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!

Batboat Rebuild: Day 48 September 13th, 2009

A couple hours was spent today grinding down the bubbles in the 6 oz woven hexal fiberglass.

There were too many but there were no bubbles in the 1.5 chopped strand mat, however, so not many areas need to be patched.


I did this wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt. For weeks I had a rash on my upper arms from contact with the tacky fiberglass surface. Wear long sleeves, folks! lol!

Weeks ago, when the plywood was measured and cut for the deck it was a snug fit, however, after fiberglassing the underside and grinding off the excess I dug into the wood a little. Not a good fit any more. After installed, most places where the deck sections met the hull had a half inch or more gap.

Rolling fiberglass over the deck to meet the hull creates a slouch in the cloth were these gaps are. Today I filled these dips in with PL Construction Adhesive and intend to glass over it next summer with 1.5 CSM, otherwise, they will be dirt and mold traps.

The caulk makes the surface smooth and even for fiberglassing.

Batboat Rebuild: Day 47 September 7th, 2009

Moved into the new house now. Feel more calm and much more rested. No more muscle spasms. No more nuisance. lol!
There was exactly 40 oz left of resin in the can and it was exactly enough to finish glassing in the last two and a half feet of deck under the bow. Everything turned out perfect!



I finished up the bilge by grinding off the excess 6 oz hexal. With what little mixed resin I had left in the bucket was used to glass on small strips of 1.5 along the edge of the bowl to fix rough spots left from grinding.

The hard parts of rebuilding my Batboat are finally over.



Looking over what was accomplished I placed some of the old Glastron sport details back in the Batboat get an idea on what can be done next.

The dash and foot stop will have to be moved back one foot and the splash well needs to be fixed. I can't wait to get started.

The above shows a large fragment of the original blue deck covering, stamped "1969" on the back, laying next to gray "Deco-Dot" vinyl flooring made by Nautolex.

As of earlier this year, the blue Deco-Dot I wanted was no longer made and unavailable. Instead, I'll be using vinyl looking very close to the boat's original as mentioned a few blogs back, which is also no longer made but I got some days ago. ;)

The area behind the strip of wood will be painted with bilge paint tinted blue. Can't use vinyl because the gas cans go back there and the vinyl will get wrecked.

Batboat Rebuild: Day 46 August 21st, 2009

Burnt the old stringers today. They were dry and went up really fast. Kind of sorry to see them go.


I worked up the bilge area by laminating strips of 1.5 oz CSM to create a bowl. I think there was about 2 to three layers of fiberglass all with much overlap.


The PL I caulked in the gap from days before had set so the rear of the deck got glassed to the transom using 1708 biaxial cloth.

At the same time I finished the last remaining 7 inches of bare deck with 1.5 oz CSM.

The 1708 and 1.5 oz cloth were covered with 6 oz hexel woven fiberglass for added strength and smoother surface.

I kept an eye on the clouds all that day. The wind was blowing hard, and the tarp still roped to the trailer yanked around with the gusts as I worked. There was a couple short periods of light sprinkle. I keep mentioning the weather in this blog to stress that if you make your own Batboat you'll need a garage or someplace out of the elements.


I took a break by heading to the gym before it closed and came back to bed the triangle deck piece to the tip of the deck with PL Adhesive.

I had a problem with gaps around the parameter of the deck where it meets the hull. (More on this later.) The fiberglass cloth slouched into most of it. This was my last day living in Zilwaukee, IIRC, and I put some PL Adhesive on the fiberglass in these areas under the bow to prevent the slouch when finishing it at the new place.


I quit about 7:45 to eat and play a computer game.

After a really bad year and a half my misery in that town is finally over. Bad economy, badgered by cops several times and had worse case senerio bad neighbors. There was still some stuff to move but I was all but gone from that house. The first 4 or 5 years were fine, however, I'll never move back to Zilwaukee.

Worked on the Batboat for about 4 hours that day. :)

Batboat Rebuild: Day 45 August 19th, 2009

Took a few days off to move my stuff out of the old house and into the new one as the new gallon of resin was on its way from Florida. 14th gallon ordered so far!

Knowing it was coming in on this day I got the the deck under the bow ready to be fiberglassed.


Newspaper was taped around the parameter to keep sanding dust from getting under the deck as I sanded with a 40 grit pad to remove dust and debris from the surface and make the PL Adhesive over the screw heads level.



