87' Sunsetter Titan III Tower Project

[Bill_AirJunky]

Martin, how's the progress coming along? Cleaning the black polish out of the welds is a PITA!! I still have to do that and get some wax on it tonight.

That looks sweet, Nate. Makes me think I should polish mine up too.

I am thinking about revamping my tower this winter. I am probably going to remove the tower speakers altogether & custom build a bimini above the tower. Polished might set it off a bit.

Saw the 2011 Axis A20 graphics the other day...... loved how they cut the graphic & make it from above the rub rail to below. I might have to make something like that happen on the old Vride to dress it up for next year.

[Levi900RR]

the old Vride to dress it up for next year.

[Bill_AirJunky]

HEhe, like that, huh.

When the wife sees all the pimpin boats some of you guys buy on here, she wants one. But a $70k boat just isn't gonna happen.

I kinda like to change things up every year, make it better each year. I dressed up the swimstep, added an on-board charger & satellite radio last year. I bet I can do better this year.

Edited October 29, 2010 by Bill_AirJunky

[Ndawg12]

HEhe, like that, huh.

When the wife sees all the pimpin boats some of you guys buy on here, she wants one. I kinda like to change things up every year, make it better each year. I dressed up the swimstep, added an on-board charger & satellite radio last year. I bet I can do better this year.

Sounds like you found a good one, you better hang on to her!!

[martinarcher]

Nate, looking good man!

Don'y worry about the plates. I know what you mean, but they are stainless. They just don't have quite as nice of a starting finish as the tubing and take a lot more work to get shiny.

When I polished my Titan I I found a spot with metal filler that was filling a tiny little dent. I just went at it hard with the polisher until I got it all out. I like a shiny little dent better than a bit of filler.

If you think the dents on a Titan are bad, you should see the aluminum on a Monster.

My progress is at a stand still for the weekend. I was planning on finishing the tower today, but the welder at the shop took the day off.

He's in Monday and told me to call Mon morning. I took a couple days this week in the garage and shaped the connectors. They now fit the fornt hoop perfectly and should make for a nice TIG weld. The shaping the fabricator did on the rear hoop....well that's another story. I just hope they can bridge their gap with the TIG. Once the weld fills in the gaps it will look pretty decent. It's just bad when I can fab much much better than they can in the garage with a drill press and a milling bit. I think a big part of it is how much I care about the project.

[martinarcher]

That looks sweet, Nate. Makes me think I should polish mine up too.

I am thinking about revamping my tower this winter. I am probably going to remove the tower speakers altogether & custom build a bimini above the tower. Polished might set it off a bit.

Saw the 2011 Axis A20 graphics the other day...... loved how they cut the graphic & make it from above the rub rail to below. I might have to make something like that happen on the old Vride to dress it up for next year.

Do it! I think it would really set off the VRide!

[WakeGirl]

Martin,

It's looking really good, & good on your wife for setting you straight on the location of the front mounts.

On the vinyl, I think that you might be surprised at what a good vinyl repair guy can do for that. Either way though, I think that I'd take it out of the welder's hide.

[Bobby Light]

Today was a rough day for me.

I headed over to the fabricator to get the tower finished up. The welder TIG welded the inserts in the front hoop. They turned out great. We mounted the tower on the boat and mocked up the connectors. We cut and shaped them with the plasma cutter and the welder then tacked the connectors to the rear hoop.

Before tacking them in he assured me that a TIG would not splatter on the boat. As a precaution, I rented moving blankets from the local U-Haul place and covered the entire interior of the boat. I also removed all the seat bases and left them at home. I watched him weld the front hoop and nothing ever hit the floor or left the tower. It was amazing. I've never seen a TIG at work before.

He tacked up the first connector and everything went great. He started the second one and did one tack, two, and then commented his tip was getting dull and he said he would sharpen it after the last tack before welding them in permanently. As soon as the torch hit the pipe, it blew a hole where he was going to tack it and showered three big embers down on the dogbox immediately burning thee holes in the blanket and catching each place on fire. I immediately put the fire out with my bare hand and pulled the blanket back to reveal three burns in the vinyl!

I'm sick about it and not sure how to proceed. The guys ran out of time and I brought the boat and tower home to work at shaping the other end of the connectors so they mate well with the front hoop.

I need to get the dogbox fixed and not sure how. I guess my worst case is I call Chee and have him make me a new skin for the dogbox and have the local interior shop install it for me. The carpet work on the dogbox insn't exactly impressive to begin with so that might be the best way to go, but this project just got more expensive. Another option is to let the local interior shop have a crack at it. It might be a good place to start. I can always go the new skin route of the "fix" doesn't turn out as well as I hope.

What blows my mind is the boss in the shop holding the tower and the welder didn't even comment or say anything about it as I inspected the damage to the vinyl. That kind of ticked me off. I know accidents happen, but jeeze, a sorry about that would have went a long way.

Here's pics I took at the shop.

