John's budget SJ build

[Waternut]

The paint is smooth. I run overkill on the pressure (calls for 55-60 and I run 70 psi) and less on the paint. It allows me to do stupid stuff like hold the gun in one area too long and not mess anything up.

I'll may give that a shot tommorrow then. Sounds safer than sanding a paint that hasn't fully cured. Here's a quick pic. It is a single stage paint though so if it does cure, I doubt it would stick to the glossy finish. I'll check my test piece of metal and see how it's doing before I try anything.

 

[Waternut]

I've finally finished painting the hull. I lost track of how many coats of paint when on the top deck because it was spread out over 3 days. First day took too long for final prepping and it got dark before I was done. Second day was on/off windy so I would make one good pass with paint and the wind would blow hard and the second pass would be horrible. Third day was good and I finished. Here are the results after it's had a day to dry...

 

[Waternut]

I still dont' think the pictures do it justice. I'm also hoping the pole bridges the gap between the nose and hood because it looks kinda funny right now. My original plan was to chop the hood but I got sick of fiberglassing stuff and said screw it for now. The hood is easy enough to strip, glass, and repaint later if necessary.

 

[N3vrSat1sfied]

the nose shaping looks pretty good. I still havent finished my other hood we havent touched it since we painted the skis

 

[tbaer]

lookin good ! nice job!!!! shouldn't have painted the tray though. now you gotta sand it off when you turf. oh well minor details! looks great man.

 

[Waternut]

I didn't really paint the tray that much. Maybe one or two coats and I had planned on sanding that area up a little bit more before turfing anyway. So no big loss there. I kinda figured the paint would help seal up the footholds a little as well.

 

[sxi4evr]

niiiice what color turf?

 

[N3vrSat1sfied]

i would hate to try and keep it clean but white would probably look good.

 

[sxi4evr]

or yellow, like the engine.

 

[Waternut]

Yeah I think yellow or red would look sweet BUT...I've got a whole roll of gray b stock so that's what's going on it.

 

[tbaer]

you should post up a WTB thread on here to see if anybody has some left over yellow. I haven't posted pics up yet but i did not tray in black and did my dash in orange with a black turf star on it. You could do your holds in yellow and maybe your dash and use the grey to do the bottom of the tray and the rails. you could do your chin pad in yellow too. wait till you see my ski i am waiting to post pics until it's done. i might post a few before i put the engine in. ?..

 

[Waternut]

The ski is over at mcdog's house right now. We're exchanging work. He's turfing and doing all the pretty stuff. Meanwhile, I've got his wife's ski and ripping all the foam out of it. So he's doing all the asthetic work and I'm doing all the destruction...lol

I did put 2 layers of the blue sleeping mat in the back of the tray and burned some slight foot recesses. Funny thing is, after all the foam was in place, it almost looks like those XFT's are fully enclosed. I'm guessing they will be once the turf goes in.

 

[Waternut]

Well I saved the remaining flame decals from my 750 build for some reason and I found a great place to use them. About a week ago I painted the front and side of the pole in preperation. Today I laid the decals on the blue and then painted the pole black. After painting it black, my plan was to use a clear coat and go over the entire pole. The initiation was great and the follow through was pretty good but the end result wasn't what I had hoped.

After pulling the decals off, they took some of the underlying blue paint with it so I'm going to have to touch up that stuff with a brush (I guess) before going over it with the clear.

 

[Waternut]

Putting the pole on hold until I make a trip to the store for some small paint brushes. Here is what I did with the handlebars, turn plate, and clamps. All were very dull like stock handlebars and the clamps were the stock green clamps but 240 grit scotchbrite pad on an angled die grinder did wonders.

 

[McDog]

pretty

 

[Waternut]

I actually got the bars, turn plate, and clamps polished up a bit more with my buffer and some wax.

With as easy as it was to polish those parts up, I'm seriously debating polishing up the b-pipe chamber. It's currently a semi-gloss black but I think a nice polishing might make it look really pretty.

 

[McDog]

Your turf is done. The black turf on the front foothold doesn't look bad with the gray. I left the rear uneven on the corners because I don't know what your plans are for there. Let me know and we will get it fixed up.

One thing I wasn't thrilled about:

There was a small gap where blue pad shows behind the left foothold between the side and the bottom turf piece. I think I can get a sliver of turf glued in there to hide it.

 

[Waternut]

You are the man! Looks really good! Don't worry about the uneven rear corners... As long as nothing is sticking up to catch air on the ride home and rip it. A little sliver in that corner would be cool if you can get it but if not no big deal.

Thanks for that black turf donation as well. It does look pretty good...definitely better than nothing or patchwork.

 

[sxi4evr]

looks nice

 

[Waternut]

A poor picture of my work on the expansion chamber. This was not as easy as the bars and turn plate unfortunately... Took me a little over an hour to polish up half of the pipe and I wouldn't consider this done but it's getting there.

Hard to take pictures of something that's reflective but you can probably see the difference between the two halves.