Recent Ribcraft 4.8 project

Tim M · 27 May 2013, 05:44

Thought I'd share a few piccies of a recent Ribcraft 4.8 project.

Originally purchased the boat simply described as "Ribcraft RIB" on ebay. Tubes held air and seemed tidy, and the hull was sound. The rest of it was in a pretty sorry state, and had an old rattly Yamaha 55 2-stroke on the back.

First job was to remove everything including a strange home-made rear "bench" seat which revealed years of dead leaves and other crud! The console was fitted with an interesting array of controls and electrics from a variety of engine manufacturers. Most of it didn't work so it all came off:

Tim M · 27 May 2013, 05:53

Having given it a good clean up I had to remove lots of sikaflex and other muck to prepare it for painting/flow coating etc. This was an early model which wasn't fitted with a bilge well now standard on the 4.8. Somewhere along the line a previous owner had fitted a small well near the back for the bilge pump. A bit of grinding was required to remove some old fibreglass modifications, mainly left behind by the removal of the bench seat.

The console, now stripped of everything was tidied up - old holes for gauges and things glassed on the inside followed by lots of filling and fairing until I had a perfect finish. After a good rub down and wipe with acetone it was ready for several coats of International Perfection. This paint really is amazing - I rolled it on using a foam roller. Providing you give it a light sand between coats you get a near-perfect smooth/glossy finish. It's also incredibly durable. To the casual eye you wouldn't know it wasn't the original finish.

Having painted the console with about 5 coats of Perfection, I masked off around the base and applied black flocoat. I also did the transom at the same time. Once this had gone off more masking was required for the grey non-slip flocoat over the deck.

Tim M · 27 May 2013, 05:55

Lots of new bits including steering system, fuel tank, upholstery etc combined with a Mariner 50 4-stroke I'd had knocking around in the garage for a while and she started to look a bit more like a RIB again!

Tim M · 27 May 2013, 06:02

Finally had a nice sunny day to test it. Everything worked perfectly. I much prefer the grey and white look to the orange.

nugent · 27 May 2013, 06:40

Nice work Tim

HUMBER P4VWL · 27 May 2013, 08:40

Yep, that's smart. Good work