How-to: Maintenance

I've been on the road for the last several weeks and unable to track our nonskid and gelcoat repair project. But, in my absence, I had some photos taken to track the progress and now I'm back at the yard. We left off in part 4 with gelcoat Jim sanding... …Read More

Happy July 4th weekend to all! This weekend is probably one of the busiest boating weekends in the US. Just about everyone that owns a boat is going to give it their best shot to get out on the boat for at least part of the weekend if not the whole wee... …Read More

Last week I was in Kansas City at the Skills USA National Championship contest, this week I'm here in Minnesota at Best Buy's Geek Squad University training about 30 members of the Geek Squad team in the nuances of marine electrical systems. One of the... …Read More

Yesterday Yamaha Motors came out with some really sound advice regarding running their engines in the Gulf of Mexico, more specifically what to do if you find yourself running through an oil slick. As far as I'm concerned, their advice will work for j... …Read More

Today we completed the hands-on portion of the USA National Championship competition. The photo below shows one of the contestants totally engrossed in troubleshooting an electrical problem with a Suzuki outboard engine ignition component. Keep in min... …Read More

I'm in Kansas City, MO this week at the Skills USA National Championship competition to determine the best and brightest in the service industry not just for marine techs, but virtually any area of service you can think of, from airplanes to pastry c... …Read More

The on-going rebuild of the 1977 Silverton is continuing and this morning Gel-Coat Jim began preparing some of the nicks in the original gel coat surface for recoating. With a small grinder he removed all of the loose gel-coat around each of the nicks ... …Read More

Well I was wrong, the project non-skid / gelcoat repair project hit a speed bump yesterday and they are not ready to begin masking off the deck to begin the refinish process. The hold-up was the cockpit sole. Here it is again: It turns out that wh... …Read More

The fiberglass man finished prepping the 1977 Silverton yesterday so that he can now begin the process of getting ready for new non-skid surfacing on deck. He's still sanding away in the photo below:    When all is said and done, the 36 grit did ... …Read More

Over the next few days I'm going to be following the complete replacement of the non-skid surface and gel-coat dings on a 1977 Silverton sportfish that a friend of mine is restoring. Some photos of the boat as it stands right now are here: You can ... …Read More