table for and biscuits without gravy is just plain wrong.

From here on out I will not be subject to their flights of fancy or their whims , if they can't get it together they can go elsewhere , I lack the patience or the will to deal with this kind of BS anymore , it's going to be my way or the highway and some customers are about to get a rude awakening .

I still work on mostly 2 strokes, lots of them still around here. The customers WILL seek you out. I had 7 dropped off last week. Two of those drove OVER 3 hours to bring it to me. One from Fort Smith and one from just south of Memphis.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Really all I have to do is open my shop at the lake back up , the customers will find there way there , I am not sure whether I am ready for that yet or not, I have mixed feelings on it , truefully I am about ready to either get out altogether or at the least drastically change my business model.

The Jiffy lube business model appeals to me a lot , quick service, in and out , collect money , minimize the hassles , risk and overhead , the dealers have made it where that should be a possibility , there should be tons of ten year or older 4 strokes out there right now that need that kind of service..

Most likely though I will flip skis, do quick service , carb jobs, wear rings, starters , oil changes , upholstery and minor paint and gelcoat repairs , those are the jobs I like doing , I am really good at and they pay really well .

The lake shop is a great location that has suffered greatly from me not being there , wisteria has basically taken the place over, we made a valiant effort to cut it all back earlier this year and I had it looking pretty good , but as soon as it got hot and started raining it took off again like a rocket , I am just going to have to heavily spray it with some serious weedkiller, which I cannot do for the last month because it rains nearly every day here ,I have come to realize it may be next year before I can get it up and running again .

What I have been doing for the past few years is running the skis back and forth to the lake , I usually work at my shop down here in Greenvile , I have a small block shop here and a massive pole barn to work out of , a large fenced in area and plenty of acerage for ski storage.

I have a Gantry crane down here and a huge davit crane at the lake shop , I am also hanging a massive I beam in the pole barn that will have an overhead electric hoist and a trolley on it , with it and the gantry crane I should be able to pick up fairly decent size boats as well.

Sometimes I work at my house here where I have a small shop and of course I am doing the occasional lake call or pickup and delivery at the lake . If it is something simple I do it at the shop up there , I have a house there also and can spend the night there if I need to , if it's more complicated it comes down here.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I drilled all the rivets out of the footwell pads and removed them, under them the same as always ,nastiness , I have a quick fix I use Deck cleaner and #000 steel wool , a little elbow grease and now she is clean as a whistle .

You have to set all the rivets slightly below the deck with a hammer and a punch and fill all the holes, you may not have to fill them but I do .

I usually use JB Quick but this time I used white RTV and wiped really well around the holes , done, ready for new footwell pads and on to recovering the seats and fixing the hood deflector . The hood deflector will take the longest amount of time so I will start there , we are on a downhill run now on this one .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Usually I would pull the gauges completely out , but on anything with a standalone module and multiplugs that is a nightmare , I opted to just leave the gauges and wiring hanging on the multigauge the speedo , will come right out , less disassembly means less reassembly and time is not on my side on this one .

Not to the crux of the matter , this deflector is missing a pretty large chunk , I could of course buy a new deflector off of Ebay and paint it to match , which will be expensive and time consuming , or I can try and fix this one , I took the latter option , it's just body work and it's not structural , no big deal .

I ground it down on the backside to a sharp edge, then using parchment paper and duct tape I made a dam that will retain the shape of the piece , I laid up three layers of heavyweight cloth and thickened the epoxy with cabosil to what I would call a mayonnaise consistency and the patch is complete , at least till it dries anyway.

These are ABS and I have fixed many motorcycle sidecovers using this same method with great success over the years , the epoxy and ABS bond very well , they end up at about the same hardness with the Cabosil mixed in .

The whole process so far took maybe 30 minutes, the whole thing may take a couple of hrs , when you see the end result I think it will be worth it .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

And here is what you have a few hours later , a bit of grinding and scuffing and it's ready for fairing compound .

 

[Myself]

Nice job.

 

[Batteryman]

Well I am back home and right now I am pissed , so it turns out the ski the guy wants me to work on was still at his lake place, I don't know if it was on a floating dock or a lift, I do know that it wasn't on a trailer ready to be picked up.

I toted the GTX RFI with me because I wanted to run it again , I am in Wetumpka , 1/2 a mile from the boat ramp and could easily have put it in , but instead I hauled it to the shop and put it in the gate , then I called the guy , oh he is having issues getting his boat running ( yeah they don't just neglect the Seadoo apparently ) anyway he has to get the boat running to pull the ski out a t the boat landing.

I think you know what is crossing my mind right now don't you , what kind of retard moron schedules someone to work on their ski when they don't have it ready to be picked up, shouldn't that be done before you even called me , anyway even though I am pissed I keep my composure, he asks if he can call me back when he gets the ski out, I say sure , you will see why later.

