78 Hydrostream vector restoration

[schillaz]

Well i picked up this vector sitting near the town i work in ND got it real cheap so i figured i might be able to restore it and
have some fun with it.

So far i have striped out the floor, the core was rotted out so it was very easy. Now im prepping the floor for the new fiberglass and core and all that.

Another thing i have to fix is some jack-hole must have decided he wanted a black boat and sprayed the top black, luckily over the years of it sitting outside most of the paint has
fell off but of course where the cover was and some thick spots the paint is still on.
I found some citrus stripper (non toxic) and smeared that on lastnight waited about 10mins and took a plastic scraper and its all coming off real nice. Looks like i will be able
to buff out the gel coat and it might actually look pretty nice.

Heres some before after pix

[schillaz]

Here are some older pix of the floor, i have done alot of sanding and trimming to prep the floor but this is what I started with.

I will try to clean it out this weekend and get some good pix so you guys can tell me what i need to do next....haha

** im open to any suggestions or insight from someone who has done alot of this.

thanks

[77viper]

The core goes all the way up to the bow and down the center as well.

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[77viper]

Oh ya, it's cool the paint came off.

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[VultureNo2]

Chet, is that the white Viper you were selling? I'm geussing not, because it was black paint. Anyway nice boat and a good start. Kep it up. It's hard to tell from the pictures but I think that is still core under the glass on the sides. Chet? Bill

[redneckcustoms13]

holy crap chet! its your boat 2 years ago

[varmint1]

Welcome to the forum and you got a great looking Vector, hopefully all the black will come off of it and it take a good clear to get it looking new again. Its going to be alot of hard work but well worth it in the end .

[schillaz]

Well i was getting alittle pissy today it doesnt seem like im making any progress on getting the black paint off and trying to buff the original gel coat out
and when I was all done i rolled it back into the garage shut the door and snapped a quick pic. When looking at the pic on my phone i noticed the boat
actually was starting to shine.......WTF.....so i must be doing something right...haha

so from 20 feet it looks good.

[varmint1]

Looking good, there,s gunna be times you going to wonder wtf you got yourself into, but you got a whole lot of talented folks here that can keep motivated.

[schillaz]

Ive been wet sanding and buffing like crazy to see if i can bring back some-what of a shine to this thing. (its so smooth i bet i could slide across the deck buck naked).....but i probably wont try that any time soon....hahha

I still may need a clear coat of some kind im just really worried about in 2 years the clear starting to chip then i would have to get all the clear off again, and ive had enough fun removing paint already.

Heres a pic