Trailer repairs and Batboat rebuild is on coming.

Several have emailed wondering if the Batboat rebuild is still oncoming so here is a small update.

UPS delivered the stainless steel safety chains a while back, I bought the new trailer coupler over the weekend and got one of the three through-bolts today in hope to have the coupler bolted on the trailer by early December.

Depending on the weather and finding free time, the cleaning and painting of the new coupler will take a few days to finish.

After the trailer is fixed, the current plan is to go to Michigan Lumber in Flint for the plywood to make the fins and laser eyes. They sell the finer quality Douglas Fir plywood there and it is stored on flat shelves, not on forks like the warped plywood is at all big box retailers here.

First, mock-ups and patterns of the new Batboat details will be made of some type of low cost fiberboard. It all depends on how much funds I have and the weather.

These large 4' by 8' sheets of board will be hauled home in the Batboat; the most important reason to fix the trailer first. Stay tuned.

Batboat Rebuild: trailer and fiberglass cloth, November 11, 2009

Those following this blog know there are problems with the Batboat's trailer. I now suspect that at one point it was in a fender bender evidenced by the bent coupler and several small twists and dents in the frame.

Its getting too cold to do fiberglassing and woodwork outside so I will put the focus on making the trailer safe. It WILL be boring to most of you but I hope that those who are working on their own Batboat will find time saving information here.

On this day I took off the coupler and safety chains. The work lasted less than an hour.

The old chains were zinc plated and mostly rusted plus I never trusted their hook connectors. A new set enroute from iboats.com are made of stainless steel and have better connectors.

click this link to view --> SeaSense Stainless Steel Trailer Safety Chains for 2000 lb loads.

Above is the coupler. It connects to the car's trailer hitch. The yellow lines represent the correct level position of the trailer. As you can see this thing is bent out of wack!

It was welded to the tongue (the forward beam tip of the trailer) in three spots and I freed it off with the grinder and a hand vice clamp.

Two spots were cut through...



... and the coupler was bent and twisted off.

The rest of the attached coupler and welding was smoothed out with a grinder flapper disc. I wacked the beam back into shape with a hammer and coated the bare metal with spray primer to help prevent rust.

I'll get a new coupler after the chains get here.

Sundown was arriving meaning it was time to cut the lawn before it became too dark. When I opened the shed there was a nice surprise waiting for me. The rolls of remaining 1.5 Chopped Strand Mat and 6 oz Hexel fiberglass cloth fell from where they were shelved, unrolled on the floor and absorbed at least a month's worth of rain water, mud and all were well spotted with mildew! Totally ruined!


I kept these rolls and all of the scraps for nothing. About 2 yards combined of uncut cloth and a bunch of odd pieces were worthless. Oh well, at least the really expensive stuff, the 1708 biaxial, seemed okay. I'll check for mildew tomorrow! (checked it and it's fine but moved to the dry basement now.)

Can't use this for fiberglassing because the dirt and mold will promote rot! >:(

Batboat Rebuild: Day 50 November 8, 2009

On this day I started refurbishing the Batboat's trailer turn signals. The wiring was a twisted mess and the lights stopped working while I was using the Batboat to move my things from the old house. Had to leave it parked until I found time to fix them.

Later, somehow the plug got squashed while the boat was in the drive way!

The trailer lights had two sets of cables spliced together at the end with crimps and electrical tape, each with their own plug. It all had to go.

As you can see over time this became a tangled mess hanging under the trailer with too much length.

Ripped it all out but I kept the lights, which were perfectly reusable.

A new set of lights was something over $35. To save a few bucks I rebuilt them. The lights would be rewired with this new harness I found at WalMart for $12+.

There was trouble running the wires through the trailer's main beam. Wouldn't go in more than a few feet before getting stuck. Looking round the yard I found a simple solution. Take a garden hose and run it through the beam out to the other side, stick the wires into the hose a few inches, wrap them together with tape, and pull the house back out; A quick way to thread wires through a hollow beam.

It was getting dark and I continued two days later by taking apart and rewiring the signals.

I got the lights into the house and worked on them with the soldering iron for a few minutes, put them back on the trailer, connected the harness ends, put in new bulbs, and they worked perfectly.

BEFORE

AFTER

I never did anything like this before and probably spent two hours over the two evenings reverse engineering and working on it. They are now as good as new and I had lots of fun.

