Flipping couches for fun and profit

[WFO Speedracer]

If you know what you are doing and you don't F around , you can get it ground down !

Ground down, wiped down, bondo applied, actually it's Evercoat lightweight filler , I don't use Bondo , this can is at the end of it's life and needs to go , this is a good place for it to go so there it is.

In case you are wondering at least on the left side it already had paint over the gelcoat, they were even nice enough to tape around the Seadoo decal , I would say rednecks did this but it came from Kentucky so some Hillbillies did this repair.

So how long did that take , whatever time is in between these last two posts is how long it took to grind and wipe it and spread the Bondo on it plus upload the pics and post them here, I am going to say 35-45 minutes.

It should be dried and ready to sand now but it's raining outside so I will wait a few.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I am on about the third coat of Bondo, pull , let dry sand , repeat , I may have to pull it one last time then on to primer . The thing is I can pull Bondo , sand it and repeat about four times , then prime it and paint it before the epoxy would even harden , using a epoxy this job would take days , not hours, ain't nobody got time for that.

I know some of you are saying EWWWWWWWWW he is using Bondo , here the thing someone already has used it on this ski, which means that to do it in epoxy you would have to chase all the old repairs down, grind it down to glass and start over because Epoxy will not stick to polyester filler , period, don't even try it.

Chances are the only way anyone will ever know is if they damage it again , which given that this has been repaired and damaged again in the same spot is a good possibility on this ski .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I had to pull two small spots again and hand sanded them, I did a quick tape off with 2" masking tape and hit it with Rustoleum filler primer , follow the directions on the can, several coats waiting a few minutes in between for them to dry, do not go crazy with this stuff and spray it on too thick , you will regret it, ask me how I know lol.

After I get all the coats sprayed I will let it dry overnight and several hrs tomorrow before I even think about wetsanding it , again , don't rush it , it will defiantly bite you in the a$$ hard if you do so .

Real primer would be better but I don't have a compressor to spray it with here and I don't want to move the ski to the other shop right now so it is what it is, it will all turn out just fine I assure you , it's a quick and dirty repair job for a cheapo ski .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Rainstorms all day today , I will get it wet sanded but that is about as far as I am going today , right now it's time to grill , chill and drink a few of those ice cold long neck beers that never let me down .

I cooked BBQ chicken fingers , battered and deep fried blue wonder beans , green tomato-okra fritters and grilled eggplant , you coat the eggplant with a dribble of olive oil, then season it with garlic salt , black pepper and Tony Chachere's then grill it , it is yummy !

I did find some Upol white lacquer spray paint at Autozone today , I am going to give a go , it's a good bit cheaper than the Duplicolor and a much larger can , Upol makes pretty decent stuff usually, at least all my dealing with their products thus far have been good . Autozone has gone back to the old spend $20 five times and get $20 back policy , my niece just started working there so I will be spending a lot more money in that place now, Advance is my usual go to.

At least with non metallic white Lacquer you know you can always scuff it and buff if you have to but really it dries so damn fast it's really hard to screw up when painting with lacquer.

 

[Myself]

Rainstorms all day today , I will get it wet sanded but that is about as far as I am going today , right now it's time to grill , chill and drink a few of those ice cold long neck beers that never let me down .

You sure about that? Sounds like your health report should have you drinking water and apple juice.............just sayin' lol!

 

[WFO Speedracer]

You sure about that? Sounds like your health report should have you drinking water and apple juice.............just sayin' lol!

Yeah maybe but then of course these are the guys that told me to drink six 16 oz bottles of water a day while I am on Hydrochlorothiazide , that is not really a good idea healthwise , plus you won't make it out of the bathroom all day , so I tend to make most of my own health decisions .

 

[Myself]

I guess I really wouldn't know. I haven't been to the doctor in about 23 years!

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Realistically I drink maybe one day out of a week and probably no more than three or four beers then, so yeah , not an everyday thing for sure.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Wet sanded then taped and sprayed the right side, no runs but I did get a few drips as this can didn't spray as well as I had hoped , no big deal I figured it would have to be scuffed and buffed anyway it's like my Lady , she's white , this lacquer is very thin and being white it does not cover very well , I used the whole can on one side , I am still only looking at $22.00 in paint total, I already had the primer, tape etc here .

I am going to let it bake in the sun all weekend before I even touch it with sandpaper, it says 12-14 hrs but longer drying times usually produce better results.

