Super Jet The Square Nosed Time (& $) Vampire. My first Superjet

[BRANDO6X]

Ok so now that all the parts were blasted and clean, @Parsonsjb88 and I got together all the parts and sorted out colors and sent them out.



Time to disassemble the rest of the ski and get ready to fix the small crack and re-turf (that was the plan at this time...)




^ you can see one mount completely tore off the metal base



^ Found a crack in the pole... and it felt pretty heavy



It was heavy because there was a lot of water inside... Yay (this is the point where I decided I was going to get a new pole)




^ See that nice white line? maybe a crack..



^ Yes indeed a crack (and now I need a new bracket too)


Next we made a booth for grinding, sanding and such... which I was not supposed to need... because I wasn't going to do any cutting of course.

 

[BRANDO6X]

More booth making...






The hull felt pretty heavy... so I pulled out the pump and peeled off the old turf, and weighed it...






Anybody know what impeller this might be?




All stripped it still weighed in at around 160-170 lbs... soooo I then had the great idea of de-foaming (which started a chain reaction...an expensive one..)

 

[BRANDO6X]

Ok... so because of the weight in, I assumed the foam was soaked and needed to go.



After a few nights of frustration I ended up with over 30 lbs of foam in a bag... I am guessing the a lot of the water evaporated over the few days it took me to get it out, but a 30 lbs + weight reduction seemed good to me.

 

[BRANDO6X]

With the tray cut out and summer just around the corner, I made the stupid decision to go ahead and "just quickly" do a shorten and rocker...

I marked out the shorten and cut about 4 in off the back, including the back edge the has the stern eye in it. Looking back now, I wish I had not cut off the that back edge...


I used a string in attempt to keep everything symmetrical... it worked alright

 

[BRANDO6X]

With the back cut off I moved to the nose for the rocker,

I wanted to try something a bit different than the majority of the SN rocker's I had seen. I really wanted the bond rail to curve with the rocker and wanted the overall length to decrease with the rocker, effectively moving the pole forward.




I marked a bunch of lines (more than I planned on using) staring only a few inches in front of the front motor mounts and going almost to the tip of the nose.



I then marked out very roughly the shape I wanted the rocker to follow.



Before cutting the hull lines, I cut out the top deck nose for the bottom deck to follow.





With the nose cut away, I cut some of the hull lines and used a ratchet strap to pull up the nose.

 

[BRANDO6X]

With the strap tight I started to see the rocker come to life,







As you can see, the bond rail didn't follow the line a marked on the first try. I had to make a few more hull cuts to get it to look how I wanted.










I wedged some pieces of hull I had cut off into the cuts to get the rocker I wanted and taped the outside. Then I used some cabosil and epoxy to fill in some the cuts.

 

[BRANDO6X]

I wanted to use 2 part foam to shape the nose and to lay the glass and carbon on.

To prep for the foam, I laid some plastic on the inside of the hull and made a beer box structure for the foam to form to.






I then hung the hull from the ceiling and poured the foam in






I tried to use my hands to hold some of the overflowing foam in... turns out it gets quite hot... you can see where I had to pull my hands out of the gloves. ^

After letting the foam solidify, I started shaping the foam.

 

[BRANDO6X]

After peeling the cardboard off, I shaped the nose how I wanted it and prepped it for glass and carbon.










Doesn't look so much like a SN anymore.

 

[BRANDO6X]

I covered the foam with gorilla tape so I could get the foam out after I laid the carbon on it.

I ended up using 2 layers of 1208 biax as you see in the first template bellow, and then a bunch of carbon layers all overlapping and using overly complex templates... this was my first time glassing so I overthought the templates and made them too crazy, it was very time consuming to lay the glass and carbon and later on a found some areas that were too thin.















I am pretty happy with how the rocker turned out, I have not measured how much the rocker pulled the nose back but it is for sure a few inches.

