1999 SN 196 Dash Restoration

[Emmett@Norman]

I bought my boat a year ago and spent the first season finding where the demons were. Turns out they were mostly in the dash. This winter's project is to fix that. First off, the problems.



- The dash shell mounts to the boat at four points. Three of those attachment holes were damaged, the worst one shown below.



I contacted a friend that owns a car restoration business he agreed to fix the plastic shell. That was good news, I've known the guy 30+ years and am familiar with his work so that's that.

Next, break the whole thing down, remove gauges, switches, stereo, plastic panels covered in wood laminate the works. I discovered terrible things.

Here's why my 12V Aux outlet wasn't working. Somebody had wired the back of the cigarette lighter like this. Yes, that's hot and ground on the same spade connector, thank God Almighty for the breaker held up through that!




The perfect pass power connection was only marginally better.



I got the dash apart to send off for repairs.



Time to remove the old wood veneer.



The switch panel was fine, the stereo panel had one crack (being repaired under the pile of tools) the gauge panel is....beyond reasonable repair. Hopefully I'm not off my rocker, I ordered a sheet of 1/8" HDPE plastic sheet, I'm going to try to remake it.



I do plan on going back with wood veneer, I ordered some teak veneer that I'm going to varnish within one inch of it's life.



That's the current state. Items forthcoming are GPS Perfect Pass to replace one of the Airguides, depth finder to replace the old Perfect Pass, rewiring the bilge pump with a float switch on constant power because that's how every other boat on the planet works (not sure why CC doesn't think it rains during the summer), clean up the gauges, replace all the breakers, new horn switch. And I almost forgot, clean up the electrical sins committed by previous owners/dealers/others that shouldn't own wire strippers.

I'll keep you posted on the progress.

[bturner]

Not sure why but electrical seems to be really difficult for some, even those with other great mechanical skills or stereo shops for that matter. I'm owned my fair share of used boats and there hasn't been a one that didn't have some "custom" electrical work done to it. The use of home electrical wire nuts seem very popular but lamp cord, tape balls and twisted wires with no tape are common as well. Sounds like you have your work cut out for you. Get some pictures up for us to see.

[Emmett@Norman]

In a classic case of post first ask questions later, I saw the this board's (DIY-articles) guidelines state that the post should represent a completed project. Work is still coming along nicely and I'm taking pictures along the way. I will hold up on updates until I can show the start to finish. Wish me luck!

[bturner]

IDK about that as many here have posted on projects that have taken months to complete with updates along the way. I actually think doing so gives you some feedback on possibly another direction, product of technique to use for the next phase. I personally enjoy the updates and seeing the progress that people like Jeff do on their restoration projects.

[Emmett@Norman]

Thanks for the advice bturner! With that in mind I'll provide updates.

The past couple days have involved laminating the switch and stereo panels since they're in good enough shape to reuse.

Per recommendations I saw online I actually used two coats of contact cement on each surface. This jives with how thick the original glue was from the factory. Overall putting down the teak veneer went on without a hitch, per the directions on the can I'm waiting 72 hours before trimming and cutting the holes.





While I waited on the glue to cure I tackled the switch labels. There's a label maker in the house but I'm trying to match the factory look so I got our the cricut vinyl cutting machine, found a font that matched the original and started making the labels.

So far so good.



I ran a test piece to see how things are going to go, while each label is on one piece of transfer tape, the vinyl doesn't really stick to the wood. I'm going to need a few more practice runs, getting the tiny little letters off the transfer tape without damage is extremely tedious! Once it lands and is straight, it's all good since the varnish goes over the stickers. I did this for a shift knob in my car years back and it takes about 8 coats of varnish to build enough height to smooth over the vinyl. I'm going to go ahead and embarrass myself and show ya'll the test run in progress missing letters and all. I will keep doing trial runs until I get this right before I go to the real thing, I don't mind mistakes on trial runs.

