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Comment by Chris Olsen on April 22, 2013 at 12:04pm

Chris,

I meant Chine Cap not "transom".  I really want to do the least amount of work to make her look great again and keep her floating for years to come.  The wood is in relatively great shape.

The bottom of the boat is another story and I will have to do an overall and re-glass and patch some spots that have hit some big rocks.  Trailer damaged a section of the bottom as well. 

My question is, can I sand existing epoxy (sides and Interior) on the boat to get smooth again without taking it all the way down to the wood?  I want to remove some of the checking.  Also, some of areas of the epoxy near the chine cap is flaking and I might sand a bit further to get that cleaned up.  It might be down to the wood in those areas.  My original plan was to use a random orbital sander with 60 grit and just smooth out areas and then re-apoxy on the existing epoxy.  From other posts I became under the impression that epoxy had to be removed to the bare wood  Are you able to help guide me here?

I've owned this boat for 5 years and have not done anything to it.  I would like to re-epoxy and varnish and not have to do anything for another five years.  The boat is garaged all year.  It gets PLENTY of use but I'm fortunate that it does not sit in the sun and snow all year

Thanks for any advice our guidance. 

Cheers,

Chris

Comment by chris towles on April 21, 2013 at 9:30pm

May I ask why? From the pics the transom looks fine. Whole boat really.. Mabye there is rot I am not seeing, but unless the thing is really too rotten to salvage and is leaking heavily I would leave it be. More epoxy or bedding compound likely would seal her up good. If u need to remove epoxy, try a heat gun and scraper. I'd caution against going a different route with the interior if that's what you are thinking. If it had epoxy and varnish the easy way is to do the same. My old roomate had a tarman that was epoxied and varnished. It took him literally weeks of nonstop heat gun , scraping, and sanding to get it down to bare wood so that he could oil. He's probably oiled the thing 5x in the last two years. I bet he could have sanded, patched cracks with epoxy and revarnished and been done in about 2 weeks, easy breezy. He probably would not have had that much maintanance either, as the boat is always stored under a cover. Your boat looks good and that varnish looks like it protected that boat nicely. Fishing season is just around the bend, I'd give it a quick gussying up and get back out on the river

Comment by Chris Olsen on April 21, 2013 at 6:45pm

Brian,

Thanks for the insight.  Much appreciated.  I spent the day trying to remove epoxy from all the screws to remove the transom.  Interior is completely removed.  I started to sand but I'm thinking about getting a gel stripper

Comment by Brian King on April 21, 2013 at 6:39pm

Looks alot like a Don Hill drift boat. Rowers seat, front seat and the knee brace all have a Don Hill look. I could be wrong too. I am putting together a Don Hill 16 ft. High side guide model now. Mine is a 41 year old kit that was never put together.