Crash!!!!! and Repair (Pics included)

[Massey]

WOW I had a kinda bad day on the water today. I tried out an Octura 435 3 blade on my Miss Elam today. My Elam has been upgraded with an OS .18 CVR-MX and stronger servo for the stearing. This prop makes the boat go a little faster but it does not like to turn as sharp with the stock rudder and turn fin. This combo made my boat take a turn way too wide and I hit a fence that was in the water. The left sponson hit first then the rear swung around and hit a vert stationary post that caused the dammage in the pics below. while I can make the repairs to the boat and make it look like it has never been hurt I dont know about matching the paint or replacing my decals so I may just buy a new hull and fix this one later and make it a custom boat. If any of you are planning on putting this prop on your Bud. Llumar or Elam, PLEASE get better turnfin at least.

Oh just to let you know the boat would yaw the way I wanted to go but kept going pretty much the way I was going, that was telling me that my turn fin was not doing its job. Water conditions were smooth and nice, glass like in some places.

Massey

[Ron Olson]

Once you get it fixed, get the Grimracer turn fin for Aquacraft Miss Vegas, it's a bolt-on for the ProBoat hydro's also.

[Massey]

Well I am going to see if I still have what it takes to fix fiberglass. I used to do this alot when I was an Autobody tech but I have not really touched the sttuff for about 10 years.

Here is what I did.
First I stripped the hull down. Fiberglass gets everywhere and will ruin just about anything including electronics so it all came out.

After the hull was bare I used a sanding wheel and dremmel to grind the dammage areas out and leave me a nice unpainted glass surface. I used the rough wheels to give the glass some bite. I removed all the severly weakened areas leaving 3 holes in the hull and a few thin spots near the edge of the rear flare.

I reglued the cracked seam at this point with some med cure CA glue and made sure it got not only on the crack but also up inside the seam. Using one of the holes in the hull I pushed the lower half out to make a nice clean glue seam.

I once again went about cleaning the weakened areas that the collision caused. after this was done I feathered out the ground down paint to leave a smooth transition between repair and good paint.

Mixed me up some polyester resin and got some 5oz glass cloth and started to rebuild the dammage. First I brushed the resin on to the repair area then cut and layed a piece of cloth down, covering it again with resin till the cloth became "clear". I did this to all the dammaged area and now I am waiting for the resin to cure enough to sand and feather down.

Take a look at the captions below the pictures for more information. I will post more about the next steps as I do them. If you have any questions or comments feel free to ask.

Massey

[Massey]

well no more pics tonigh. GRRRRRR I didnt put enough hardner in the resin. It will cure but it will not be good to handle till tomorrow so I will update then.

Massey

[Boatfox]

well no more pics tonigh. GRRRRRR I didnt put enough hardner in the resin. It will cure but it will not be good to handle till tomorrow so I will update then.

Masseythat's what an oven on "warm" is for....1/2 hour in the hot box and all is good. :D

[Massey]

NO biggy Fox the glass was set pretty good by the time I got off work. The hull is starting to look really good again. I will post more pics on this forum laters. NOt many people visit this side of the RCGroups forums so I moved the repair to the RCU nitro boats forum.

Massey

[lectroglide]

picked up a elam couple months ago and seems to run fairly well but like someone said here, it doesnt like corners so ya gotta really slow down but gets cookin on the strgaiht aways!! I too had some body damage when I hit a stinkin piece of wood... it tore out the TF and the wood plate holding it on so the boat took on water real fast!!! brought it back to the shop , dried it out with a hair dryer and CA the broken piece back in. shot it with some auto primer sanded the surface down, ditto ditto.

the problem was finding a close match for the paint but found some model car spray paint that seemed to look real close, but the primer was gray so had to apply several color coats. finished it off with some clear and back in the water it went :cool: