Hey guy's I just want to start out and say this form is great and very informative. I am a new member here and would like to try my hand at doing a resto of my 77 charger. I spent the weekend removing most of the trim & seats off the boat getting ready to strip the paint. I had hoped that the bond line that was covered by the rub rail was something like a Tahiti hull. But once I removed it I found something entirely different, It looked more like a bottle cap on my OG Coors bottle. How do I go about capping the boat? Do I need to cut the lip that over lap’s the bottom of the hull and glass from there? I have some fiber glass experience from building speaker boxes and center concels but that is the extent of my knowledge. I called GS marine and they told me if they where to do it the cost would be around $1,000 just for the cap work(No gel coat and paint). My wife will shoot me if I spend that type of money! Can anyone help? I am going to attempt to post some pictures of where I sit now with the boat. My vision is to paint it hemi orange and go with a general lee theme minus the Mopar motor.

here are some shots of my Sanger when I did it last winter. Sorry in advance for the poor quality.





Basically what you are trying to achieve, is to make two different pieces into one and unless you open up the seam where they are tabbed together  your glass job will crack.. I hope this helps. If you are looking for more pics on what capping a boat entails click these links.

http://www.socaljetboats.com/projects/project-superjet/


alright well i can seem to only find the link for my build. But if you search hard enough you will find a thread started by Ralph Brunt. on his race boat he decided to start capping.. good luck and if you do end up going fo it just remember. We like pictures

SJ

I would go about it by first glassing the INSIDE of the seam with probably three layers of 6oz mat 6" wide. prep the surface first by grinding the existing surface and clean with acetone before glassing ( this pretty much means taking out the interior).

Next grind out the OUTSIDE of the seam down to the new glass about 4" wide. Clean as before. Glass in the cap with enough layers of 6oz mat to be higher than the finished contour.

Grind/sand down the outside to the desired profile getting down to about 120 grit.  Mask an inch above and below your glassed cap clean and prime with a good polyester sanding primer/filler. sand to final contour and feathering the edges getting down to 400 grit before painting.

This is old school capping and takes mucho time and effort.  I don't know how Shoemaker is having his caps done now days but it sounds like they don't do it that way anymore since $1,000 I don't think will cover the materials.