BEFORE

AFTER

The next job is to replace the trailer coupler. It is bent all to heck! I could never back the Batboat into the water without it veering in strange angles.

Batboat Rebuild: Seat Mystery Solved Part 2

The 1966 Glastron fiberglass boat catalog that I mentioned here three weeks ago came in the mail a while back. (I paid $13.89 for mine and another recently sold for $26, he he he.)

The pointed seat design shown in a '66 Jetflite V-143 Super Sport appears, from the back, to be a closer match for the ones used in the original Batboat than the '67 Jetflite V-143 mentioned in another blog post.

'66 Jetflite V-143 Super Sport

1966 Batboat

'67 Jetflite V-143 Super Sport

It looks like when it comes to having my own seats made I'll need to get hold of one of those seats and interpolate the dimensions of the Batboat's to base the new pattern on.

The Jetflites in the Glastron '66 and '67 catalogs are the only boats with pointed, turned up seating and are unique to that model.


The Batboat's seats were specially made and upholstered in glitter blue vinyl, as shown above. This is one of the scant close up glimpses of the original seat. It doesn't get much better than this, sadly.

The 1966 Jetflite V-143 Super Sport

The '66 catalog also shows the steering wheel used in original Batboat; a Super Sport in metallic blue.

Batboat Rebuild: Dashboard Aluminum Trim

I just interpolated the width of the 1966 Batboat dashboard trim against a one inch vinyl pleat. It appears to be the same width as in mine; 5/16th inch.

My vessel was built three years after the TV show boat and, like many other details in the '66 Batboat, that trim was one of Glastron's stock parts.

The above is the glove compartment piece from my 1969 V-145/Batboat. I bet its the same stuff. If so, it will not be hard to find at all. The same aluminum trim was used by Glastron in many of their boats in the 1960s and its the stuff people sometimes throw out when fixing their boats up.

Here is how it was upholstered to most of the vinyl in my boat. Looks nice and neat from the front...

... but the back is different.


The back of the channel in the aluminum was cut to make it easier to bend into curves and then stapled through the vinyl to the plywood.

The channel is 3/8 inch and ply 1/4 inch.

The metal is rounded at the end and the upholstery foam under the vinyl looks about 1/4 inch. Not too slim and not too puffy. That is how I am going to upholster my craft, just like Glastron did in '69.

Batboat Rebuild: Seat Mystery Solved.

Color Photo From The 1967 Glastron Boats Brochure

Researching how the original 1966 Batboat was built is sometimes kind of tough. It was one of the least used Bat-vehicles in the show (once in the movie and twice breifly on the show. The show appearances were filmed during the movie) and there are only a scant 2 or 4 original photos showing detail.

Sorry for the bad screen capture! One of the rare shots of the interior.

One of the last items that had left me stumped were the seats. There are maybe two or three photos that show them clearly but from behind. The BATMAN movie dvd shows them from above but for a split second.

I posted a quirey with images at the Classic Glastron Owners Association forum and one of the historians, 69 JETFLITE, came up with the answer the next day.

It is possible they are the seats used in Glastron's Jetflite models. I looked through my 1967 Glastron brochure and sure enough, there they are!

The Classic Glastron Owners Association site has a scan of the 1966 brochure showing the top of the seats and they are better dead ringers for those in the Batboat. A 1966 brochure is on the way here from eBay so I can take a better look.

Above: 1967 Jetflite Super Sport V-143
Below: The Batboat In 1966 Before Delivery To Hollywood.

The post '66 Jetflite chairs seem to have the same turned up/ pointed appearance on the top but are narrower in the middle pleated area. The above photo shows a reupolstered pair.

The 1966 Batboat had both tops and bottoms pointed, however. If I can get a pattern off a top, the bottoms can be made the same way. Just need to find a junker '66 seat. That will have to wait for next year, delivery of the '66 brochure and more photos to verify. :)

Glastron forum member FergusonPooleInc says the 1967 seats were blue metallic, the 1968 red metallic, and the 1969 were gold metallic.

Cool.

Batboat Rebuild: Day 50 October 10th, 2009

I worked on the new dashboard today. This modified Glastron V-145 craft needs a new dash because it and the seats need to be moved back one foot to be in the correct proportion to the 1966 original Batboat.

When Glastron built their Batboat for the BATMAN movie they did the same thing to a V-174 Super Sport.

