Shadow 200VT restoration

[Smalltownbassin]

I got a project boat the other day. It's an 88 shadow 200VT. I plan to gut the entire hull and rebuild with composites and a couple extra layers of weave in the critical areas of the hull. This will be my first complete restoration so any tips are much appreciated.

[LakeFever]

Congrats looks like a nice hull, almost like an XT. Theres so much to say here but the couple tips i can offer i wish i knew before starting mine. Brushing resin is a waste of time for all but the smallest lays. Using a whizz roller is the ticket. Also for what its worth to save you a lot of waste it takes 0.65ml of resin per square inch of 1708 and its pretty similar for 1.5” csm. Speaking of csm its best used for capping lays that your going to refinish and especially good for tailing 1708 its mostly a waste of time and resin for anything else. 1708 takes about the same amount of resin and adds way more strength so id use that for just about everything possible. Using one coat of gel with wax to cure any lays you want to sand makes for cleaner better work than trying to sand cured resin which gums up paper fast. Take your time to plan your lays and go wet on wet whenever possible. I could cut my build time down by hundreds of hours if I knew how to do this from the start. I also suggest vinylester resin its much nicer to work with than poly, fully water proof which poly is not, and bonds to existing glass way stronger than poly will, and its secondary bonding window is much greater, for like what, 25% more cost? Well worth it imo. See if you can get DOW corp Derakane, that stuff is awesome but I haven’t had any luck since the pandemic its all back ordered. I havent bought resin in a while though so that may have changed now. I also recommend core bond for the core, its light, fast, easy, and glues core so strongly. It works into all nooks leaving no voids for stress points or intrusions. Just be careful it doesnt sand well, although covering with waxed gel helps big time here as well. Coosa is great product it’s expensive as heck but really good. The 20lb is lighter and easier to work with and is only different from the 26 because of roving in it which you can compensate for with your lays and do better. Some say transom should be wood for nvh i cant speak to this yet i havent run my coosa transom yet. Top coating gel is a giant pita imo and really thats about it. Major work and hassle so if possible save the gel on the hull to use. Using zip lock bags for piping in cabosil thickened resin and corebond is the cats meow. I did all my bubble rolling with a 3” wide 3/8” dia fin roller. Worked best for me i have a bin of useless rollers to figure that out. When rolling i learned the hard way that it’s not really rolling bubbles out, its pushing the mat in tight! Meaning if you see bubbles near a transition, roll into the tranisition to push the mat in the corners because often if you roll the bubbles away from corners it pulls the matt further out making more bubbles, sometimes not noticeable until it cures. I also suggest relaxing the mat and rolling into position as tight as possible before adding resin and work the resin down through the top with the whizz. Makes for tight lays, no wasted resin, no bubbles at all if your careful. Having a helper for big lays is essential. Hard to position big lays alone. Then one to lay resin with whizz and one to fin roll bubbles. Theres probably more i can add but i have to run for now. Hope this is of some help

also to add regarding wet on wet lays it takes less resin to do this although i dont have enough data to say exactly how much less but when you do your primary lay at 0.65ml per square inch; the last time i did a wet lay over this i mixxed 0.50ml per sqaure inch and still had leftovers. So wet on wet is faster, cheaper, has the best bond possible and you end up lighter weight. 4x win

[Smalltownbassin]

Thanks man! All great info that will save me time and money. I was wondering about the VE resin and benefits over PE. I think VE is the way to go now for sure. Ive got a lot of work ahead of me but luckily there's not much to the old shadow hulls. The cap is extremely light and the tabbing locking the compartments down has delaminated from the hull layup long ago. Once i get it off, probably today, ill be ripping the floor, stringers & transom out, digging out any foam boxes if any & pretty much getting it down to the glass hull shape. For safety ill be adding another entire layer of 24oz biaxial in the entire hull because these things are so thin it makes me nervous. Ill be adding some short stringers in the tunnels also for strength. Im on the fence about marine grade ply vs. coosa. I do want an all composite build and think that if i do use all lighter weight composites i have much more room to add glass where its needed for strength without adding too much to the original hull weight. Cost is an issue though, of course. Ill also be extending the front deck for a more modern platform. And maybe building in some transom setback, idk, way too many ideas flowing through my mind lol.

[LakeFever]

Sounds like you have a good plan. The coosa is pricey, but when you compare it to real marine ply like Okuma its pretty close. If your going to use hardward store type marine ply then its way cheaper. I added two layers of 1708 over the entire inside of my hull and one on the outside. My transom is 3/8" thick over the entire surface in a combo of 1708 and 1808. I cored the entire deck also 1708 over. I added 1208 over the entire underside of the deck and all my stringers and braces got 2 layers up each side and 2 caps overlapping at least an inch with 1708. Doing things this was added a lot more glass to the hull, a lot! I still came in on the lighter side of stream builds because of the coosa and the corebond. Just to give you an idea of weight and imo more glass is better than more core meaning sure the coosa is not as strong as marine ply but I beefed it with more glass and I trust that more than wood.

Just how I feel about it, some thoughts to consider.

Its a ton of work man

[rgsauger]

I used Hydrotech marine plywood which was absolutely perfect. Also used System Three Silvertip epoxy resin. The silvertip wetted out better than the general purpose resin. The Hydrotech took the resin perfectly. Wood flour makes great peanut butter. 4” tape is perfect for tabbing things together.

these guys were very handy on supplies
https://www.boatbuildercentral.com/

this stuff for tabbing
https://www.boatbuildercentral.com/p...ass-tape-6-oz/