Thrift Store Sunfish!

Fedex just arrived with the daggerboard! Huge box. This thing is really big. I took a few shots of the board to compare it to the "shadow" board.

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And here is a closeup of the fingertip sized divot I'll need to repair:

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Getting close to finishing up my initial work on the boat. I have a couple things I need to do now and asking for some suggestions:

1) Rudder refinish - I've sanded down the rudder and tiller and sprayed several coats of exterior marine varnish on them. The look though, is not great. The wood looks more oak than mahogany. So, I'm considering just painting them white. Any suggestions for paint and finish to use? Also, matte or semi-gloss?

2) The stripes on the boat appear to have a black taped on overlay that's peeling badly. It does not appear to be under gelcoat, although the green base stripe may be. What is a good way to remove the peeling stripes?

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The green is gelcoat. Will a heat gun help melt the glue on the blue/black stripes?
 
Just got back from picking up this jet ski trailer. Three hour drive round trip. Needs some repair work to the rail carpet and the wiring harness is fried. Left tailight turn lens busted (lucky I made it home without getting stopped - thankful it was daylight). Frame is in excellent shape for 31 year old trailer! Tires OK, seller greased the hub before I left - I hardley knew the trailer was there on the way home. A few weekend hours work and it should be good to go.

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All in all, not too bad, got it for less than I paid for the boat!
 
I really like seeing the two different dagger boards side by side. I'm thinking of getting a new one for the Old Fish in WI. Thanks for that Vestaviascott.
 
West System Six 10 would probably work to fill that divot. Much easier to work with and sand than Marine Tex.

It's a two part gap filling thickened epoxy (doesn't run) that you apply using a caulking gun. I've used it for filling gaps and it works great.

- Andy
Always on my shelf. You could also use it to fill the cracks in your wooden rudder. Use a plastic squeegee or credit card and coat the whole thing, then sand and paint or cover with spar poly (my preference over paint)
 

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I've got a dozen projects in flight right now, so I figure, why not add another! I'm glutton for punishment obviously - or just crazy. which I'm quite certain of, lol.

But I've decided to take on the task of recreating a sling style dolly in PVC. Using 2 inch schedule 40. I've spent more than a few hours standing in front of the PVC fittings area of the local big box noodling on the right fittings to use to achieve the main sling support and axle connectors. I think I've finally got most everything planned out. Here's a couple sketches of what I'm envisioning:

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This drawing is looking at the rear of the dolly with no sling in place. The main fittings here are a couple of elbows at each axle end and a T connector in the center where the main handle extension will screw into:

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This sketch illustrates the plan for the sling. I'm still measuring to find the best length for the sling so that each looped end can allow the axle to slip into it to hold it in place. As a side benefit, the downward pressure of the boat hull should exert upward pressure on the axle, hopefully balancing out those forces, although each axle end will be supported on its own, inside the 2 inch PVC sections.

I'm using 3/4 inch aluminum tubes for axles. There are two 18 inch sections (cut from a single 36" tube that Lowes and HD sell - unfortunately they don't sell longer tubes and I don't want to use threaded pipe due to the need for quick release button springs at each end). At the ends where the wheels fit on, I'm using button spring clips similar to the dynamic dolly. This will allow the 13 inch wheels to be easily removed for storage or trunk transport.
 
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A bit concerned about the PVC joints ability to handle the stresses of the 125+ pound boat under load. I suppose I won't know until it's tested. I think the small 22 degree elbows are likely the weakest point. Had to have those to increase the angle of the elbows so that the uprights are angled close to the boat hull profile. I may wrap and connect a rubber Fernco over that joint to help.

I'm working through the axle details. That's by far the most complex problem at the moment due to my self imposed requirement that my axle ends have to be hollow in order to accomodate a push pin type stay to secure the wheels. If I wanted to use 5/8 inch threaded rod, those are readily available and at various lengths.

However, since I need a hollow tube axle, preferably aluminum for light weight and ease of working with, drilling holes, etc, I'm experiencing a challenge finding aluminum tubes longer than 36 inches. So, my solution is to just have axle ends (similar to the dynamic dolly) and not a single end to end axle. That also poses challenges as to how to stay the axles themselves to the PVC that covers the axles. The solution I'm working on for that is that I found a 4 foot aluminum handle in my shop that is designed to work with a paint roller. It turns out that the 3/4 inch aluminum tubes fit pretty well right inside that handle. So, now I have a continuous axle assembly through the PVC that makes up the rear sling assembly.

Once my wheels get here, and I can know exactly how much axle area I need, I'm going to affix the two axle ends into this 4 foot "connector" tube with more push pin connectors.
 
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Why does it need to be hollow? I drilled a small hole in the threaded rod, and then you can use a cotter pin to keep the nut from coming off the threaded rod.
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I want to be able to easily (with the push of a button) remove the tires with no tools:

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The push pin connector springs inside the axle tube makes that possible. I'm using the dynamic dolly as example but I believe other carts and dolly's use similar.
 
