Flipping couches for fun and profit

[WFO Speedracer]

I thought it would be fun to do a thread showing the process of rehabbing a sit down for resale , I will show the whole thing start to finish mistakes in all because that's how I roll.

Comments are welcome, if you have no interest whatsoever there is no need to comment , it's like a TV if you don't like what's on change the channel.

I picked up this Saturday for $500 on the condition that with my battery in it would crank and run on carb cleaner Cyclo W4U is what I actually used , it's a lubricant that has propane as a propellant and works really well for starting skis up.

This ski is typical of what you will find on Facebook marketplace or Craigslist on any given day, any rate it started right up and sounded really good, last registration 2019 , it's been a minute , first order of business is giving it a bath , this thing is filthy..

 

[JC-SuperJet]

Please track and post ALL your actual Hours and Costs. And lets see what the Net Profit is when sold...

 

[WFO Speedracer]

All washed up and ready to come off the trailer for further inspection , but how do you do that you may ask , well that 's the easy part.

A car ramp under the ski keeps the rear end up enough to just pull forward and it unloads itself right on the ground which is exactly where I want it.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Then we flip it on it's side resting against the handlebar and at that point we are done , we just flipped a ski , kidding, I am kidding , but now you can see the damage to the bottom of the ski , I know what you are thinking , damn that looks rough but hang tight it's not as bad as it looks really.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

So about an hour later half of the bottom is done , I just took twenty years of abuse off of the ski , this is why I like Seadoos especially white ones , keep in mind there are places where it is through the gelcoat and most likely they are probably not getting fixed , we will come back to that later , I want to do things that add to or increase value of the ski , fixing every little nick and gouge won't make any more money. I might pull some white tinted and thickened epoxy into the gouges and sand it flush, I say might , we will see.

My theory is it needs to look good on the trailer and good in the water , that's it and I constantly have to remind myself that it's just a flip ski and it's most likely going somewhere to get abused all over again , 400 grit wet dry sandpaper and water is the magic eraser here , that will follow up with 600 grit and a buff , then flip it on the other side and do it all over again . it's the bottom of a flip ski , get over it already .

If you can't see the difference visit an Optician immediately , you need new glasses , and with that work day is done and it's Corona time !

 

[WFO Speedracer]

All washed up and ready to come off the trailer for further inspection , but how do you do that you may ask , well that 's the easy part.

A car ramp under the ski keeps the rear end up enough to just pull forward and it unloads itself right on the ground which is exactly where I want it.

So far I am at an hour labor and no additional cost so ATM $500 plus one hour labor , I am not nearly crazy enough to think I will make my normal labor rate per hour working on this ski.

In the end it really doesn't matter as I am doing something I actually like to do and it makes decent money, all good in the hood here.
.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I sanded it with 600 then 800 then buffed it and waxed it , total spent $000.00 , time spent 30 minutes.

So we are at $500.00 and 1.5 hrs right now and half of the bottom is done , I don't count shop supplies as costs when rehabbing a ski , they are already on hand , when I run out I buy more . if you use one piece of sandpaper out of a pack of ten or 3 oz of rubbing compound out of a bottle how do you calculate that ,it's not worth my time.

So I will be listing prices on hard parts only , if I have vinyl on hand to recover the seats I won't count that , if I have used parts on hand I won't count that either , I have trailers on hand so I won't be including that , if I have to buy parts for the ski or the trailer I will include those here.

I will post a pic when it stops raining but while it is still wet of course , it just looks better that way lol.

Right now it's better to be rained out than rained on.

 

[Quinc]

It is awesome to see when someone put the time and effort into making these skis usable vs flipping them as quickly as possible to some poor bastard.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Yep I refuse to sell junk, period , the carb and entire fuel system will get cleaned, new battery , new plugs, new jet pump wear ring and , oil , new recovered seats , new footwell mats and tuned to a T , I wouldn't have even bought this ski if it hadn't started right up with a good battery and some starting lube , if it had bad or weak inner crankshaft seals, partially stuck motor or any other glaring faults it would have been a hard pass.

The crazy part is now this guys want to sell me the other ski that was on that trailer a 2005 Seadoo GTX 185 Hp supercharged ski , if I can make it run I am your Huclkeberry.

I am your Huckleberry - Search Videos

www.bing.com

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Thats what it looks like now and no it' isn't wet , it's waxed to hell and back, water won't stick to it anyway, I am not sure how well the camera picks it up but yeah , you get the general idea.

