TOPIC: the thread for project x 2011/help a sick child

my status hasn't changed. i'll still handle the paperwork, donations, and notifications. ron

thank you ron!

If you guys want me in, I'm IN. (I sincerely won't be offended if you don't, just let me know.) I'd be proud to give you my best effort, I just hope I don't let you down.

I'm in if that's what you guys want.

I guess once the committee is finalized we can meet via email or on messenger.

I don't get a chance to check in here everyday, but I'll subscribe to the thread, so that should at least make me check in once a day.

We can post updates here as necessary. I think we need a project manager, and Brain seems like a worthy candidate.

Anyone directly involved should be on the committee unless they do not want to be. John has already said that he wishes not to be involved until it's his turn with the boat.

An odd number is probably a good idea, and not too large a group so as not to over analyze things. 5 or 7 seems like a good number.

So lets see, that's:
1) Ron
2) Brian
3) Mark S
4) Andrew?
5) Doug?
6) Lone Wolf (sorry, don't have a name here)
7) Dave

Oh, btw Ron, I think we can get the chroming done for around $350 locally. Depends on what we have to work with.

Thank you for your faith guys, but let me be straight up here. I've only been known to ya'll for a couple weeks now. I truly feel honored and priviledged to even be considered for the job, ya'll are putting more faith in me than is justified to begin with. I just don't think I should be in the committee. Hey, look, I'm so bad at this kinda decision making that I let my wife, of all people, manage the business end of my small engine repair shop! LOL! I'm a worker bee by nature, not a manager. Soooo .... I'm liking the 5 number for the committee.

Oh, and sorry cc1000, Thought Id posted that already. My name's Shannon Warren ..... Yes I'm a guy, it's Irish! LOL!

Sorry I missed it Shannon, Nice to meet you, Dave.

someone who wishes to remain anonymous just sent me this....
thanks .........i guess we'll adopt this logo.

ok, ok who been playing with "paint" ron....

ok,im really liking where this is going,a odd number on the commitee,lonewolf we dont have to know you long,you stood up and voluntered for fixing the motor,you desrve a spot as much as anyone.
thanks dave for doing this .
ron i love that logo,its great.
yeah dave all i want is some freedom when it comes to doing the boat,i have paint schemes in mind and want to keep it secret,if you guys and ladies trust me.
i THINK i can make it look good,lol,john

Well, ya'll are truly too kind, welcoming, & generous. But really, I suck terribly at deciding things others are involved in.... hence the moniker lonewolf..... and besides, my part is minor at best. It's easy to overhaul/ clean an old outboard, so long as no hard to find parts need replacing. That's why I love em, they're simple & straightforeward (that, and since most shops don't see much profit with the antiques, it leaves me an open niche!LOL!). I know what strengths and weaknesses, so can we please do the 5 on committee deal?

sure..we don't want to pressure anybody. i think i speak for john also. with project x we didn't have a commitee. didn't need one because 1 man (tim) secured the boat,motor,trailer. people sent donations to outfit the boat. it was simple. PX 2011 is a lot more complicated because of crating,shipping of the motor to various adresse's boat delivery,re-chroming,interior work etc. i don't think 1 man can handle all that. a commitee makes it much easier. if Brian wants to head it (project manager) he's got my vote. ron

Since we have the boat and trailer picked out and are close on a motor, it might be a good idea if someone did an assessment of what needs to be done and what parts we need to acquired and post it. That way we can all start jumping in with what we can help out.

I have a friend who does car restorations and I can check with him on re-chroming. If we could piggy back with one of his orders, it might be cheaper. (should we need it)

If you need someone on a committee, I'd be willing to help (again, no hard feelings if not). I'm not sure what I can contribute, but I have run 85 boat benefit sailing regattas in the past and have an idea of what it takes to put a volunteer project together. BTW, do we have someone who could give us legal advice? I might prevent us from making some costly errors.

Actually, it's even easier than that! The boat is already on the trailer that is being donated. That will at least make it easier to move around. The trailer is legal and has current NYS plates too.

Frank

As far as I am aware, the project manager is directly responsible for laying out the tasks involved in getting the project done and directly coordinating who is responsible for what tasks.

They do not necessarily direct the committee, but that is not to say that they couldn't do that as well.

Ron in this case would work directly with Brian to coordinate who does what.

