Paulf4456

Something else to think of. I was told that the higher rated fuels will break down quicker. This was from a dealer who attended a seminar where they were informed that if the boat was used regularly the 95 and 98 rated fuels will have a performance benefit but if the boat was going to be left for several months it should be avoided. Maybe someone out there can verify this. I must admit I use 95 this time of the year when the boat is being used regularly and think it does run better. I'd be happy to hear from anyone who can back this up with some data. Cheers Fitzy

I use brush on gelcoat but you need to really go at the surface to be repaired. I use a 40grit flap disc on a grinder (bunnings about $7-8 each). Get a good key on the surface, don't use acetone to clean it just vacuum dust away and gelcoat straight away. You will have to add a wax to the gelcoat to prevent it remaining sticky and attracting all kinds of dirt and grit. I then usually use a stick to flick another colour over it to break up any brush marks and blend it in. Been running my boat for 5yrs now with this technique and its as good as the day I did it. Hope this helps. Fitzy

When are we recreational fisherman going to stop being punished and blamed for bad commercial fishery and illegal fishing practices. Recreational fisherman know the value of what we fish for. We're not in it for a quick buck. In fact it's just the opposite. All boaties know about that great hole in the water we pour money into, not to mention the cost of the lastest gear, charters and the trips away etc, etc. I fished off Wollongong before the advent of king fish traps and fondly remember the size and numbers of fish. We kept a feed but no where near what one kingfish trap held. The fish are finally starting to recover and some will say, that is why we need marine parks. I say why should I be excluded from an area because commercial fishers have just about wiped it out. Recreational fishers have bag limits and size limits that are designed to protect the target species, that is the ones that are taken. Don't forget how many practice release these days. When's the last time you saw commercial fishers releasing undersize fish alive and don't get me started on bycatch. Maybe our politicians need to be reminded how much money is generated by recreational fishers. We should have one of the biggest voices in Australia come election time.

Mitch, Nice boat. Did think about going that way but as most of the lake I'm fishing has a 4 knot limit seemed a bit of over kill. Seems like the lake has only just recently been opened but more likely it's been well over a year. You can even access the ocean with two new breakwalls out to sea. Would have to pick your days. Saw waterways blasting out through there the other month. The Lake is clean again like in the old days. Is running well and fishing pretty well. Heard the prawn run wasn't to bad but expecting a better run this year after being open for a year. Which is good as I was away for most of this past season gone. If you haven't been down for about 5yrs you would be surprised at the changes. Have you got your electric motor battery connected to charge from your motor or a stand alone battery that gets charged at the end of each session?? Fitzy

Your welcome to come down and check it out if you want. Just let me know. I prefer glass because I can pick them up cheap and do the work myself. Bit heavier but also quieter on the water. This will be carpeted and lined inside. Can't wait to get it on the water and see how it goes. Fitzy

I'm down Lake Illawarra way, hence the new boat. The other boat won't fit under the bridge at Windang. Lake is fishing well now the entrance has been opened up. Fitzy

She's 15' long and was a swift craft or something similar. Must admit did buy it because it was similar to the old pride hulls. Should sit well in the water. Fitzy

Hi all. Finally found time to show off my new project boat. Bought this unloved gem on E bay for $230. Some would say $230 was about $200 too much but it had a nice hull shape and I love a challenge. My other boat is the Savage Mako shown elsewhere on this site. Where to start. The transom had worms living in it, found used syringes under the front deck area (lovely). So I stripped it. New transom, new floor. New top deck mould. Then the front casting area. Large livewell, storage area, anchor well. Rear storage area. This is going to be a tiller steer as I wanted to keep things low maintenance. Outboard well added. Just adding the side rod storage areas. Now finished interior waiting on hatch covers.That's it so far. It will shortly be coming off the trailer and flipped so I can clean the hull and practice my spray painting. Going to paint this one myself. New hatches on top and she will be ready to hit the water. As soon as I finish fixing up the trailer I bought for it. E Bay of course. $250. Cost so far is about $1250 roughly, that includes the price of the boat,trailer and materials. Will be chasing a new motor at the boat show this year hopefully. Will post some new photo's when she's finished. Hope you enjoy and get inspired. Only too happy to answer any questions anyone might have. Fitzy

I estimated about $55-60Ks. Sounds a lot but you've got to remember this is money spent over 4 years and that price is including a brand new motor at $22k, professional spray job another $4000. The money you save is in the labour. The transom for this boat done profesionally anywhere from 3-4 thousand. It cost me between $700-800 in materials. Simply if your going to pay someone to do it, go buy a new boat it's not worth it. Do a lot of research and reading, maybe try something small in fibreglass, but above all don't kid yourself. This is hard work. You will sweat and itch and ache but the end results speak for themselves and you will find yourself in a bigger and better boat than you might think. My current bass boat still being built, cost $230 on E-Bay. Materials about $1200. Trailer $270. I'll have an all but , brand new 15' bass boat built to my design on a trailer for under $2000. I'm hunting for a new motor at the boat show this year. Hope this helps Fitzy