I did about a three year stint at the Ski Nautique dealership repairing gelcoat and FRP , I know a thing or three about buffing gelcoat and gelcoat repair.T.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

So class is now in session, some of you are wondering what is going on here, how are you sanding all those scratches out Well the answer is quite simple , gelcoat is thick , the thickness is measured in Mils which in laymen's terms is thousandths of an inch , typical car paint jobs are from .003 to .005 of an inch , gelcoat is typically from .015 to .020 of an inch in thickness , now out here in the real world Yamaha paint thickness is more along the lines of .001-.002 and Seadoo gelcoat thickness if somewhere around .010 -.015.

So the process is simple sand the surrounding area to where it is below the scratch , as long as the scratch is not too deep it disappears , now normally you would do this with a sanding block so that it stays perfectly flat , but again out here in the real world we are not doing that which means in some areas with deep scratches it will be slightly uneven.

It's form over function , do you want to see a perfectly even surface with a scratch or a slightly uneven one without a scratch , it's not enough that a normal person would ever notice but people like me that get paid to notice stuff like this can see or feel it in the gelcoat , the more colorful term most auto body shops use is it's been finger f---ed .

It's a flip ski so if you haven't get over it already , it's on the bottom it's not perfect nor will it ever be , but IMHO opinion gelcoat is a superior finish to paint in almost every way that counts and it's a lot easier to fix in the field than paint.

 

[Batteryman]

Great thread so far. Im cleaning up the same ski to sell. working on the bottom at the moment as well. Carb and fuel lines all done. Need a seat cover and starter relay though.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Blacktip or Ritco on Ebay is your best bet for seat covers, I sew up my own covers here unless I am in a really big hurry to get one ready. I have been really impressed with the quality of the Ritco products I have received so far , their wear rings are excellent as are their replacement lanyard that you use your Dess key on for like $14.95 , I have sold a bunch of them this year so far , I would use one on this build but this Dess key is toasted.

I have to lay off the sanding for a bit I wore two places through the skin on my fingertips and had to stop , I could keep going but I have other fish to fry on this ski to keep me busy while that heals up a bit .
Still at $500 and I am at about 2.5 hrs in labor.

Sea-Doo GT GTS GTX GTI 1992-1995 96 Ritco Products seat cover seadoo Purple | eBay

New Ritco Productsseat cover skin. Our Ritco Products seat covers are custom fitted, manufactured in our facility here in the united states. Ritco Products Seat covers are manufactured utilizing the highest quality marine grade vinyl.

www.ebay.com

 

[WFO Speedracer]

The first pic is where I left off at on the GTS , the second and third pics are an illustration of why I like gelcoat so much.

What you are seeing on that small section below the sticker is about a minute of sanding with 600 grit and a minute of buffing with Meguiars , this is on the Blue GTX that was sitting on the same trailer , now keep in mind that with further sanding with higher grits of sandpaper it gets way clearer and shinier.

Basically under the sun damaged and oxidized gelcoat is new non damaged gelcoat , it may not be the perfect and pristine color it left the factory with but it's a hell of a lot better than the whitish looking hazy crap that's on there right now.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

So a guy stopped by the other day and he has a POS Polaris sitting on a trailer with a bent tongue he wanted gone , of course you know what I said, I am your Huckleberry !

I went by and looked at it Monday and saw the tires were flat , it's a rust bomb and the tongue was bent badly , yesterday I pumped up the air compressor loaded it on the truck and I took another trailer tongue, it's a Shorelandr trailer so the tongue just unbolts, I got it unbolted but with the tools I had it wouldn't budge , so I aired up the tires and pulled it with the bent tongue, I was only going five miles or so and really it just offsets the trailer a bit when you pull it lol .

I have a friend who loves Polaris junk , I told him he could have it just come get it out of my yard.

I get it home and look at it and the center rails are rusted through on the bottom , so that will be another thread way down the road somewhere , right now it's a lot trailer , I have another tongue somewhere that is short because it was bent and cut off , I will put it in when I can get this one out of there , until then it will pull around the lot just fine as is.

The nasty looking stuff on the winch is W4U lubricant, it's nasty looking but it works really well.

The Gts is loaded on it and ready for the next procedure, which is tightening up the loose engine bedplate bolts , it had to go on a trailer or stand to get the cherry picker under it to lift the engine up enough to retighten the nuts.