I did some back masking where I had to break the paint , one break is inside the footwell so you will never see it anyway , the other one is down a body line so backmasking reduces the tape lines and I should be able to blend it right on in. Always break the paint on a corner or bodyline if you can, it makes life a whole lot easier .

You stick one side of the tape then bend it in the middle and let half of the tape stick up, this gives the paint something to bounce off of instead of it all piling up on the edges, it's an old school painters trick I learned way back.

When I pulled the masking tape there is almost no discernable tape line, you can just barely feel it , that's exactly what you are looking for.

If it turns out good enough I will put the large Seadoo decal on the bottom to cover some of that ugly up, I like it better there anyway on these hulls.

I think that is a pretty good before and after shot .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Bottom decals are ordered , I went with the 34" decals versus the 26" ones, the more ugly I can cover up on this ski the better , I will be using those 4 x8" X decals on the back parts I just painted and the smaller X decal on the hood deflector as well as one of the Bombardier Gear decals that comes with it . The pic shows a set of these in 26" that I used on that GTS I sold earlier this year .

SEA-DOO Logo / PURPLE / 34" Vinyl Personal Watercraft Replacement Bonus Decals | eBay

(2) 4x34" sea-doo decals / (2) 6" sea-doo decals (2) 4x8" sea-doo X decals (2) BRP decals (1) 3x6" sea-doo X Decal. Custom PWC Graphic. Self Adhesive Vinyl Sticker. Decals are laminated for UV, Chemical and scratch resistance.

www.ebay.com

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Sanded and buffed ,now no doubt I could play with it and make it damn near perfect but why draw undue attention to that one spot on the ski , as is it blends in with the rest of the ski and a bodyman like myself could pick it out but Joe customer would have no idea , it blended in beautifully .

One side down , one to go .

The whole idea of detailing is to achieve Trompe-L'oeil or to fool the eye , making you believe something is one thing when it's actually another .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Second side has been sprayed , even though I said I was done I did some more sanding on the right side , I shouldn't have , no good deed goes unpunished , it went thin and I had to respray part of it , the nice thing about lacquer is it is basically a solvent so the new paint eats into the layer below it and the two bond together .

No big deal really , no fancy taping and very minimal masking on the Left side , I ran some tape along the rub rail and let the rest of it go , it is lacquer so any overspray comes right off with lacquer thinner, Acetone, Xylol etc .

Decals were shipped out from Flawed-Duh this morning , so they should be here in a few days .

One more thing of note , the second can of Upol sprayed without any issues and it covered way better than the first , it wet out better and it dried much glossier .

I am not sure what the difference was , I did leave it in the car for a while this morning and the can got pretty hot also I shook it up a lot longer . for like 5 minutes, I am not sure if any of that matters or not , I may have just gotten a bad can of paint the first go around , I will say this though the color match is spot on for Seadoo white of this era .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I had one spot that had what looked like fisheyes , when you are painting you try to fill those in, sometimes it works, most times it doesn't , what usually happens is what happened here , I had a few runs, I tried to sand them out and the paint went thin in some spots, I retaped the rub rails and sprayed more paint , no big deal , all of the footwell mats are toast and crumbling , I did not worry about covering them up as I have no choice but to replace them .

I will sand and buff that side again tomorrow , so I lied you can run lacquer paint if you really , really try.

I have a set of stock footwell mats I pulled off the RFI that were not terrible, I may use those especially if I can figure out a way to flatten them out some , if not it will get new WSM mats installed .

 

[Myself]

How are you getting any real work done messing with this thing? Man I've been working after hours water testing and worked both my days off so I can start all over again tomorrow. I've got over 20 waiting in line right now!

 

[WFO Speedracer]

nd pay
How are you getting any real work done messing with this thing? Man I've been working after hours water testing and worked both my days off so I can start all over again tomorrow. I've got over 20 waiting in line right now!

Here is the thing I have to do X amount to pay my bills , when I sell one of these skis I take at least half the money and pay off a credit card or loan , so there goes that bill ,.

I am sure I am probably looking at this the wrong way but I look at my debt in terms of how many skis do I have to sell to get out of debt , that number depending on the price of the skis is somewhere between 5 and 10 , when I am selling skis the bills get less and less each month , if I stay my a$$ at home and don't ride up and down the road trying to make a dollar I don't have nearly as much overhead .

If I do go up to the shop at the lake to work I have to pay for gas and food while I am there , a typical trip up there usually costs me $50.00 plus 3 hrs down the drain just to get there and back , the mileage on my truck goes up, my electricity bill and water bills up there go up , you get the picture , if the job is worth the drive or I can line up several jobs up when I am there I will do it , if not if I stay here and work on my stuff or customer stuff I already have down here , if I can keep the travel to a minimum I don't have to make nearly as much money , so why do it ?

