We reinstalled the rub rail by cleaning the salvaged rigid vinyl pieces and reinstalling them. The rail had been installed by the builder using sheet metal screws and no sealant, but for the replacement we used truss-head screws and SikaFlex 291LOT, a much more secure attachment in my opinion. We replaced the damaged port corner at the stern by securing one end of the new piece with a screw, gently heating the rail with a heat gun, carefully bending it around the corner, and holding it in place until it had cooled.





We then inserted the flexible insert, starting at the stern and proceeding around the hull. This required using a heat gun to make the insert more flexible. I recall SeaBob saying that at the factory they stretched the insert while installing it to make it easier to install, but we specifically avoided doing this to minimize the risk of the insert pulling out from the vinyl piece at the prow as it cooled. We used WD-40 to lubricate the insert, but soapy water or silicone spray would probably have done just as well. This was a tedious two-man job that required 1 hour and 40 minutes to accomplish, but it looked great on completion. The original insert was gray, but this color is no longer available, and I prefer the look of a black rail anyway.




M

Meanwhile, I filled in the cut lines in the deck. Note how the gel coat color changes with sanding.





I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on this job, so after cleaning out the kerf, I just taped off the non-skid, filled in the kerf with TotalBoat polyester structural repair putty, and painted on a couple of coats of gel coat. (I didn’t bother to try to color match this.) I figured that if this repair failed, I could sand it down and apply some fiberglass cloth before gel coating.

M

Nice work! That gelcoat color matching is no easy task! I have to ask, what are the matches for? Safe to assume small mixing sticks?

Although I haven’t posted lately, work is continuing. This is my rig for spraying gel coat on the top and electronics box. I bought a new spray gun from a Canadian company (https://www.thegelcoater.com/) and a used compressor with the capacity to power a spray gun.



My color matching setup. Add a drop of pigment to a spoonful of gel coat, mix, add as needed to a cup of gel coat, dab onto a scrap of hull, then repeat as needed. A 2:2:1 ratio of brown/yellow/black seemed to approach the factory color, but there is a catch to this – when one sands the boat hull even lightly, a brownish “patina” is removed, yielding a lighter color. That didn’t matter for this part of the project since I was overcoating everything, patching the hull would be a different matter.

tq

I was satisfied with the results, but if I had it to do over, I would buy a gallon of gel coat resin (instead of the two quarts that I had, one with wax and the other without), skip the color matching and either spray using a surfacing additive that gives a smoother finish, or just roll on multiple layers of gel coat and sand it lightly. I’d also buy gel coat without wax so that I could add wax just for the last coat.



M

Im not sure if I'm going to purchase one yet. I wanted to know if anyone else has already installed something like this on their boat. I could go with a topside mount if necessary.