SONICJK

After seeing the new side pulls integrated into the tower on the newer supras I decided I wanted some. Tired of pulling up new surfers and watching them flail around in the center of the wake and faceplant coming off the wave! The FXone has mounts on both sides for board racks which is the place that the factory ones go so I used the same. A little measuring and a little design time and I came up with this: Chop up some aluminum and start making chips: And finished product: Now to decide whether to powder them white like the tower or leave them raw and brushed. Powdered and installed:

As my board inventory goes up I needed somewhere to store the things. So I drew up a rack system in cad... Plasma cut from 1/8" cold rolled steel Then bent on the press brake, countersunk and brushed: Then they went to the powder oven for a coat of black: And then they got the edges covered in automotive rubber door trim stuff and mounted on the wall. Turned out great I think. I put some holes in the bottom as well to hang lifejackets etc from whenever it gets moved out of my closet and into my shop that's yet to be built haha. Holds 6 board including my walnut one whose build is documented here as well. Doing it again I think I could make the spacing between boards an inch or so smaller and make the whole thing a bit shorter but it works great as is.

I've always wanted a heater with the pull out vents. My new SA wasn't ordered from the factory with a heater so I wanted to add one. Haven't heard great things about the heatercraft part that's factory (crappy pullouts mostly) and @freeheel4lifepointed me toward Maradyne (used by mastercraft and now tige) Happened to hop on ebay and found a seller liquidating some parts and scored a heater and 4 pullouts for next to nothing! The heater didn't have a manifold on it so I made one, flat plate and some 3" stainless tube. Welded it up and hit it with some wrinkle black powder. Got that part installed in the boat under the observer seat shoved as far out of the way as possible and then moved on to the pullouts. First idea was in the cupholders @freeheel4liferecommendation but I didn't want to lose cupholder space. Decided on a standard install under the observers seat but didn't like the plastic housings on the pullouts. Since the rest of the parts in the boat are billet aluminum I decided to match that. Started with a 1x 15 x 5 piece of 6061 and chucked it up in the mill: Cut the top side to match the rest of the chamferred parts in the interior: And the bottom got recesses to go over the Maradyne parts: Like so: A little cleanup: And almost finished product. After next up was matching the existing aluminum finishes in the boat. Luckily they anodized all the aluminum without adding color which makes it easier to match. Home brew anodizing setup: Sulfuric acid bath with aluminum cathodes and the part is the anode. hooed to a battery charger. Started at roughly 20 amps for 30 minutes and then it slowly goes down as the anodizing layer builds. Turned out pretty good! Then on to the less fun part. Frilling holes in a stupid expensive boat lol. Made a drill template to be 100% sure that everything lines up like it should: Mark and drill: Holes came out perfect and dead on in the right spot. Then it was just install it and connect the heater hoses: I'm quite happy with the way it came out. A sh#t load of work for something that no one will ever know isn't stock unless they have the same boat with the ugly plastic stock setup lol.