[bturner]

Could you lay down a coat of varnish or two, wet sand and then get the lettering to stick to that surface? After that lay the remaining coats on the top of the lettering. I did something similar to this years ago using dry transfer lettering for a gag plaque we made for a guy's retirement. The worst part there was lining the lettering up one letter at a time.

[Emmett@Norman]

Great advice brutner! I tried that on a couple of test pieces and it's a big improvement. Another improvement was changing the transfer tape to something less sticky, masking tape releases very well. Going to have to run a few more test pieces to get practice for the main event.

[Emmett@Norman]

In the meantime, while I practice label application I need to get cracking on making a new panel for the gauges. The original panel was being held together by the veneer alone, once it was removed it broke into 7+ pieces.



It's 1/8" plastic based on descriptions I found online I took a guess and ordered some 1/8" HDPE sheet. It has very similar flex to the original so I'm going with it. I started my template which will be refined when I get the dash back later this week. Once I'm happy with the template I plan to cut it out. I'm thinking a scroll saw will be the best tool unless anyone else has a better idea on cutting plastic sheet.

[Emmett@Norman]

The dash is back and looks great. According to my friend who owns the shop it was a ton of work, took about 16 hours of shop time to repair all the plastic, reinforce the mounting holes, and recover with marine vinyl.



Backside where you can see some of the backing washers.



Time to get back on the panels. The hole punch worked ok, but it was hard on the veneer.

[Emmett@Norman]

I'm done with tiny vinyl letters! Thanks to advice I found here, 5 light coats of varnish, then a light sanding with 400 grit paper made a surface the stickers would adhere to. I used scotch tape as my transfer tape which worked much better than the Cricut transfer tape which was too sticky. Keen eyes will notice I changed the labeling on some switches because my boat doesn't have a heater or a shower. I hate switches to nowhere.

Overall, I'm pleased to be moving onto the next step.

[MN Ryan]

This is a really great project!

[Emmett@Norman]

Some progress on the gauge panel.

The paper template shown above was a reasonable start. I didn't have the dash shell at the time so I traced it out of pieces of the original. Close enough but I modified it a bit once the dash was back home. I transferred that to the plastic with a marker then cut it out with a scroll saw making sure to cut it well outside the lines for 'adjustment'.

Below is an initial test fit.




As my father taught me.... Measure twice, cut once, sand until it's correct. Below I'm marking the high points to blend the curve to the dash. I sanded them with a block sander, hand sanding is slow but the benefit is you mess up slowly....




The dash bends on what I thought was a simple curve but it has a bit of cup to it. So I added a very small amount of heat to it (still cool enough to touch with your fingers) to get a bend setting in. It worked really well just pressing with my hands.




Update #2, the gauge and stereo panel varnish work is also progressing.

[Emmett@Norman]

Life got in the way the past week or so but I've been able to make some progress. I finished my scroll saw lesson without grenading the gauge panel!


Time to get the veneer applied to one last panel.







The instructions on the contact cement say to wait 72 hours before use so I will diligently wait the 3 days before trimming out the rough cut veneer.

In the meantime, varnishing continues on the other dash panels. I'm applying Minwax gloss spar urethane spray. I thought about using foam brushes to apply urethane from a can but it takes a lot more sanding to get a really even surface especially since every piece has some curve to it. Another reason I went with the spray is to minimize the chance a brush grabbed at one of my letters. I typically apply 3-5 coats per round (waiting ~30 min between coats) then let that round cure for 3 days. Then I sand fairly aggressively with #00 steel wool to level things out. The picture below shows the switch panel that has been through 3 rounds described above, so ~9-15 coats. I'd estimate it's a quarter of the way there. The switch panel is going to take the most work because I want to build varnish to a level that the letters don't sit up proud of the wood. I'm not sure what the finish was on these panels from the factory so I'm defaulting to glossy as I can make them.

[MN Ryan]

You're going to be blinded by the glare from those glossy panels!

[Emmett@Norman]

You're going to be blinded by the glare from those glossy panels!

I'm fine with that. I'm happy to wear shades.