I paid my dues a long , long time ago and really I have only spent a couple of hours on this ski in total .

 

[orangefinger]

wow , its been bad ..... now im sitting on 8 sit down skis that are all completed and nothing is selling , I got the seadoo GTI down to $ 1,200 bucks now which is basically 1K under what they sell for normally and only stupid trade offers and low ballers ..... might fold up after Labor Day and keep them thru the winter and fix little stuff missing and start earlier next year and get them buffed and cleaned.

I did miss the 4th of july cut off which is very crucial for quick sales ....but pretty exhausted from al the inquiries and dump people ....

Yesterday finely got one of my 3 Polaris 750 SL running, lots of little odds and ends in relationship to carbs, but in the end it wasn't reeds, fuel selector switch in combination with restrictor (yes the one that's in the line despite carbs being restricted ?? ) and the proper tank venting (both valves ) .

Got one more seadoo GTS 717 leftover that im putting engine together and that's it for this year ....then slowly gearing up for Havasu ....

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I won't say this is the last one for the year but it is the last one I will fix and try to sell this year , this is a weird place , pretty much after the 4th of July , you can pack it in here , if this one doesn't sell I will pickle it , put it inside the shop with a cover on it and sell it next year . I filed for my pennies a few weeks ago so starting in October I am semi retired , I will keep working to have something to do besides piddling in the garden all day but I will work on what I want to work on and I won't be in a hurry to do customer stuff .

As for this year I am about to start four wheelers and Christmas stuff, I have a Z50 r I need to finish and I have a few small ATV'S , a couple of XR100's and a TTR125 I need to get ready for Christmas , I also have several ATV'S I need to finish for myself , engine rebuilds , stuff along that line , the big money maker is the Kawasaki Teryx I need to put back together , I have two of them, one will get sold this hunting season and the other one we are keeping .

I put together a deal earlier this year on a Kawasaki ZXI750 , a XLT 800 , a double trailer and another Teryx, all not running , all the parts for the Teryx are there it just needs to be reassembled , it has new tires and nice aftermarket rims, that is the one I am keeping for myself., I sold the double trailer earlier this year so I am in these three units for $100.00 each , not a bad place to start the XLT is in great condition , decals seats and all , beautiful ski that just needs a motor .

Over the Winter I plan to build as many skis, ATV's , bikes etc as I can build and have them ready for next year , hopefully the market has calmed down somewhat by next year , if not it looks like I will have a bunch of play toys to ride next year.

I have other stuff I want to venture off into , like building and selling wooden flower planters , maybe even sell some plants to go with them and restoring old motorcycles .

I want to find a boring bar and get it set up and running , I have plenty of cylinder here I can practice on till I figure it out , no one around here bores cylinders anymore so the market is wide open here for that type of service , it won't pay huge amounts of money but it should be a steady and fairly reliable source of income .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Decals are in and they are installed , I am glad I went with the 34" Seadoo decals , they covered up a whole lot of ugly .

That took about 10 minutes, I have put so many on that it's just not a big deal anymore , the trick on these is the application fluid , 50% alcohol , 50% water , one drop of dishwashing liquid , spray it , right before you place decal spray it again, position it , work the bubbles out with a credit card , pull the paper by folding it 180 onto itself and pull it slowly and straight , hold down any edges that lift up and work it down with the credit card again, easy peasy .

I am two seat covers and a handlebar pad away from having a decent looking ski again. I have decided to leave those two areas I repaired blank , I do not want to draw any undue attention to those areas and I like the way it looks as it sits , less is more .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I went and picked up a Stupidjet from a customer late yesterday , he tried to put a solenoid in it and now it doesn't spin over , possibly needs the starter rebuilt, I hope not because it has a Riva red pipe on it and the starter probably isn't coming out easily for sure.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Update , bad Start stop switch , a new one is on the way , I unplugged the start and stop at the e-box , plugged the black -white into the red- brown , hit the stop button and it started right up , I took the switches apart , inside they are perfect , amazingly clean for a ski this old , I started checking voltage, I have voltage at the post inside the start switch , then I checked the ohms on the brown wire , from the other post on the inside of the start switch to the brown wire at the connector where it plugs in at the e-box I get nothing , somewhere the brown wire it is damaged , broken, pulled in two , whatever , at any rate he is getting a new switch assy.