1979 Viking build

[LakeFever]

How sharp should the pad edge be? Should I sharpen the chine where the floor sits too?

[XstreamVking]

Go about 6-8 feet fwd of the trans. Draw a triangle to the fwd point from the outside edges of the trans. This is the area you want to make as perfect as possible. This is your running surface at speed. Trailing edge is also very important as to sharpness. Look at the contact area in my pic, and you can see what I mean...

[LakeFever]

Copy that thanks. We did make sure the pad was as near to perfect as we could before we did the big lay. The edges of the pad are now a little more rounded than the factory so I will be sharpening these I was thinking a 1/6” rounded chamfer for the edges? Or sharper?

the rear of the notch and pad are currently perfectly sharp with no radius at all. There is one more thing I’m not sure of but a pic will work better than trying to explain so I will get a pic and ask about it shortly.

[XstreamVking]

I blocked my strake edges with 400 grit, Almost sharp enough to cut paper....Zero radius...

[tnelsmn]

I did mine perfectly sharp like Xstream.

[LakeFever]

That looks perfect Tnels thanks for the pics. I’ll be delighted to have mine turn out that good. We have been blocking until our arms fall off. Haven’t been taking many photos because we don’t bring our phones in the work area it’s a dust disaster zone lol

[LakeFever]

Chipping away blueprinting and faring

[LakeFever]

Kitty hair wrapped up. More faring putty

[tnelsmn]

Looking great! I found the longer the sanding block the better. I ended up using a 5' 2"x2" aluminum tube for my block getting everything into shape.

Tony

[LakeFever]

Thanks Tony, we have a lot of hours in cutting this already. Fortunately by adding the big lays we had a lot of meat to work with and we shaped most of it with that already best we could which should save a lot of time blocking out the faring compound plus the added bonus of not needing a lot of putty coverage. We did have to round over the edges of the pad to get the 1708 down tight and this is what we rebuilt with the kitty hair. I found some great product it’s short strand fiberglass putty with carbon fiber reinforcement. This stuff is hard and tough! I made a couple of test pieces and could not break it by hand it is strong.

We have a bunch of sanding blocks I believe 3’ is the longest. Hopefully long enough if not it’s time to fire up the surface planer and make a new one. We have some guide coat to aid this process.

[LakeFever]

More faring progress

[LakeFever]

More progress. Hoping to have it in vinyester primer this week then we are going to let it sit for a week to help any shrink before the final cut and then, gel! Finally

It’s hell of a lot of hand sanding involved with this stage

[LakeFever]

Busy times but we have primer! This stuff sprays the same as undercoating. Almost not worth spraying it would probably have as good or better finish if we rolled it. Used the accuspray pressure pot style system. Sprays fast

[LakeFever]

We’re gel’d

Ran into some challenges and didnt get it laid down as smooth as i had hoped but it still looks really good. Cut and buff next, whats the grits we should use?

[LakeFever]

Once cured the surface finish is better than i was hoping for. Thats a relief

Wish i could pour the coal on this and wrap it all up but these are busy days. Hope to get to this in a week or so and then flip it for deck paint