Installing uhmw on my 1656 G3

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Fisher88

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I've had the boat almost a year now been wanting to put on some uhmw before now but I am just now getting around to it. I have the boat stripped down and flipped on the trailer so I can get started I will post more pics as I get them.
 

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Are the chines on you boat pressed out of the hull? I'm interested to watch this project. I know a couple people that have done this and have thought about it myself.
 
richg99 said:
Guess l don't understand why one would want to do this. What is the expected gain?

richg99


Being able to slide over rocks without worrying about damaging the hull. Added weight may slow it down a few MPH, but at least the hull is protected.
 
Uhmw stands for Ultra High Molecular Weight polyethylene which is basically an extremely dense and slick plastic. Hoping to do some more work to it tonight if so I will have some pictures to follow.
 
What's the plan of action to install it and what thickness are you going with? Only suggestion I have is to use thin plyboard as templates to see if it'll conform to your hull before cutting up the expensive stuff.

I'd love to do it but I think it would turn out looking like crap on my pressed rib thin hull. I think some of the epoxies will give me better results from a low speed impact.
 
ok ive always just heard of it as poly. Thanks for the clarification. Should be interesting to see how it turns out ive only seen it on flat bottom air boats.
 
Ranchero50 said:
What's the plan of action to install it and what thickness are you going with? Only suggestion I have is to use thin plyboard as templates to see if it'll conform to your hull before cutting up the expensive stuff.

I'd love to do it but I think it would turn out looking like crap on my pressed rib thin hull. I think some of the epoxies will give me better results from a low speed impact.

I got some adhesive from a company called Reltek they claim it has been used in some pretty harsh conditions and holds up great I hope they are right as much as it costs. I know that mostly everyone that installs it from the factory bolts it but I can't bring myself to drill holes in my almost new hull. I am going with 3/8" I plan to run that between the ribs and above the water line on the sides. I will be getting a 1" piece as I get closer to finishing and I plan on routing the center out to fit over the ribs and cutting the sides of the strip on an angle so I won't have big square blocks of plastic for ribs in case I am drifting downriver sideways and find a shallow rock hopefully it won't hang as bad.. That's also why I am going up the sides.
 
How close to the tunnel were you planning on running it? I wonder if it will affect the flow if the geometry changes too much.
 
JL8Jeff said:
How close to the tunnel were you planning on running it? I wonder if it will affect the flow if the geometry changes too much.

A friend of mine has a complete flat bottom 1648 he ran the plastic all the way to the tunnel and tapered it flush with the tunnel and did not have any issue with cavitation any worse than before. If anything I'm guessing I won't be able to trim it quite as high while running since technically it is raising my tunnel 3/8".
 
I would seriously reconsider gluing it. I have 3/8 on my boat and it is screwed. I am not in the know as some are, but the only person I know gluing only in our area is James river Jets and he is only gluing 1/8 or 1/4. I cannot see 3/8 holding up to gluing. I am sure you will have a mess if it starts peeling off. I would talk to some boat builders before venturing too far on that project. They screw them for a reason.....it works.
 
I have a small update have not been able to work on it as much as I would like. The plastic and the adhesive are in and I have the bottom almost completely stripped to bare metal. The next step for me is get the plastic cut and prepped for adhesive then clean the hull one more time and hope for the best.
 

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Wow that Relek stuff is pricey!

Are you going to make some coupon samples & pull test the bond before doing the whole boat?

Maybe Reltek can give you a minimum test result that you can look for.
 
Reltek claims that it is rated for 350 psi uplift so I'm thinking that will hold plenty well. However I will be testing some first also. I have done about a years worth of research and talked to several different companies they seemed to have the best product I was looking for and the most expensive. I'm hoping its you get what you pay for. Any way I had been looking at some boat manufacturers online and the company with the most videos of them bashing their boats was sjx they glue 1/2" uhmw on and looks to me as if they abuse the boats which I am not planning to do just looking for some added protection. We will see more progress after this weekend hopefully.
 
Got a little more done slowly but surely coming around finished stripping the bottom to bare metal and cut the plastic to length.
 

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Thanks for the updates. I'm glad you decided to glue it. If I ever do this I plan on gluing it as well. I have friends that have plastic on their boats and all of them are bolted. I've heard of a guy taking his plastic off to have a tunnel welded in and he had a ton of sand/silt collected between it and the hull adding weight and basically sandblasting the hull.
 

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