(EDIT: ADMIN moved this from Shop Talk threads. This was a huge, awesome project, too good not to go into the database, and spans a few different categories. Pls be patient as images are moved over! The new version of software isn't updating links automatically -- but a fix is on the way). So I started with a 2001 Tige 23V. A little turned into a lot and this project was born. Long story short it turned into a gut job and redo. I don't like to do things half assed. First thing that needed attention was the floors. They were rough and I don't really care for the wood. So I sealed it with epoxy and the put a layer of 3/4" Coosa board over the top to make the floor seamless for paint. Next order of business was to improve the seating arrangement a bit. Boat came with no passenger captains chair and I like the wrap around bench better so I built one from coosa to tie into the existing seating. From there I decided I didn't like the dash or the cheesy plastic passenger glovebox area, so I cut it out and made a new one The driver dash area got a similar treatment. From there I needed a cooler but I was fiberglass'ed out so I took a standard igloo, cut it down and spliced it in. I think it turned out pretty damn good for how simple it was. From there it was off to paint (well after countless terrible hours of sanding, filling, sanding, filling, etc. Going with Awlgrip rather than redoing all the gelcoat. While it's off at the paint shop I decided to tackle the floor. I wanted Seadek but it's pricey and I've got most of the equipment that they do anyway so I just ordered some EVA foam from across the world and made my own. I started with a cardboard template, which I then digitized and threw into CAD. A lot of drawing time and reiterations later I ended up with a design I like. Built a vacuum table for the CNC and away we went! It turned out even better than I'd hoped, pretty pleased with it. Next up is a Monster MTK Tower, as much ballast as it will hold, stainless wake gates, new upholstery, new graphics, new stereo, etc etc Rebuilt one of the rear seat frame things. Real pain in the ass, the wood was too rotten to use reliably as a template so it was a lot of guess work and adapting to get it to work. On the way home still need to do a little trimming on the foam but it came out pretty good! Picked up the first piece of the upholstery to test fir the seat placement on the floor. It looks fantastic and I'm thrilled with the work he did. The bolster flips up to sit on to get a better view when not on plane. It's an aftermarket seat.Imported by a bunch of different companies, i got it from Leader Accessories cheap (209 shipped) and the quality is fantastic. I had my upholstery guy recover to match. Got the tower on and all the tabs Engine is in. Aligning the vdrive to the prop shaft is the least fun thing I have done in a long time. Still not perfect but I gave up for the day Got the windshields on this afternoon and I'm calling it a night lol Did a little Fab work today: CNC cut from stainless sheet I had around. Mounts where the old ski pylon mounted. Will hold the ballast pumps and the starter solenoid. The larger one is the battery box, it will mount behind the engine and hold 2 batteries. Free ballast.| Cut a few more pieces of the EVA foam Also made a new battery tray that goes under the vdrive cover seat seems like a good place for a couple batteries. My ballast bags fill every available inch in the rear and under the rear seats. Thanks to Mike (chpthrl) for the hookup there from flyhigh. Marathon wiring session last night lasted until 2am or so. Got the dash buttoned up, 6 channel JL amp wired in, tower speakers wired.last items on the to do list are to wire up and plumb the bennett pump, and throw in the sub and it's amp. Then I can put the new carpet in, then floors and call it almost done! Well my work is done, buttoned it up early this morning and dropped it with the upholstery guy to build the new seats and a few other little things. A few. More. Days. I added a couple little flush mount LED's to the tower which I think will be really nice unloading/loading at night. Stereo sounds pretty damn good for a budget system. Clarion csm4 head unit feeding a JL 6 channel amp going to 4 wetsounds xs650s and 2 kicker tower speakers. Old Clarion amp feeding a kicker cvr10 under the dash and I'm very pleasantly surprised. The cms4 has 4 zones with variable volume and more importantly a crossover for each zone so I can tweak the sound of each set. The dash won't be everyone's cup of tea, but i grew up in offshore boats and I value clean lines and utility over extravagance. I think I need one piece of upholstery in there somewhere to break it up but I'll figure that out once it's all put together. The brief for the upholstery guy: And back from upholstery: Water test success! Been out in SC all weekend at the lake. The marathon sprint to the finish was so we could take it to sc for a family gathering. Had a blast and learned a few things: Get new trailer tires. Had 2 blowouts over 800 or so miles. After two I went ahead and replaced all the tires and picked up a new spare. The tires blowing out were Goodyear's from 2015 so I thought they were fine. Turns out not! (REGARDING EVA CUTS) I did most of it with a ballnose. 2 tool paths per line. One conventional cut and one climb cut. I found that gave a better finish. It's still not perfect, one edge is a little rougher than the other but it's close enough that no one but me would notice. Doc was .16 on the conventional cut and then an additional .02 on the finishing climb cut. Amana makes some specialty bits for EVA foam that I meant to order but never got around to it. Speed I want to say I was running 26k rpms and 70ipm but I'd have to go back and check the toolpaths. Most of my wood cutting is done at 200ish ipm. And this is what all this work is all about! Decided to make a glovebox cover rather than run to town at 10pm. it's crazy how much the color looks different with different light sources. Real color is between the two somewhere. I messed up my spacing a but on the latch so it's not quite centered, but it was stuck down before i noticed so oops. It sucks having to clean the edges up with a razor after cutting. I'd love to know how seadek and gatorstep make the finish cuts without leaving a bit of a ragged edge. I think if I cut all the way through the piece and into the spoil board I'd get a smooth edge, but that would spoil the spoilboard haha. Built a new swim platform I can never stop dicking with stuff so I was tired of center cushion on the rear of the boat. I've been wanting a walkthrough there instead so I made one. Started with some Advantec ply since I didn't have any Coosa handy. No idea how it will hold up but I imagine it will be fine, it's been outside on my house build in the rain and snow for months without issue. Roundover all the edges Threw a couple layers of fiberglass over it. A couple layers of fairing compound (basically marine body filler) to smooth it all out. Laid down some contact cement and some Vinyl. Then I cut some EVA foam out to fit. Turned out pretty good, now I just need to get it installed. Went ahead and replaced the last wood in the boat today as well the side lockers were still factory and we're not holding screws well so I made new ones from hdpe and swapped over the upholstery. Here's some finished shots: Couple of cool shots from last night's sunset cruise