The ski looks pretty good sitting on the trailer at this point bent tongue and all.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

The worst things on this ski are the graphics and the seats, of course I have the seats covered, see what I did there ?

The graphics I think I have lined up , the pink part is faded out the rest looks ok , so I am just going to put decals over the decals , a lot of custom graphics you see are made exactly this way .

I don't want to replace all the graphics but for around $100.00 I could .

Remember though , get it , get out, spend as little as possible in the process , add as much value as possible by spending responsibly , you have to weigh in not only the additional $50.00 for the graphics but also the hours of labor it would take to remove and replace all those graphics , in the end I don't think I would see that much of a bump in the final price with new graphics..

I ordered these two sets off of Ebay , the Seadoo decals I have used before on the last ski, I am using purple as shown , the quality is excellent but I may have to cut them apart and respace them a bit on this to get the correct fit , the Bombardier decal should be right on the money and they are Magenta , so now I am in at $555.63

SEA-DOO Logo / PURPLE / 26" Vinyl Vehicle Personal Watercraft Decal Bonus Pk | eBay

(2) 3x26" sea-doo decals / (2) 6" sea-doo decals (2) 4x8" sea-doo X decals (2) BRP decals (1) 3x6" sea-doo X decal. ~ All decals are made from premium quality vinyl with a high tack adhesive. ~ Installation instructions are included with all orders.

www.ebay.com

2PCS BOMBARDIER AVIATION Logo Vinyl Decal Waterproof Premium Sticker 11 INCH SET | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 2PCS BOMBARDIER AVIATION Logo Vinyl Decal Waterproof Premium Sticker 11 INCH SET at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[MADMAT]

Great thread!

 

[orangefinger]

oh oh ...its happening .... you have left the flipping and are building the ski for yourself .... getting all fancy ....

My wife always complains about me when we flip homes, i start improving and then over improving the house , like i would want to move in .. lol

All jokes aside its a great thread , we buy and flip couches too but on a super tight budget, many people here to realize all the work you put into these,
as long as it runs and looks ok they can sell in my state .... I have never touched the bottom of any of them, no holes all good

 

[WFO Speedracer]

My girlfriend says the same thing , why are you making it so nice , just sell it already , my answer is when it sells I want top dollar for a nicely refurbished ski , the 1998 GTI went for $2300 , it's because it looked and ran like it was supposed to.

I can quick flip em but then I have to do way more skis to make the same amount of money, which means I have to deal with way more people, hard pass lol.

My motto is if what you are doing ain't working then do something else , I do consider this to be a budget build , it is for me anyway.

I had to postpone work on the GTS to get some kind of evaluation done on that GTX 4TEC SC , the customer balked at spending $600 -700 to find out if the ski would run because he is obviously a dumba$$ , $700 is a a drop in the bucket on a 4 TEC repair bill and a fuel pump module alone costs that much , at any rate I can buy it for $650 without the trailer , rehabbed on a trailer that's a $4000 ski so yeah you guessed it , that's right , I am your Huckleberry.

I borrowed some parts off of my 2004 GTX SC ski to see if this will run, I did get it to crank up but it's sporadic , tomorrow it gets new plugs , fresh gas and a hot battery , then I will know what's what.

If I can get it to crank, run and idle I am buying it, it might take a minute to get it there though.

 

[Batteryman]

Blacktip or Ritco on Ebay is your best bet for seat covers, I sew up my own covers here unless I am in a really big hurry to get one ready. I have been really impressed with the quality of the Ritco products I have received so far , their wear rings are excellent as are their replacement lanyard that you use your Dess key on for like $14.95 , I have sold a bunch of them this year so far , I would use one on this build but this Dess key is toasted.

I have to lay off the sanding for a bit I wore two places through the skin on my fingertips and had to stop , I could keep going but I have other fish to fry on this ski to keep me busy while that heals up a bit .
Still at $500 and I am at about 2.5 hrs in labor.

Sea-Doo GT GTS GTX GTI 1992-1995 96 Ritco Products seat cover seadoo Purple | eBay

New Ritco Productsseat cover skin. Our Ritco Products seat covers are custom fitted, manufactured in our facility here in the united states. Ritco Products Seat covers are manufactured utilizing the highest quality marine grade vinyl.

www.ebay.com

Thats good to hear the Ritco seats are good. I have seen them on ebay and wondered about them. For some reason they dont offer one in black for this ski.