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Just an FYI, know that PVC based dollies along with air filled or all rubber tires and foam padding for the hull tend to float like corks.

So much so that when I first used one that I made I had to pull my boat back in (the super bouyant dolly was still fully snug up under the hull), attach a rope to the dolly, launch the boat again then yank and yank the dolly out from under the stern.

Since then I drilled a lot of holes in the PVC to let the air out during launch and even added temporary weight to axle area just to get the sucker to sink!

That dolly now spends most of its time moving my Laser and Sunfish around the property when I need to have the boats deck down before I put them up on sawhorses for various repairs and upgrades.

I pretty much always use my two trailers, even on sand and gravel beaches, as I've got a 4WD Toyota Tacoma and never get stuck. My buddy Greg has a 2WD van and is still able to use 5 boat ramps in our area successfully. We only occasionally have to pull him back up the beach at our most frequently used launch on Tomales Bay. :D

- Andy

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Great info. I won't have any foam on the dolly - will be using a tow strap for supporting the boat (assuming the glued PVC joints of the upper arms are sturdy enough to hold the boat without bending or breaking) - but the plan is currently for pnuematic tires, although I may now change that, and I with your feedback, I may add a fitting along the main arm just for water ingress to the 2" PVC tubing.

Curious to hear from Tag on his experiences with his dolly in water and what key factors he's found helpful to mitigate floating.
 
A bit concerned about the PVC joints ability to handle the stresses of the 125+ pound boat under load. I suppose I won't know until it's tested. I think the small 22 degree elbows are likely the weakest point. Had to have those to increase the angle of the elbows so that the uprights are angled close to the boat hull profile. I may wrap and connect a rubber Fernco over that joint to help.

I'm working through the axle details. That's by far the most complex problem at the moment due to my self imposed requirement that my axle ends have to be hollow in order to accomodate a push pin type stay to secure the wheels. If I wanted to use 5/8 inch threaded rod, those are readily available and at various lengths.

However, since I need a hollow tube axle, preferably aluminum for light weight and ease of working with, drilling holes, etc, I'm experiencing a challenge finding aluminum tubes longer than 36 inches. So, my solution is to just have axle ends (similar to the dynamic dolly) and not a single end to end axle. That also poses challenges as to how to stay the axles themselves to the PVC that covers the axles. The solution I'm working on for that is that I found a 4 foot aluminum handle in my shop that is designed to work with a paint roller. It turns out that the 3/4 inch aluminum tubes fit pretty well right inside that handle. So, now I have a continuous axle assembly through the PVC that makes up the rear sling assembly.

Once my wheels get here, and I can know exactly how much axle area I need, I'm going to affix the two axle ends into this 4 foot "connector" tube with more push pin connectors.
Did you happen to see my response earlier this morning saying, "I wouldn't trust those 22° PVC joints, as I've had them crack open"? :eek:

After some rare re-considering :( I deleted the comment thinking, "Discouragement wouldn't look so good, starting out on this project". :oops:

.
 
Did you happen to see my response earlier this morning saying, "I wouldn't trust those 22° PVC joints, as I've had them crack open"? :eek:

After some rare re-considering :( I deleted the comment thinking, "Discouragement wouldn't look so good, starting out on this project". :oops:

.
No worries. I was thinking same thing. If the collar of the elbow fittings were deeper, I'd feel better about the joint's ability to hold up, but I have reservations and your experience backs that up. I'll probably go ahead and test it but from what I can gather the PVC "cement" solvent doesn't really fuse the parts together as much as it glues one surface to another. I'd feel better if one surface was actually fused into the other.

Perhaps there is a "high strength" or "heavy duty" PVC glue available or perhaps it may help to augment the glued joint by heat welding the joint seams with a soldering gun similar to plastic welding - but toxic fumes are a serious concern there.
 
The 8 foot x 3 inch wide sling just arrived Fedex. I'm going to be able to do a few dry fit tests tomorrow. I'm thinking that if the assembly and sling sag can be tweaked so that the exertion force on the uprights is as vertical as possible, the joint has a much better chance of working for this task - the force would be transferred through the entire joint vs across the joint. I think the more horizontal the force, the more the impact on the 22 degree elbow fitting and the more chance for joint failure.

To maximize the downward force and minimize the horizontal, will require as slack a sling as possible without bottoming out on the horizontal PVC axle shroud.

It would seem that the worst possible arrangement would be a near flat sling with the bottom of the boat hull resting near the top of the uprights. More sling length means more of the weight is distributed across the sling vs the PVC uprights and fitting joints and the axle. I expect that the most force would be exerted on the axles since they terminate the sling ends. Wish I had taken better notes in high school physics!
 
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