I will start laying out the tasks involved here if that is OK, (I've had a little experience as a construction manager, which isn't far off from what we are doing here) and Brian and Ron can edit the list as required:

1) a)securing boat motor and trailer- done
b)securing a worthy recipient - working on it

2) arranging transportation- Ron
a)Boat & trailer- Frank will bring to Bflo.
- Dave will bring to John
b)Motor- Cat will ship to Shannon, Mark to handle shipping

3) motor- Shannon will work on and asses

4) Boat-
a)Structural fiberglass- Transom- Brain
- Misc ply- Brain/Dave
b)Cosmetic repairs- Dave
c)attach deck to hull- Dave- I will work on getting NCC guys together for a fiberglassing party.
d)Paint and final prep - John
e)Rigging- ? - maybe another party/ bring to Silver Lake spring dust off to finish off?
f)Hdw/chrome plating- TBD - we can also go with off the shelf hdw unless we are trying to make this a show winner.
g)upholstery- ? - need someone with a machine capable of handling this - bases can be prepped, or we can go with off the shelf seating.

I'm sure I missed some things, just wanted to get this rolling a little and get other's thoughts.

One question that comes up as we look at this; do we want to aspire to a show winning finish on this or is utility and function the primary goal?

If we are not going for a show winner, off the shelf hardware and seats will save quite a bit of money and aggravation.

Okay, so I'm down for bringing the rig to Buffalo? that should be okay, depending on when it is. I'll pay the registration and have the trailer inspected before I bring it out. It's current right now, but trailers in NYS go calendar year to calendar year. I'm still wondering who I sign the registration (ownership) over to?

Frank

thetudor wrote:

Since we have the boat and trailer picked out and are close on a motor, it might be a good idea if someone did an assessment of what needs to be done and what parts we need to acquired and post it. That way we can all start jumping in with what we can help out.

I have a friend who does car restorations and I can check with him on re-chroming. If we could piggy back with one of his orders, it might be cheaper. (should we need it)

If you need someone on a committee, I'd be willing to help (again, no hard feelings if not). I'm not sure what I can contribute, but I have run 85 boat benefit sailing regattas in the past and have an idea of what it takes to put a volunteer project together. BTW, do we have someone who could give us legal advice? I might prevent us from making some costly errors.

The legal advise issue is a valid point. Since we are not an actual organization with a corporate identity, we may want to look into this a little closer. Both Brian and I have some pretty solid connections with a national group, so maybe we can get together and talk it over.

Given the attention the this project is getting vs. the first one, it may be a good idea to cover our butts.

BTW, put up a page here to help summarize some of the facts:

http://www.nicklecityclassics.com/apps/wiki/project-x-2011

Any members of the group are free to edit.

lonewolf lol you dont have to do it,your already doing enough.
tudor i think you would be great for the commitee,i thank you for voluntering.
frank thank you again it means alot.
ron your doing a great job buddy.
wow dave you have been busy great job,i think you guys are the best.
dave ill give it the best finish i can,and if we get off the shelf seats just get matching vinyl and ill do what i can with it,like i did with the sunray,if we go with silver and blue like im doing the lido,i just bought $150 to 200 dollor seats for 49 bucks and matching metalic vinyl is 10 bucks a yard for marine vinyl,heres a pic of the seat,it says lowe on it but for the lido i will cover that up.
i want to thank everybody ive been so stressed lately that 4 amm this morning was another 3 nitro pills,you are taking a big load of my back,john

john, from what dave has said most of it will be done before it reaches you to do your magic. don't stress out. it will go smoothly with dave and brian taking charge. they're both heavily involved with the acbs and they will see this through. ron

John wrote

i want to thank everybody ive been so stressed lately that 4 amm this morning was another 3 nitro pills,you are taking a big load of my back,john

No worries John, this project is rollin' now buddy.

thanks ron and mark,im feeling a whole lot less stressed about this now thats its taking shape,everyone should feel proud ,now we need a person or family that needs our help.
and your right i have great confidence in all of you.

i forgot to mention,those are brnd new seats still in the box,lowe boats are discontinuing them,for next years model.the silver is silver it shines.and so does the vinyl,both seats including shipping was $125.25

Hey guys...uhhh....I said we needed a project manager...I didn't volunteer to BE the project manager. Let me give this some thought. I don't know that I can commit the time, but let me sleep on it.

I have some concerns that might as well be aired. We're going to need to be able to do this without PPO. A show winner has been discussed as an objective. To be a show winner (assuming you mean ACBS judging rules) this boat needs to be put back the way it was out of the factory. That rules out custom paint jobs. It rules out the seats John showed. The seats need to be the original Sunloungers I have, reupholstered to match the original vinyl, which is a complex pattern. It rules out hardware that isn't original to what Custom Craft used in 1962 (I have all of it I think, but it needs rechroming). The interior needs new vinyl on the sides (and I mean the entire interior walls were covered with vinyl, not glass) to match the original. The dash board needs the correct vinyl, piping, etc. It needs the orginal wheel restored or replaced. There is a ton of trim that needs to be reinstalled. I have the original safety glass CC windshield. Glass is beautiful but the frame needs to be polished. Anything different and it's just an old boat fixed and dressed up that won't bring anywhere near the value of a true restoration. Restorations to essentially original condition take a lot more effort, thought, and leg work to find the right components and pieces. Laying that out for discussion.

