1974 Aquasport 222 Rebuild Captain Joe

[Capt.Joe]

Knocked down the high spots from my fairing and sanded everything smooth. Still some filling and sanding left but excited to say I’m ready to paint the inside. Any painting prep tips would be appreciated!

[Ulysses485]

Looking good! Im sure your itching to get a finish color on it…LOL!

Not to start a paint vs. Gelcoat discussion but if your asking about paint prep, is Gelcoat not an option for the inside (I only ask because it seems your using polyester resin products)? I personally like the durability of Gelcoat and as I understand it, paint is just easier and less Maintance to keep its shine. I am no help for paint prep but if Gelcoat, duratec his the way to go as I am about to spray cap and liner in about a week or so on my 81’

[Capt.Joe]

My apologies, I’ll be gel coating the boat! I use ‘paint’ as a general term. I’m looking forward to see how your spray project goes.

I’m tired of sanding and want to go fishing already hahaha

[Ulysses485]

My apologies, I’ll be gel coating the boat! I use ‘paint’ as a general term. I’m looking forward to see how your spray project goes.

I’m tired of sanding and want to go fishing already hahaha

Good to hear! I’m a big advocate for Gelcoat. I will say I tried a dump gun and it was a terrible idea. Created a ton of work for myself cleaning up orange peel on the console. The way to go seems to be a cheap harbor freight gun drilled out or they sell them with a few tips (1.4mm,1.7mm, and 2.5mm) on Amazon. Pretty sure I am going with glossy spray on the cap and inside liner. The deck and casting platform are getting coarse grit. I have found that raw waxed Gelcoat works well as it’s own filler. Gelcoat is like molding clay it seems.. lol…the more labor you put into it, the nicer the finish. Sanding schedule I have seen is 80-150 before Gelcoat then wet sand with 320/400/600/800/1000/1500/compound polish. I hear you can stop at 800 and compound from there but who’s counting man hours and sanding pads at that point anyhow…haha.

Ok I’m done rambling. Hope that helps. - Ulysses

[Capt.Joe]

A while back I made my transom cap out of 5/8” honeycomb. I didn’t like how it looked once I put my cap back on the boat so I made a new one out of 1/4” foam.







It flows a lot nicer and is rock solid. I laid 2 layers of 1708 on each side (4 total) and used some bilge paint on the underside. Right now it has one layer of fairing compound that needs to be sanded down.

I brought my console home and made a cooler seat out of the 5/8” honeycomb piece that I had glassed up. I glued it in, ran fairing around the edges, sanded it, and gel coated it this afternoon.









I’m now continuing to sand and fair. I have someone coming out to sandblast the bottom paint off the boat.

[Ulysses485]

Nice work Capt. Joe! Looks good and coming along.

[RickK]

Great progress 

[Tampa Bay Mike]

Looking good. It's nice when you can find a use for those scrap pieces. I'll be crossing the bottom paint bridge as well soon

[Capt. Bob]

Lookin' good indeed.

Love the CBS blocks!

[Permit53]

This build is coming along nicely!

[Capt.Joe]

Thank you! I’m still in the fairing and sanding process of the boat but will be getting it into my neighbors shop for paint. One of the reasons I’m switching to paint is that they have the color that I want and I feel like it’ll be easier to spray since I’m a beginner.

I’ve made a few modifications in regard to the hatches I made. The hatches were great but I kept running into issues with sanding and getting things to stick to it well. So Im going with DPI marine hatches.

Oh, and I bought a porta bracket!



After the Sand Blasting:

[Ulysses485]

Coming along. What color did you decide? Darker colors tend to do better with paint because Gelcoat “chalks”. Be careful with those blocks laying sideways as they are not structural laying that way. Get yourself some 2x wood blocking to protect the hull bottom too. Porta bracket looks good in white!

[Tampa Bay Mike]

Nice. Did you grab that bracket on Marketplace? Looks like the one I was watching that just sold.

[Capt.Joe]

The boats off the blocks and back on the trailer ready to go in the shop this Saturday.
The porta bracket was on marketplace!
I’m going with Awlcraft 2000 Stars and Stripes Blue, Matterhorn White for the rest of the boat, and white Tuff Coat non skid on the deck. Pictures of progress soon to come!

[Fish Head]

I used tuff coat smooth texture non skid on my rebuild last year and am completely satisfied and happy with results. Plenty of grip on a wet deck with the smooth texture option! I went with the smooth texture because family likes to go barefoot when it’s warm and once in awhile when you kneel down in shorts I did not want to be scraping skin. The reviews online led me in that direction for texture choice.Unfortunately I just noticed it looks like Tuff Coat stopped making the smooth version? But since your going with white it still seems like some suppliers have that color left in stock in the smooth texture. Medium might be a little rough on bare feet according to some of the reviews? Otherwise solid product. Just my 2 cents. Cheers T