 

[BRANDO6X]

Next I moved to reinforcing the sides of the engine bay. I used one layer of 1208 and two layers of carbon @ 45 and 90

 

[750sxip]

Looks great. Keep it up. I cut my 750 Kawi, not nearly as much but it was a TON of work. Chopped about 2 1/2" from the back and sorta rockered the front. Layed carbon on the bottom. But I'd do it again. Learned a lot and had fun with it. Sold it and moved on to an am hull.

 

[smoofers]

Cool build. Looking forward to how it turns out!

 

[swaggggg]

nice what brand epoxy did you use to glass?

 

[BRANDO6X]

@750sxip Thanks man, I am trying to keep it going... as you know...sooo much time... Your ski looks/looked awesome, I too am thinking about selling when I finish to get an AM. But at the same time, I am not sure I will be able to let it go.

@smoofers Thanks man, I am looking forward to it as well... unfortunately it wont be until next summer for sure, My next few updates will explain.

@swaggggg Thanks, the carbon, glass and epoxy came from US Composites

 

[jordanh]

This is an awesome build hoping to get a SN by early spring. Ive been lurking on here and scrolling through @Parsonsjb88 's build just looking at the pictures. I never realized until this thread that you guys are from Thief. Pretty cool to see these awesome builds in the area. I graduated from thief in 08, and have lived in GF since 10'. where do you guys ride at mostly? We have a place on south twin.

 

[swaggggg]

how much did everything run you and how much was shipping? i wanted to put stuff in the cart to see on shipping but the website is weird and ive never used the online order form thing they use

 

[750sxip]

@750sxip Thanks man, I am trying to keep it going... as you know...sooo much time... Your ski looks/looked awesome, I too am thinking about selling when I finish to get an AM. But at the same time, I am not sure I will be able to let it go.













I didn't want to sell it to someone random for this exact reason. I sold it to my buddy. So I see it regularly and ride it too. Love that thing. Yours looks like it will be a blast to ride after all those mods. I too bought my resin from uscomposites, great price and awesome stuff to work with.

 

[Quinc]

Great build! You are making it look to easy though! what is your plan for the foot holds?

 

[BRANDO6X]

Wow.... sorry It took me so long to get back to any of the questions here, busy times...

@jordanh Hey thanks man! I am trying to do my best... although I just had to rush waaay to much of the build... wont be on the water till next year, But I could have a SN hull for sale if your lookin', Ya there are a few us here in Thief with skis, we normally ride at maple lake but we have not got too much riding in this summer. Is south twin way south from here?

@swaggggg Hey man sorry about the late response, There are 3 of us that have been ordering many things all together and I have no idea what it has actually come to, but for glass, carbon, resin and such we have spent at least 400 in shipping alone... shipping has been crazy money

@750sxip Ya I hope that if I need to let it go someday (if I get it done ever!), it will be to a buddy so I cant still ride it haha. We also have had a good experience with uscomposites but the shipping had been brutal

@Quinc It only looks easy from all the pictures with no explanations haha. and I haven't got to the hard parts yet... hmm foot holds... I have a few methods I have been thinking about but I imagine it will be similar to how @Parsonsjb88 did it, I helped him and learned from his mistakes . I have used the "shaping 2 part foam" method for the nose and I thought it worked pretty well, I was thinking about doing the same thing (leaving the foam in the tray obviously) for the gunwales and holds, also I was thinking about making the footholds separately with the lost foam method or two part method and then glassing them in after... and then I have another crazy idea that I will keep to my self until I can bring it to life... or until I give up and tell people so someone else with more time and skill can do it.

 

[swaggggg]

Wow.... sorry It took me so long to get back to any of the questions here, busy times...

@swaggggg Hey man sorry about the late response, There are 3 of us that have been ordering many things all together and I have no idea what it has actually come to, but for glass, carbon, resin and such we have spent at least 400 in shipping alone... shipping has been crazy money

yeah shipping from us composites was like 25% of the materials cost for me they have to be turning a profit on shipping