1997 Fisher Dominator 17 Remod

[drn1617]

update:

Took the rear deck out chopped it down some. Used stripper wheels, wire wheels, wire brush, scotch pads, and sand paper to clean up the inside and prep it for gluvit. Re "bucked" all leaking rivets. Painted gluvit on all rivets and seams inside and out and let it dry for 48 hours before scuffing it and painting on some primer (to be painted later). built up the front deck framing and welded it all in ( some welds have to be finished up (I was running low on argon and wanted to get it all tacked in.

that's all for now I hope to get a lot of work done in the next couple weeks!

 

[Shoedawg]

Looking good man!!! Wish I knew how to weld aluminum :? :? :? :? Question though. I noticed that you have some weld areas sitting on top (near a joint) where I am guessing a deck is going to go right on top of. Is the welded area gonna cause a problem from keeping the deck being flush with your support?? I can't tell if you grind'ed down some of the joint areas in the very front of the deck support. Are you going to rivet or weld the deck down? Keep us posted and keep the momentum going, =D> =D> =D> =D>

 

[drn1617]

Thanks! I didnt grind all of it yet I still have to finish some of the welds and clean it all up...im hoping to have all the welding done this weekend so i can paint some time next week. Im planning on riveting down the decks so its still posible to get them back out if i need to.

 

[Shoedawg]

Hows the build coming along man? I just put my motor on today, but its not getting enough fuel, so I have to clean the carbs.

 

[drn1617]

Nice! That has to be a great feeling i cant wait to get mine done its so hard not being out on the water. My motor was acting up last year and i got the carb rebuild kit and re adjusted the float and it fixed it right up. (Mine only has one carb). But my boat is coming along.. i got the decks just about cut out and all the supports in place. I just have to wait for a day off and some good weather so i can paint

 

[drn1617]

its been a while since I've posted.. I had A LOT more time into fabricating then I thought I would but I finally feel I'm at a point where I can paint.. I ordered some more gluvit because I want to paint it over all the welds to ensure I don't have any pinhole leaks. so I flipped the boat over and I'm going to paint on the gluvit wait a few days and hopefully if the weather is good paint the duralux on.. also I picked up some mossy oak shadow grass stencils and 2 of the styx river spray paint kits (8) cans in all... I'm looking forward to doing something other than cutting grinding bending and welding metal haha... I mocked it all up to get a picture of how its going to look..

 

[drn1617]

I painted the boat today. this was my first time painting anything major but It went pretty well. As stated before I painted gluvit on the entire area below the water line. I then let that cure for 3 days just to be safe and then spent about 5 hours scuffing it up with a scotch pad and going over it lightly with 80 grit to take the shine off and then washing it as per the instructions on their website. I then rubbed the whole boat down with white vinegar, let it dry and then spayed a thin coat of self etching primer on. (the duralux paint I used stated I did not need to use primer but that was for painting over bare aluminum.. so it made sense to me to paint over the gluvit and aluminum with self etching primer so it would stick to both and give the duralux something to stick too....) It might have worked fine without it but it made me feel better so I went with it. any way I used a harbor freight HVLP gun and my compressor rated at 10 cfm @ 90 PSI and it worked great.. the only thing I ran into was that the duralux paint was too thick to spray without thinning and on the can it says thinning is not recommended.... so I looked on the website and it said to thin with MEK if thinning is needed... any way I ended up going with xylene because duralux is an epoxy enamel and the MEK said it was for epoxy when fast drying is wanted and xylene said its for epoxy when medium drying is wanted, and its 85 degrees and low humidity and I painted the boat outside so I didn't want it to dry to fast.. I'm glad I went with xylene because even it was drying so fast I could barely keep up.. I used 4oz of xylene for 16 oz of paint and that worked pretty good but as I went I found myself adding more xylene with each batch until it was the viscosity I wanted.. probably somewhere around 1/3 part xylene... I knew it wasn't going to be perfect but for my first time using an HVLP gun I think it went ok.. Next is the Mossy oak shadow grass paint and stencils!

take care
-Dan

 

[drn1617]

I just finished up the camo pattern. I spent 5 days a (few hours at a time) after work painting the 3 different stencils on and just followed the instructions... I think it came out pretty good. here's some pictures

 

[drn1617]

UPDATE

I brought the boat out of storage a few weeks ago and started working on it. I tried to add all of the photos of the work I've accomplished from my last post until now but the session timed out on me so I just added a few pictures of where the project is now. If anyone wants to see the pourable foam or seat mounts or fitment of the floor or anything else I have a lot of pictures. I just ordered the rest of the parts I need to finish this so ill try to keep up with posting pictured down the home stretch

Thanks,
Dan

 

[drn1617]

Here's some more pictures of the build. Won't be long now!

 

[Shoedawg]

Looking good bro!! I am about to redo the wiring on my boat. Didn't do it last year, but ran the boat without it. Keep trucking along, I wanna see that puppy on the water!