The "lap" of the seats should be about dead center of the length of the craft.


1/2 inch plywood makes up the dash of my boat with about 1/4 inch of fiberglass on top for strength. I'll be using 3/4 inch marine grade ply and a couple layers of 1.5 oz chopped strand mat fiberglass.

The Original Dashboard

On top of that will be some kind of satin polished aluminum or stainless steel, as seen in the original.

I'll figure out what size the metal trim is when I find out the diameter of those Mercruiser gages. I have a hunch, however, that it could be the same trim Glastron used in many of their boats at that time, including mine; 5/16 inch polished, rounded aluminum. (shown in the below pix of the glove compartment.)

A pattern for the new ply was made with "dollar store" package wrapping paper.

I've got a lot of mileage out of that roll over the past two years!

The paper was scored with open scissors along the top.

The glove compartment doesn't have a top to trace on...

... so a rough cut was made, paper taken off the dash, folded in half and the compartment area was cut the shape of the driver's side.

Pattern was clamped back on and after few adjustments the steering hole was marked.


Many of the angles of this '69 V-145 boat are 15 degrees. The dash is no exception so the ply will be cut at 15 degree angles.

This used to be quite a nice looking sport boat at one time. Hard to see it now but the dash had a modern style to it.

Glove compartment featured aluminum lined, padded "Glacier Blue" Naugahyde vinyl...


... the rest of the dash surface was covered with wood grain vinyl, as seen from under the dash.

Padded "Glacier Blue" Naugahyde vinyl was under the windshield, the steering column was chromed and the steering wheel was black with a chrome hub. The Glastron logo in the center of the hub with a wood grain background.

The hull and topside was originally white with "Glacier Blue" details.

The longest ply I have left is 4 foot. The new dash needs to be 4 foot 2 inches as the Batboat gets wider a foot back. A solution has been figured out.

Top and bottom are cut at a 15 degree angle...

... and with a few adjustments, its uniform to the original.

The dash, windshield area and laser eyes are all connected. The cold is averaging 45 degrees now but I'll work on it when able.

Batboat - Whizzwheels Blister Pack

http://www.thebatmobile.nl/ provides images for hobbyists to make reproduction packaging for their old Batman toys.

Here's one for the 1967 Corgi Juniors #1003 Batboat Whizzwheels Blister Pack.

They have several more cool '60s Batboat toy boxes but they are too big to post here. Go to http://www.thebatmobile.nl/ to check them out.

Vintage photo of my boat.

I found this pix in a flicker account while Googling.

Its of the Batboat before I owned it on display at the Motor City Comic Convention, held at the Rock Financial Showplace in Novi, MI, May 19-21, 2006. The miniature Man-O-War was built for this convention celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Batman TV show.

I understand the autograph tables of Adam West, Burt Ward, Julie Newmar, Yvonne Craig, and Lee Meriweather were facing the Batboat the entire weekend but I have yet to find any photos showing it.

It will be cool to put together a scrapbook. Most images that have been given to me and found were shot at this convention.

I'd like to have some other shots taken at other meets and conventions where this appeared from 2006 to 2007, like the one at the bottom of this blog.

Have you any photos of my Batboat on display? Or with cast members? There are two shots of Yvonne Craig autographing the fin.

I'd sure like to have some more. :) Contact me through this blog or dnemeth01@charter.net.

Batboat Rebuild: Day 49 September 20th, 2009

Today I took a few moments to fill in the odd low spots under the bow along where the deck meets the hull.


These will be a mold and dirt traps, especially after the foot board is put back in. When filled in flat it will also be easier to wash out the bow and keep it dry.


Using a great deal of PL Construction Adhesive.




PL caulk spread smooth using fingers.




Next spring I will grind the surface of the PL smooth and fiberglass over it. The weather is cooling off too much to risk buying more resin and I haven't the money to buy one more gallon due to the move to Saginaw.


The last new cartridge of PL Adhesive of the year was opened. Seven 28 oz cartridges used on the Batboat so far! There is still some left over for next year, believe it or not.


There were a few spots on the deck with exposed bare plywood from my grinding bubbles down too far into the chopped strand mat fiberglass a week ago. I waterproofed them by glopping a bit of adhesive on top. Will pop them off and fiberglass over those next year.

Winter may be here but there is more to come to the 1966 Batboat Blog! Stay tuned!