Hull sanding

[Jim B]

I thought i would post this because of the discucssion on sanding the pad the other day. when i was fixing my leaf springs and replacing the brake lines the last week i noticed i had a lot of scratches in the pad area on my hull. some were pretty deep and all were at the lowest area on the boat. I decided to fix those imperfections to smooth out the area. In the end i fixed all the scratches with gellcoat repair stuff i got at west marine and i also sanded all of the pad that i could between the middle two bunks with 400 grit wet paper. The first 3 or so feet of my pad are now as slick as a baby's bottom and totally flat with zero imperfections. i took the boat out today for the first time since i did this and there was a noticable performance difference. First i picked up 300 rpm at wide open and 2mph on top. the boat also has more bow lift at full trim. I dont know if getting rid of the scratches fixed it or if it was the sanding but the difference is amazing, if i had more time to spend and could get the boat off the trailer i would do the whole pad. Tommorow im going to a big lake and i plan to see what it will do over a very long run.

 

[Bruce Yeaton]

Great info Jim. I wonder how it work on an aluminum hull?

 

[Bruce Yeaton]

Pat - now I just have to go out and try it! LOL!

 

[Michael Snow]

Bruce, remember that the aluminum has a fair amount of "flex" built in...Therefore, you don't have the super smooth surface that a fiberglass boat does.