300/440/550 550sx Hull Modernization Build

Mobile Chernobyl

Mobile Chernobyl

Location
1 Mile High in Colorado
Sorry guys for the lack of progress,

I'm currently in the design and manufacturing stage of a product of my senior design project as a mechanical engineering student. My project has taken on more of a life than I would have thought and I have 6 great teammates working with me to potentially develop a product that could be patented and sold to a large community (pretty much any vehicle with halogen headlights!) - so we have put a lot of time and effort into this project. As the project manager I've been putting in my fair share as well and haven't had much free time to work on my water scooter! I still want to have it ready for this season... but it won't be done anytime soon unfortunately.

IMAG1334_zps633be28e.jpg

(A picture of the hull as it sits now in between primer stages... covered in saw dust from the shop I'm able to paint it at)
 
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Mobile Chernobyl

Mobile Chernobyl

Location
1 Mile High in Colorado
I visit the shop it's at from time to time - it's still holding up! I graduate in T-minus 95 days. the up-coming 20 credit course load will not give me much time for this though! Believe me I can't wait to finish it too, can't jeopardize my graduation date though - handing over another few grand to this university is not in my list of things to do! That can be used for a SJ!
 
Mobile Chernobyl

Mobile Chernobyl

Location
1 Mile High in Colorado
It was just the XPS (extruded polystyrene) sheets from homodepot. For non-autoclave epoxy based layup it's hard to beat! The :):):):) we've been experimenting with at school for our carbon fiber car chassis is pretty cool - we actually had a fabrication engineer come in from Boeing to give us some tips and suggestions. He reccomended we stay away from YUASA batteries ;)
 
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zimmy

zimmy

Figured I would click on this thread because it has so many views, awesome job man! This is turning out to be very cool looking!
 
Mobile Chernobyl

Mobile Chernobyl

Location
1 Mile High in Colorado
Must... Finish... Soon!!!

Well I got good news, but bad news for this thing getting done on an expedited schedule lol - Got a job offer in the good ol city of NYC. Most likely will be living harry potter style for a few months when I move up there - but I'll be able to save up some money finally to finish this beast. I'm going to be fixing up my purple panty dropper ski Friday so I can ride something this weekend!!! Ahhhh going through impeller withdrawal!!

Thanks for the continued compliments everyone - It was my first adventure into composites work - and I sure as hell learned the hard way on just about every thing. It took a hell of a long time (a whole summer, working from 6pm until 2am a lot of the nights!) and I hope it will serve as a "How-To" for anyone interested in doing anything that I did - I tried to document the whole thing as best as possible and while there are plenty of identical build jobs on here with bits and pieces of what I did - I really tried to tie all the popular "mods" together into this frankenski and document it well - not just take a picture with a 1995 nokia cell phone and post it on here after it's all finished lol.
 
Mobile Chernobyl

Mobile Chernobyl

Location
1 Mile High in Colorado
And on the 405th day, there was COLOR!!!

Well I got to finally apply the DayGlo Saturn Yellow paint on the hull. Holy :):):):)... What have I done!??!?!?

IMG_20130630_122402_463.jpgIMG_20130630_121800_274.jpg

This paint is fairly transparent - as all fluorescents are I imagine. I've had this issue before - where if the base coat underneath it is not PERFECTLY white, you will see all the imperfects stark as day. So while I have the color on now - I'm going to spray a light coat of KILZ white primer over it unfortunately to get a perfect white coat - then put 3 or 4 coats of DayGlo over that - and THEN.... then it will be done!!!!

It's bright... really really really :):):):)ing bright. To the point where when riding it on a sunny day - it might hurt to look at. Hopefully the pole and turf will even the contrast out. Right now I'm almost thinking... did I go too far? haha

I'm thinking of having retro vinyl logo's made for the gunnels - give it a name like my other ski - I was thinking "Wild Thing" in a nice 80's font like Slip Stream or something corny haha.

This whole traveling from Brooklyn to Philly thing is gonna be exhausting though... hopefully I finish it soon - I may pay my buddy (pro mechanic) to help finish the mechanical installation parts and turfing after I get everything made.

Oh - and looking at and understanding this flourescent paint's intensity is simply not possible on a computer screen lol - sorry - you'll have to imagine what looking at the sun is like when you look at these pics.
 
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