About 4:00 or a little after he calls up ,finally he has the ski out , that's great I tell him but , you had me drive all the way up here and wait on you for over three hours, I won't be able to complete the job today now , can I bring it tomorrow he asks, I say no , this was the time I had allotted to work on your ski , I brought all the parts and materials , you were not ready , I will see you after the 4th if you still want it done, I have other people waiting in line and you have now messed up my whole schedule.

WTF is wrong with these people ?

Three more months of this BS and then it's going to be a whole new ball game .

Yikes thats pretty crazy! And very frustrating on your end I imagine.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

It still felt a little spongy this morning , I am not surprised given the daily rain showers and sky high humidity here right now, at any rate I hit it with the heat gun for about ten minutes and it hardened right on up , while I was looking at it I found a crack in the very front , I don't want to wait on the epoxy again and I am a man of the world and like to try new products so I used plastic welder from JB Weld ,it's a two part black urethane product that should work just fine and it sets in 15 minutes and is sandable in 30 .

I ran the deflector by the shop and zipped the crack out with the die grinder and carbide bit .

I also picked up some Rustoleum sandable primer and 2X ultra high gloss black spray paint , I used this paint to do the hood deflector on the GTS last years and an entire hood on Dougs GTI , both turned out perfect and have held up great to the elements.

The voltage regulator and the mat set are in so I can finish those up this morning while this stuff is drying , I am going to use Bondo on this hood deflector , I would rather use fairing compound but it's a cosmetic part that never sees water unless it gets splashed or it rains , it should be just fine, it dries quickly and I don't have the time to Dick around watching fairing compound dry .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

It dried and sanded wonderfully , I did apply some heat just to counter the humidity level , which I will have to do with eveything including the paint , I mixed up the Bondo and pulled a light coat on , hopefully I can do a one and done on the bondo .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Not a one and done on the Bondo but damn close , I did one more small pull and sanded it then put a light coat of primer on it , I will probably have to play with the primer , sanding a repriming it for a few hours before I can paint it , as long as I can get it painted by the end of today I am good with that.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Mats are done , they are peel and stick which personally I don't like but they are what they are and they make the ski look much nicer , WSM has any color you want as long as you want black , I can get them way cheaper from WSM than I can anywhere else so there you go.

I wipe the area down with a towel, then come in with alcohol and a paper towel and scrub the surface down then I follow up with a cloth and alcohol again , peel , stick , lay a towel on top of them and beat them with a deadblow hammer , will they stay put , well that's up to the customer, if they want to leave it in the sun with no cover and leave water in the footwells then no. they won't stay stuck and I couldn't care less I did my part .

 

[Myself]

When you need small, quickie repairs,.....I like Marglass or Duraglass. Set up quick like filler but totally waterproof. I've used it on hull bottoms multiple times and filled in Kawi 750 plastic/broken pump shoes with it and never had issues.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

When you need small, quickie repairs,.....I like Marglass or Duraglass. Set up quick like filler but totally waterproof. I've used it on hull bottoms multiple times and filled in Kawi 750 plastic/broken pump shoes with it and never had issues.

I have used that before , just did not have any on hand ATM , it would have been a good option here though .

I am waiting for Amazon to deliver my fine line tape, they are taking their sweet time getting here today but just like Larry the cable guy I will GIT ER DUN !

I should be working on seats right now but that's a project for tomorrow , I am still undecided it I am going plain or if I am going to fancy them up a bit , I don't want to get too wild on this one really .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

It done but the tape didn't get here till after 7:30 . so after I get it taped up the lighting conditions were terrible , I am afraid put a few runs in it , I heat gunned the hell out of it hopefully by tomorrow it will be dry enough to sand the runs out and get another coat on it, this time when I can actually see what I am doing , the fine line tape was used to tape off that inset area where the GTX decal is , so it is still green and I still have the GTX decal , that is what I thought would look the best.

No matter I will straighten it out tomorrow it has all day to dry while I am doing the two seats , from what I can remember about Rustoleum it is pretty good about being able to sand the runs out. Anyway GOT ER DID !

 

[WFO Speedracer]

This paint sands beautifully , ready to reshoot as some as the temp gets back up , for $5.00 a can spray paint this stuff is hard to beat .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

So that's that , I think I made the right color choice and the right decision taping that section off , is it perfect , no it looks better in the pics than it actually is , it's gloss black and it shows every single flaw, is it good enough to sell , you bet it is.

In hindsight I should have gotten a can of Duplicolor Perfect match black . shot it once and been done, it would have dried in minutes and looked perfect , I didn't do that ,maybe next time.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

On to the seats , this is a set I recovered probably 10 years ago , I don't have to fix any foam just recover them , I start by flipping them over and running a razor knife around the edge cover to remove it , this leaves a band about 1/2" wide , this helps when removing the staples , you can put pressure on the band while prying the staples out with a small screwdriver and the staples come out much easier that way.

I cut the seams and I will have my patterns for the new covers , I will probably only put a seam at the rear of the front seat and pull the rear seat from one piece of vinyl , not my first rodeo , maybe my 100th , maybe I lose count.