And...whoever did the X2011 logo....make it tourquoise, not blue.

i think putting it back to original would be extremely difficult. john already has a color scheme i believe. my vote would be to keep it simple. the color wouldn't disqualify it for an acbs award at the majority of shows. mine never has. as a matter of fact i have it stated on the history placard on the easel, that i keep next to my boat for all to read. not once have i received a deduction for custom paint scheme. maybe at the bigger shows it would. ron

This is the one and only Custom Craft MRP I know of in existence. Dave is the CC expert here. Maybe he knows of another. It should not, in my opinion, get anything but the original planned work, a show worthy restoration. If it doesn't, it's just another Manta Ray with fresh paint a good transom. It's not worth the effort. You have to be realistic about value. It won't bring much money at all. Let me go back to the top of the string and see if I missed something because this isn't the path I thought we were headed down when I offered the boat up for the project.

quoted from post# 15769 by crosbyboat

I really think if we're going to do this we need a small committee to manage the thing. I also feel we need a project manager to lay the build out from start to finish and develop the project plan so things come together right. I am happy to do that with Frank's help as the hull is here and Frank and I can survey it and develop the plan.

Sorry Brian, guess we misunderstood ???

While a true restoration to original would undoubtedly bring a larger price/reward, is this goal going to be realistic or obtainable with the resources available to do the project? I haven't seen a tally on the total cash donations promised at this point, but I know even the basic supplies necessary will be several hundreds of dollars. Economic feasibility may be a major factor in the path of the project.

I'm not sure I've formed an opinion one way or another on whether this boat should be restored to original or as a daily driver.

While it would definitely bring more on the open market as fully restored and show worthy, if it's to be a daily driver, I'm not sure that is necessary or even desired.

The paint job/ACBS standards question is probably a question for another post, and it's already been determined from the start that this boat was to have a custom paint job.

Another point, and I don't want to start trouble here, but I thought Doug was the one donating the boat?

I guess maybe we should all step back and take a moment to think about this.

Dave

thats what i thought. brian wanted to head the project. we have pledged to date $550.00 in cash donations. while i have never restored a boat on my own, i would think an original restoration would be in the thousands. i guess its how you define show worthy. i repeat a boat doesn't have to be brought back to original to be show worthy. come on, lets restore the boat and bring happiness to someone. ron

ok for one thing that dash is bad,and just try finding the exact same color and stitching,if brian doesnt want the mata done by me,then ill do another boat,
brians quote"Restorations to essentially original condition take a lot more effort, thought, and leg work to find the right components and pieces. Laying that out for discussion".
i agree but i did the sunray exactly the way i wanted and got 94 points at its 1st show,because of no motor and we didnt have time to polish the windshield frame,ron got 97 points,i dont think thats bad.
heck i just got another email from an acbs chapter leader,that they want pics of the sunray for thier poster for next years show they will have.so it doesnt have to be compleatly original,it would be nice if we could do it that way,but its not possible.brian if your not happy ,then we will use another boat,if we cant find one ill donate my boat,the lido,i cant afford it because ill have alot of money in it,heck i had to borrow the money for the seats.but if thats what i have to do to see this through then i will,i started this thread to help someone in need and by darn thats what im going to do.
if you guys will take me into the commitee then im yours,if you need me,john

I was assuming it was a full blown original restoration when I wrote that, hence the need for the detailed project plan. Forgot I had even offered to do that with Frank. Definately getting old. If the group wants to just fix up a boat so it can run, the boat, and all that goes with it is still the projects, that's ok by me. If that's all that's being done no project manager is needed. Fixing the basics is basic. I just got excited that it was going back to original, and thought with a group effort we could pull off something really special, but I obviously misread and/or misinterpreted earlier posts. My bad. Sorry.

I'm sure the boat would be "show worthy" whether it was restored to original or if some artistic licence was used.

The main issue seems to be with the interior. If someone steps up that is willing and able to stitch the interior pieces, I'm sure that John can install them. It seems we have all the pattern pieces.

Paint will be custom as laid out from the start.

Yes there is a difference between an ACBS judged show and a show judged to ACBS standards.

Like I said before, probably a topic for another post.

by the way if we want any of those seats,they end in 22 hours,we can use them in any boat we restore,the item #is 160482121415 on ebay,if we do use them ill just do what im going to do with the lido and paint the boat to match,john,ps if we get the seats and matching vinyl,i can do the interior my self on any boat we find to use.

