Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by AJ DeRosa on October 1, 2009 at 6:58am

I would stay away from spray on bed liner on framed boats. We have had great success with fiberglass/epoxy/graphite bottoms. They are tough, slick and don't create water wicking holes like a screw on UHMW bottom. An old fashioned ply wood shoe works as well. There are several posts to this forum discussing the merits of these different bottoms.

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Permalink Reply by Ron Starry on October 2, 2009 at 6:56am

Thanks for the idea. What are the steps for taking on this process, Fiberglas/epoxy/graphite.

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Permalink Reply by Peter Foster on April 6, 2010 at 11:28pm

I'm a newbie to the lingo "old fashioned plywood shoe". I was considering using a 1/4" to 3/8" UHMW poly. sheet. I've got a 14' wood drifter. the bottom is 3/8 ply - too thin for my taste. The plywood shoe concept, what exactly do you mean, and can it be done with the poly sheet? I was thinking that poly installed as skip plates in short sections would reduce the expansion contraction issue. Over my 14' boat a single sheet of poly would expand 3/4 of an inches (using 40 deg water and 80 deg. air), so it pushes the end screws 3/8" from the center. If there were say 4 panels that could be reduced to less than 3/32" of expansion at any one screw. so how well would theppoly sheet work with joints? It could be scarf joints?
Thanks,
Peter

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Permalink Reply by Steve Sobba on October 4, 2009 at 5:55pm

Ron, I have 4 pictures on my page I think you can look at. I am new construction. I used 2 coats of Clear Coat System 3, sanded ... used 19 oz. triaxle cloth think I needed 7 yards bought 9 yards for my 18' Don Hill for about 60$ ?, System 3 epoxy to wet, 2 coats.. 2 coats with the graphite powder (West Systems) per instructions. I used that epoxy roller and spreader to wet out made 24 oz. batches at a time ? 3 to 4 batches for my boat?...make sure you mix the epoxy per instructions or like I did had one section that was just a syrup mess did not set up , my fault not the product, that I had to remove and reapply. Shiny black! Think one is to sand lightly for the effect of the graphite, but for now I am going to let the water do that.
This all came from the from forums and discussions on this great site. Check out a forum on May 27th started by Dan Burr on seats that lead to boat bottoms if I remember correctly. I have not been in the water yet, as I am finishing the trailer. I liked this route the best. The plastic was to be $450 plus $150 for shipping. Not anywhere near that with this method. Steve

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Permalink Reply by Richard on October 4, 2009 at 7:25pm

I did some research on various box liners while at the same time considering both the epoxy/cloth/graphite and plywood shoe. In the end I decided to try a box liner. I went with a product name called Hippo which is tintable and can be applied by spray, brush or roller each giving one a different finish/smoothness. The roller method is what I used and it allows one to build up a thicker layer. I dragged the boat over some pretty rocky entry points this summer and have been quite impressed with how it has held up. It has been only one season so the jury is still out but as I said impressed so far. Just to let you know I have worked with epoxy/cloth on previous boats and it is a good product but it does wear. In the end one has to consider what kind of abuse you put any product through and research can help you along with practical input from those in the business.

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Permalink Reply by Jesse Ronnow on April 11, 2010 at 7:51am

Ron,

I have a 16' Tatman boat and I did use a truck bed liner; line-x. I know AJ and others are not fond of this but here are the reasons why I chose this route. My boat was about 30 years old when it found its way to me, had been cared for pretty well but was still 30 years old. That being said the truck bed line did 2 things for me, 1st it completely sealed up the boat and no water gets in, 2nd it provides a very durable maintenance free surface. So far I am glad on this boat that I did it (3 years now).

Here is the reason I would not do it. The next boat I have I will build new from a set of plans. Being a new boat that I will hopefully have for a long time, I want to be able to repair and replace parts of the bottom of the boat like chines and the actual wood. Once you put on the truck bed liner it isn't going to come off with out some major, major, major effort. In my opinion if you go the truck bed liner route once its on its on and you will not be able to any repairs.

That's my 2 cents, hopefully it helps in your decision making process.

JDR

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