I honestly can't think of one thing I would do differently. Any ply wood used was covered in f/glass that includes underneath the floor. Any holes in the transom to allow for sounders and water pick ups were drilled slightly larger and then resin and flow coat filled and lots of Sikaflex to stop any water getting in. The stringers and transom are all multiple laminated sheets of ply and extremely strong. I haven't had the boat on a weighbridge completely fitted out but pretty sure the boat comes in under 2000kgs. Good for towing but not as good at sea. Another 100kgs up the front (someone standing there) made a big difference to the ride. This was solved with trim tabs which dramatically improved the ride. I can now get the nose down into the sea and working. The boat runs flatter and doesn't thump around as much. I agree it is easy to go overboard on glass but then the sea is a harsh environment and boats do cop a pounding. 60k's out to sea I don't have a problem with any extra strenght in a boat. A mate of mine bought a brand new boat, well known brand at the time. Almost identical in design to mine. Short version, it was a very shoddy build with lots of shortcuts. 20k's out punching into a nasty headsea with his family on board the cabin started to part company with the deck. They made it home. He asked me to have a look. The front side walkways had no supports under them and the cabin was held on with 1 layer of glass which with all the flexing had cracked. Another section was held together with nails and flow coated masonite. No glass at all. I know I'm not going to have those sorts of problems. Fitzy

Thank you, don't know about the immortal stuff though. The skills are really kinda basic and easily taught. The hardest part is having a goal and the patience and willingness to achieve that goal. As anyone who has started or in the process of a project like this will know it is hard work and there are times you sit back and wonder what am I doing here. It's those times when you find a part of the boat somewhere, for me it was the front area where the cabin was going to be. I was struggling and needed inspiration so I got in and flowcoated the area to a finished product. That fired me up and got me going again. It meant I had to cover the area with plastic to protect it for the rest of the job but whenever I couldn't see the end all I had to do was lift the plastic and comments from friends who could now see where I was heading was a great motivator. Specially if you have a supervisor at home wondering what your doing in the shed for hours at a time. All of a sudden it will be, "So the whole boat will look like that. You didn't tell me that. Hurry up and finish it will you. " She might even pitch in and help. Thanks Fitzy

The moulds are basically one offs. In the case of a top deck mould I build on top of the hull. You need 8'x4' particle board or a lined board to start. This needs to be solid. Remembering whatever surface will be mirrored in the gel coat. This board is basically the top of your decks. The pieces are all bolted together to form a flat base that mirrors the hull sides. I then suspend this above the deck in the garage. I then cut 2 x 4 pine blocks to the size and angle for the height of the new top deck. I then usually start at the back and work my way forward. Cut the same blocks either side and work my way up the hull, following the shape of the hull. These blocks are screwed into the suspended board. Line the inside edge up with the outside edge of the hull remembering you have to line inside this and if the top decks have been completely removed you will have some play in the hull sides. Once this is done you flip the whole thing over and line the interior. I've been using a plastic coated plywood which comes in 8 x 4 sheets. Hot glue it to your frame. You will end up moving some blocks around to true of the frame. Then putty, clean and gel coat and glass. This process means u have a brand new glass deck, no timber except for maybe strengthening blocks for cleats. You will have marks from joins etc when it is removed, but these are easily patched and when painted only an expert would pick the difference. The top photo's are of Pegasus's top deck mould before glassing and moulding clay added ready to glass. The bottom photo's are of my new boats top decks and hopefully show the process a bit better. If you can imagine in the bottom left photo the mould was flipped over and you are lining up theses blocks to follow the shape of the hull underneath. If not let me know and we'll get in touch and hopefully I can explain the process better. Cheers Fitzy

The hardest part with these was finding the right garbage bin. Cost about $15. The 1st photo is the actual bin. The second is the result. I didn't want large boxes infringing on the cockpit. These store fire/ex, grab bag and lure rolls. Because bin is plastic no need to wax inside can if you want, car polish will do. Brush on flow coat inside, be generous, glass over that, let set, drill hole in bottom gently use air compressor to break seal and blow out. Putty up hole and start again. I did 2 boxes in one day. If you wanted an L shaped box you could mould the inside of a fish tub or similar and then cut the garbage bin down and graft to the top of the tub. Your only limited by your imagination. Hope this helps.

Thank you. Great site. Look forward to participating more. Cheers Fitzy Will post the photo's of the new project soon. Have heaps of photo's from the big girl. Learnt a lot of things from that rebuild. Only to happy to pass on the knowledge learnt from mistakes. To many for here but can put a disk together if required. Things like garbage bin seat box moulds. Build 2 in a day, etc etc. Fitzy

A mate put me onto this site and I have been following the gamefishing reports. With the bad weather lately I explored a little further and was even more impressed to find I'm not the only lunatic out there rebuilding boats. So I thought I'd share my experience. I bought this Savage Mako in Nov. 2001. Paid $3500 for it. That was the start of a long 3yr rebuild that started as a simple restore and ended up being a bigger job than I ever imagined but the results were worth it. The short version is. There was not a dry bit of timber in the boat so it was gutted. It took a week to ground the hull back to the bare fibreglass shell. New transom, floors and cabin area. Decided I didn't like the top decks so off they came and built a one off mould and new top deck. One off mould for cabin. Professional respray. New stainless work, electrics and a brand new 175 Ficht sitting on the back and hey presto off fishing we go. Did I mention that was in Oct 2004. Maiden voyage Mooloolabah in Queensland. Some people say your crazy but if you want a cheap boat, built to your own design this is the way to go. I had no fibreglassing experience prior to this. Did have a woodworking background. Did a lot of research and a lot of scratching for 3yrs. Fibreglass gets in everywhere. But everytime I look at the boat sitting in the back yard or head out there is definitely a different sort of pride in knowing you built it. I'm such a glutton for punishment, I'm building a smaller bass boat for the local lake. It's nearly finished to. The boat has two batteries fitted under transom either side, 2 plumbed live bait tanks accessed from top of transom that drain and empty overboard, oil bottle in centre compartment. Cabin sleeps 2 with storage. Full walkaround, 220 litre fuel tank accessed through centre hatch. Hope you enjoy the photo's.