Another Bellboy 21

[Guest]

Again, I bought these from Larry on http://goldenstateglassics.com, our sister site. He charged $90 plus $5 shipping for the emblems, then he included them in batch he had chrome plated for another $96. If you know somewhere you can have them plated he would be (at least he would have been for me) happy to send them unplated. He didn't charge extra for that service, he just passed his cost along.

Don't know anybody else's opinion, but I know something about what's involved and I figured that was a very good price.

[BellBoyBob]

Here's a photo I had taken. They are brass with a hard chrome plating, studs (unthreaded- I'll need to find some of those push-on retainers) on the back. Surface finish is very good, IMHO. PM me if you need more.

Ed, I found the clips to secure the posts of the emblems to the inside FG wall at Home Depot in the hardware section of the store. They work perfectly.

BTW, I contacted Larry at Vintage Boat Works and he had a set of finished brass BB emblems. He will include them in a batch of other trim pieces to be sent to a good chroming guy in AZ. The long and frustrating search is finally over!

Bob

[Guest]

I had my nine-year-old nephew with us for a month. That's another excuse for not getting anything done on the boat. A bit before he came, and ever since we took him back to his parents, I've been patching and sanding and puttying and filling holes. Most sanding, but there sure were a lot of holes to fill. I need to remove the current fuel filler and patch that hole, because I the fuel tanks will one bay back from the cabin bulkhead.

I got a nice little Bosch 5 inch random/orbital sander with the velcro discs, and I've got through I think 150 60-grit and about 40 40-grit discs. I couldn't keep track of how many coats of paint were applied without apparently sanding the earlier coat much, but several. I look at it as filler- the colored areas are the low spots of course.

But it's getting pretty smooth. With luck and decent weather I might be able to get a coat of high-build primer on next weekend. Here's hoping.

[TheBronze]

Looking good! I'm in a similar spot with the 404. Sanding on the stbd side and trying to get it patched and ready for primer. Good times!

[BellBoyBob]

Ed, I hope you and the other BellBoy restorers are doing well with the projects out there!

Here are a couple of shots from yesterday's outing at Lake Ontario.
Best,
Bob

[Guest]

Ed, I hope you and the other BellBoy restorers are doing well with the projects out there!

Here are a couple of shots from yesterday's outing at Lake Ontario.
Best,
Bob

Oh! Pretty!

Speaking for me- I think it's coming along reasonably well. I'm hoping to start priming this coming weekend. Paint on, assuming weather continues to cooperate, within a month. First time in the water this year.

That doesn't include building the new interior, which will be my winter project.

[Helmar]

Ed, I hope you and the other BellBoy restorers are doing well with the projects out there!

Here are a couple of shots from yesterday's outing at Lake Ontario.
Best,
Bob

Nice....And Fresh water or at least Not Salt Water...
I hate what it does to everything out here. Seems that you have to have a sacrificial engine as the salt turns everything into a pile of white powder.

Nice looking Bob...

[TheBronze]

Nice shots Bob. Makes me want mine done sooner...
I'll post an update on my thread for my progress.

[Guest]

Couple weeks gone by. I'm once again running slower than I planned, but continue to make progress, if slowly. I knew I had to remove the old rub rail, which is old disintegrated plastic. I thought it would be easy.

Wrong.

Took less than an hour to get it off. But it was glued on with some kind of rubber adhesive. Really tenacious stuff. I tried a number of things, but I was scraping and cutting, and cleaning at best a couple feet an hour. If I remember correctly the advertised gunwale length is 25 feet. X two sides, x 2 (top and bottom). I didn't want to spend 50 hours getting that adhesive off. Finally at my local hardware store I found these cool carbide scrapers with replaceable blades. One with about a 2 inch wide flat blade, and another with small round or trangular blades. The round one just fits into the radius at the glued joint. That increased my speed by 5 or 10 times. Expensive but worth every penny.

So with more puttying and hole filling and sanding I got the first coat of primer on the hull. I still have to hand-sand all the inside corners on the topsides, but I hope to get than done over the next week or two.

[TheBronze]

we are close on our projects. I'm in the filling fairing stage prior to primer. I expect to have primer on the 404 in the next week or so. Keep workin hard and it will happen!

[Guest]

I continue sanding and patching and sanding. Last week I went around the hull, which had one coat of primer, looking at it from less than a foot. At that distance and with a less color contrast the small imperfections are a lot more visible. I smoothed on some putty- some rather runny epoxy-filled-with-microballoons. Today was sanding- the hull is ready for the next coat but I'm not quite done with the topsides. I'd say it's 50-50 that tomorrow I'll get to the point where I can prime again with Pettit 6149. It would be second coat on the hull and first on the topsides.

[Guest]

It seems like forever since I've posted. Between visits from loved ones and working overtime (I worked at least a couple hours every day for six weeks) I haven't been able to touch the boat. I've been sweating, because my work space is the driveway and I don't have a shelter. I had expected to have the last month or so to paint, but that didn't work out, and once the rainy season starts I'm in trouble.

So I was dodging the mist, but we got some sun and no real rain. So here's what the boat looks like

• sanded and ready to prime.
• with two coats of sanding primer, hull and topsides.
• sanded, one coat of Pettit Easypoxy, and a light sanding.
• then with four coats. I haven't removed the masking tape yet.

There have been so many layers of paint applied that I never did feel 100% sure what the original color was, but I think it was red topsides and hull. I couldn't see my way to applying that much red, but I liked this best of all the looks I tried in my my graphics program.

It's not going to complete with Bruce Drakes BBE (Best Bellboy 21 ever), but I think when done it won't be bad for an amateur job.

So I still need to let the paint fully cure, and buff and sand, but at least I beat the rain. I also mounted the bulkhead, and precut the pieces that will make the interior panels. I need to fabricate the steering/instrument console, but soon I should be able to get the outboard mounted. Then I can build out the splashwell. When I do that I'll finish painting the side slashes and cockpit interior. Then ... well, anyone reading this probably knows there's still a lot more work to do. But it almost looks like a boat now.

[Karl]

Great job! I was on that boat way back when it was in Hoquiam Wa. It looks much better now.

[TheBronze]

Nice! I bet that red will buff out to a really nice shine. Good to see some different colors!

[TheBronze]

Oh, and you really should cover that thing up before the big rains hit.... It would be a shame to have all that work you did this summer go to waste with standing water.....