Gentlemen - This would be a whole lot easier to do in person because as usual people are reading between the lines on our messages and not getting all the info in messages. John, your CC restoration was stunning. This one will be stunning too I am sure, just not where I thought we were heading, and I am fine with that. I just wanted to have the discussion because I clearly got of track somewhere. I went back and reread the early posts. I missed that you planned on painting it similar to your Lido. Got it. You don't need to do any interior on the MRP. Just sand it all down paint it and you've got a MR. Gifting of the MRP is immaterial. It's yours. Doug agrees. I agree. Frank agrees. Frank's wife agrees. I'll send the bill of sale when you're ready to register it.

now that we're all together on what we are doing, lets go forth.

Well, alot to digest.

So, as I see it, we have a committee of:

1) John
2) Ron
3) Mark
4) Todd
5) Dave

We have the goal of doing the most accurate restoration within our means.

If we can do an accurate upholstery job we will, if not we will try to be as historically accurate as possible.

All of the rest of the restoration will be as accurate as possible and the boat will have a one of a kind custom paint job.

We will contact an agency to try to get this boat to a child in need, with a family that can use the boat as provided, if not, it will be sold and the proceeds will go to the family of the needy child.

I look forward to working with the group on this project, this will truly be a team project.

With the backing of the FiberGlassics family, how could this not be a total success?

I keep seeing "Mark" in these list, is that me or someone else...well if it was me, I guess it would say "houston" right?

cc1000 wrote:

Another point, and I don't want to start trouble here, but I thought Doug was the one donating the boat? Dave

You're not starting trouble here Dave. Here's the deal. One day a number of summers ago, Brian appears in my driveway with the Manta Ray and gives it to me. As I remember it was a trade kind of deal, but nevertheless he drops it off and leaves. Over the next couple years my back deteriorates to the point I can't restore another boat (I have enough trouble just getting my Power Cat done), so I want to get rid of all the boats I have. I run this by Brian, and I forget exactly how it happened, but Brian then offered the boat to Doug.

You know the rest of the story...

Frank

LOL...MRP is like a hot potato. I hauled it home from north of Burlington, VT I forget how long ago, probably 5 years now. I took it all apart to restore it, and I forget which project came along that I liked more. So it moved out of my shop and put the pieces on storage racks. Like old man Frank, I can't remember the exact deal but it may have been the MRP for an old trailer Frank had. So the hull and top went to Frank's but all the hardware, windshield, seats, etc. are still in my shop. Couple years pass and Frank doesn't want the boat anymore. I can't remember (also an old man) if Doug was looking for a boat, or noted that he liked Manta Ray's or what, but something prompted me to contact Doug who wanted the boat, and a top for a Cutter I have too. Months go by and Doug emails me he can't commit to coming to get the boat any time soon and if someone else wants it that's fine with him. I emailed him that I thought I could hold it for him and was planning to move the hull to my place again to get it out of Frank's hair. About this time X2011 pops up. Bingo! I offer the boat to the project after checking with Doug and get the thumbs up. So consider the boat a donation of Doubriafran. I think that covers it. The question becomes what to do with all the custom trim, seats, etc. I have in the shop. Every edge and joint in the MRP had trim on it. I guess we just ship EVERYTHING with the boat to John and use what you want, scrap the rest.

crosbyboat wrote:

Gentlemen - This would be a whole lot easier to do in person because as usual people are reading between the lines on our messages and not getting all the info in messages. John, your CC restoration was stunning. This one will be stunning too I am sure, just not where I thought we were heading, and I am fine with that. I just wanted to have the discussion because I clearly got of track somewhere. I went back and reread the early posts. I missed that you planned on painting it similar to your Lido. Got it. You don't need to do any interior on the MRP. Just sand it all down paint it and you've got a MR. Gifting of the MRP is immaterial. It's yours. Doug agrees. I agree. Frank agrees. Frank's wife agrees. I'll send the bill of sale when you're ready to register it.

brian,thank you thats a compliment that means alot coming from a master boat restorer such as you.
as for the interior,i will upholster it ,i upholtered the sunray by using some of the old plywood as patterns,the rest was custom made,the sunray took 12 yards of vinyl,and depending on where you get it the price varies,but if we go with the seats like i bought,we can get silver vinyl,for ten bucks a yard on ebay.
brian and doug,i promise to make it a crowdpleaser,or at least give it my best shot,and i thank you brian frank and doug for donating it.
ron i agree let get back on track.
dave,if we are going to go for those 49 dollor seats we have to hurry,they end soon,so commitee this is your 1st decesion,i vote yes because they are high quality and cheap price,we can buy the vinyl later,there is just 15 hours left,the item# is 160482121415
on ebay.
also here is the vinyl thats matching and 10 bucks a yard #320590523973 take a look at it,im buying the same vinyl for the lido.
houston,it means mark s,back further in the posts i said you would be good for the comitee,but you didnt answer,i wanted you on it.
and yes thank you to whoever did the graphic,i like it.and i like what you did to it houston.john