Dragonfly facelift!

[bigbassboy]

howzit okes,

so i won R5000 at the breede classic which gave me the budget to re do the carpeting on my boat and buy a new trolling motor. so i went to kehls carpets and bought the auto carpet smithy in dark grey.

today i got to getting the carpet off ad eventually i got it off :blue-rolleyes: hardest labour i have ever done! that carpet glue had fosilized! well, i got the stuff off afterr 4 hours of not stop sanding.

i wont show a before photo as i am too embarrassed that carpeting really made my boat look ugly. but here it is with the old carpeting out



stay tuned.

[Navrik]

Are you putting Sondor foam down on the boat before the carpeting?

[jmgravenor]

Looking good bud.
Keep it up

[junebug]

Man that glue sticks. Show the before pic I dare you and always good to see what can be done with a little elbow greese. Looking good so far can not wait for the after pic as I am also about to put carpet on my deck.

[Spro]

Looks like a serious mission, but at least for the upcoming season she will be ready for action :blue-biggrin:

[webbrent]

Gonna look good once she is finished Scotty.

[bigbassboy]

all the new hinges and hatch handles done now for the foam, and carpeting!

[Navrik]

You won't be sorry you did foam as well. Carpets will last longer too.

[Riprap]

Good luck there BBB. My boat is at home for the winter and quite a few years old now (bought second hand) and the original carpeting (ex escape Boating) with no foam underlay is really getting thin and looking worse for wear in the high traffic areas.

So, my question, what sort of budget am I looking at for a proper recarpet on a 4.8m boat? Be realistic please....labour is for free, me & Dlamini & kids when not busy with sport, exams, chicks, etc....... :blue-lol:

[Navrik]

Sorry to hijack the post but here is a run down of my project a year or so ago that I broke down for someone on another forum:

My boat is 13 ft 4m long and I decided to double up on the length of carpet - 8m x 2m wide. Especially since this is the first time I tackled a job of this nature. With hind sight I could have gotten away with about 6m but I decided to redo a section I was not happy with that that caused a bit of wastage. Total cost after about 30% discount and including a 5 litre tin of carpet adhesive was R839.04

The Sondor SVA45 foam is 5mm think and you can choose from various densities. I also chose 4 times 2m x 1m sheets @ R454.68. Slight overkill as 3 sheets would have been enough. I put this on any area where one would stand on the boat including the sunken section in the middle of the boat. I sometimes stand there when the wind blows as the boat is a bit more stable if your lower your centre of gravity. This was actually the easiest part in that you need to cover deck and hatch covers and you don't have to worry what the joins look like. I was also worried about the corners like Hawkeye mentioned but I just cut it close to the corners and when you wrap the carpet over it tends to automatically shape.

I purchased a few 75mm and 50mm cheap paint brushes to apply the adhesive an also some Acetone to clean the brushes in between gluing sessions.

The rest of the tools I had. Scraper to get rid of most of the old adhesive. I also tried my sander but the sanding paper kept on getting torn by the old adhesive. A good sharp carpet knife and pair of scissors is a must. I used a small drill to drill out all the old pop rivets to make covering of the hatches a lot easier and then at the end just riveted all the hinges for the hatches and my seats back in place.

We laid the carpet out on the deck and used a white board chalk to mark the out the corners before cutting. It is important to rather leave a bit extra. Much easier to trim than having to waste a big chuck to re-measure.

After we glued in the deck section we did the hatches and used clothing pegs to hold the carpet in place around the edges while the adhesive dries. Fortunately 30 to 45min is enough and then you can remove the pegs. Boats with round corners are definitely a bit of challenge especially if you try and limit the joins.

I was quoted between R2,500 and R3,000 and I am sure that it would have excluded the foam so my total cost probably came to about R1500 and it took me two weekends to complete with my boat partner pitching in when he was able to.

It also helps if you have the boat in an area with lighting. Unfortunatley my boat port doesn't which made it a bit difficult to work after hours in the week.

Be careful not to use too much adhesive as it can filter a bit through the carpet an mess up the final look. I was recommended to use auto carpet by my friend Malcolm (Plasticman) and the guys at Kehl's in Maitland, Cape Town and so far I am happy with the choice. It is not ranger carpet but it is not much of an issue to remove the odd crank.

[Riprap]

Thanks Nav, that helps a lot. :blue-smile:

[bigbassboy]

thanks nav, it cost me the exact same amount as yours did! but flip that sanding is difficult! one question chaps, i mad a fat mistake and spilt a spot of glue on the carpet i already laid! how to i get rid of this glue stain?

[junebug]

thanks nav, it cost me the exact same amount as yours did! but flip that sanding is difficult! one question chaps, i mad a fat mistake and spilt a spot of glue on the carpet i already laid! how to i get rid of this glue stain?

Like Navrik said acetone is use to clean the brushes sould work on the glue stain. Just check on a off cut carpet before you clean the stain to see if the colour holds.

[Navrik]

Yeah very light wipes with Acetone on a clean cloth should get rid of most of the glue. If a little bit is left do not stress too much. It tends to disappear after a while anyway as the carpets get wet from rain etc.

[bigbassboy]

fyew :blue-redface: thanks guys, was stressing a bit.