Some more fine pop found at Hagerty's of Zilwaukee. The last one for long time.


The sanding dust is cleaned up and the paper outtta there.


I glassed on two more cuts of fiberglass cloth. 1.5 csm and 6 oz woven hexan with 2 to 3 inches of overlap. This time they were 60 inches long by 15 and I found that 20 oz of resin was just enough to glass them in and add a couple more coats on top.

These turned out far more better than my first attempt. Hardly any bubbles at all.

The last remaining two and a half feet of deck under the bow wasn't finished until after I moved.


A bead of PL was injected along the deck / transom gap to prepare it for glassing. I've found the the fiberglass cloths want to dip down into these gaps. Plugging them with PL construction Adhesive solves the problem.


This is a detail of one of the original stringers. Glastron used a woven fiberglass cloth and nothing else on this one. The deck was staple gunned on top while this was still wet with resin. It lasted for years before it went to rot from neglect.

How long will this Batboat last beyond my years? :)


I never thought rotted wood like this would be so valuable. Without retaining these from the demolition of the Batboat I would have been lost on what to do. Invaluable patterns were reconstructed from these and used to rebuild the structural of this anti-crime water cruiser.

Can't take them with me when I move, and I wasn't going to take them, so they and other useful fragments were waiting to be burned.

I started working at around 4 and ended at 9. The neighbors dog was barking nearly all the time. What a nuisance. It was out in the dark and rain into the night yelping away until way past 10:30. The police in Zilwaukee are nonexistent and the department exists out of local politics only. Glad I'm days from moving out.

Batboat Rebuild: Day 44 August 12th, 2009

According to my notes, today was another 8 hour day and a great deal was accomplished.

My motivation was the stoner neighbors who chained up a yelping, starving dog along side of my house near my bedroom window. The Batboat was going to be my U-haul out of Zilwaukee and I needed the deck in, pronto!

My car had started to resemble a tribute to the fuzz covered Batmobile that was on tour in the 1970s. Its all from fiberglass cloth which gets everywhere. Don't work on this stuff near your house. It is hard to get rid of.



I had no other flat surfaces to work with so measuring and cutting was done on the hood. lol!

The center part of the deck was fiberglassed and in and it turned out good.

Instead of glassing on 20 inch sections of cloth I did it in 10 to 15 inch increments with two to three inch overlap between layups. It was easier to manage and the result was less bubbles under the 6oz hexel.

Work began on reconstructing the bilge bowl by creating a frame work with strips of 1.5 oz. chopped strand mat. This is all that was done that day. The rest was finished later.

Another hot one outside. Came back from Hagarty's of Zilwaukee with this bottle. I've rarely drank pop in the past 20 years but the sugar gave me a pick up.

This was the best root beer I ever had.


Getting ready to screw the last part of the deck in. I was nearly out of resin again and ordered one more gallon.

This was the 14th gallon ordered! The stuff still went fast despite my using it more sparingly.


Bought another 28 oz. cartridge of the PL before starting out the day. The sixth so far.

The stringers under the bow have a very slight upward curve from the layers of 1708 fiberglass so I used a lot of PL Adhesive and my own weight to get the deck to lay on top of them completely flat as I screwed it down. Couldn't screw into the stringers at the last 4 or 5 inches because they both end at a narrow point.

Everything turned out perfect.


The last of the #10 screws ready to go in. It is best to start in the middle and work outwards.

The caulk will ooze from the seam in the deck. Let it set for 24 hours until hard and sand it smooth.


The #8 1 1/4 inch screws buried themselves in their own adhesive caulk as they drove into the stringers.

I started with 200 stainless steel screws and I ended up using about 120 on the deck.


The new deck is now more square in the hull than the original. You can see were the factory floor was by the black line running below the green, right above the exposed woven fiberglass. This was about 3 inches higher than the other side of the vessel. It didn't take me much effort at all to make it level. No big deal either way because this is under the bow where no one will ever see it.

Glastron was the most well known fiberglass boat maker in the world. Their brand was the best quality around, however, nobody ever guessed these boats would be desirable or even used for more than a decade or so. People at the forums said they built them good but just enough to get the job done.


The triangle is set in place for looks.

I quit for the day because the sun was going down. Another good 8 hour days work!