I'd be throwing down some welding blanket ontop of your uhaul moving blankets. He will not burn through welding blanket before you can get to it, it's fire resistant.

[martinarcher]

I'd be throwing down some welding blanket ontop of your uhaul moving blankets. He will not burn through welding blanket before you can get to it, it's fire resistant.

Yep. That's the plan for this week when he tacks the other side up. Turns out my neighbor has access to welding blankets. He dropped off two of them that he said I can keep. I'll be double covered this time....too bad their are already holes in it!

[martinarcher]

Martin,

It's looking really good, & good on your wife for setting you straight on the location of the front mounts.

On the vinyl, I think that you might be surprised at what a good vinyl repair guy can do for that. Either way though, I think that I'd take it out of the welder's hide.

Yeah....she keeps me straight when I get a little crazy.

I decided to go with the replace the bad panel route. I talked to Chee and he's waiting for the skin. I've got all the trim off and about half the staples that are holding the skin on.....holy cow are there a lot of them! I'll mail it back to him this week and then wait for it to come back all nice and, well, like it was before the welder.

I haven't decided if I should try and put it back on the boat myself or leave that to the local interior shop.

Also, anyone know where to get matching grey carpet. I think I'm going to re carpet the dogbox while I'm at it. It's got a few spots I think could have been done a bit better.

[Bobby Light]

Yeah....she keeps me straight when I get a little crazy.

I decided to go with the replace the bad panel route. I talked to Chee and he's waiting for the skin. I've got all the trim off and about half the staples that are holding the skin on.....holy cow are there a lot of them! I'll mail it back to him this week and then wait for it to come back all nice and, well, like it was before the welder.

I haven't decided if I should try and put it back on the boat myself or leave that to the local interior shop.

Also, anyone know where to get matching grey carpet. I think I'm going to re carpet the dogbox while I'm at it. It's got a few spots I think could have been done a bit better.

You'll have to hit it with the Malco cleaner and brush so it all looks the same and you don't have a nice clean stripe down the middle of it .

[martinarcher]

You'll have to hit it with the Malco cleaner and brush so it all looks the same and you don't have a nice clean stripe down the middle of it .

Oh Chee will make sure the entire skin matches. I have no doubt about that. My entire interior gets scrubbed with Exquisite and then coated with 303 every other time we're out anyways so I don't think it's too dirty. I'm probably as anal about my boat as you are.

[martinarcher]

I thought I would update this thread....

1. I headed back to the fabricator a week and a half ago to finish tacking the connectors in place. I left the tower there to have them fully weld the connectors in.

2. I got the dogbox skin back form Chee. It looks awesome. I'll install it next spring - the tower is first priority.

3. I picked the tower up from the fabricator fully welded last Friday. Here's where it gets funny. The dude who started the project and burnt the boat interior isn't a stainless welder. The owner of the shop is the stainless welder and finished the job after I left (the dude who started the project asked him to finish it since the connector welding was over his head). The owner did an awesome job and the welds looks much better than the original ones done by the first dude. He also cleaned up the first guys work and all the welds look great. He apologized when I picked the tower up and said he didn't know how the job fell through the cracks. He knocked 2/3's of the price off to compensate for the damage done. We shook hands and I left happy.

4. I got the tower home all excited and happy. I bolted it up to the boat only to find out that all that heat while welding caused all kinds of problems and warped the tower and even twisted one of the connectors on the tower. The connectors were no longer parallel from the front to rear hoop (warped in) and the mating surfaces on the one connector did not line up (the connector needed twisted about 3/16" of an inch). I was bummed, but certainly not giving up after going this far.

I called my buddy and told him the tower was back and I needed his 4 ton portable press to push the connectors apart until they were once again parallel. It worked like a champ and after a couple hours of us tweaking and pressing on the connectors with the hydraulic press and pulling on them with ratchet straps they were both parallel and lined up again.

The twisted connector was a different story and took a few more evening of garage ingenuity. Eventually we leaned lots and lots of heat was the trick there. We tried with one MAPP gas torch with no luck. In the end, last night we used a MAPP gas torch, an Oxy/MAPP torch and a propane torch all on the connector tube at the same time. We the entire length of the connector tube (starboard rear) absolutely cherry red and then I hung on the connector using a huge crescent wrench and an extension (OK so it was a pipe wrench). We repeated this process three times and got the pipe to turn(twist) enough to align the mating surfaces. About another hour of small tweaks and tuning the heim joints and it fits great. The knobs spin in without any binding.

All I can say is WOW this tower is rock solid. We tugged and pulled on it. The only thing that would move or shake was the boat on the trailer.

Here's a couple pics. Lot more here.....

http://www.themalibu...ods__mod_id__26

I'm stoked. It looks awesome and fits the boat great and I'll still be able to use my Evolution cover without any modifications. Next project is grinding out a few old welds, sanding it with a 120 grit pad wheel, several grits of sandpaper, then polishing!

At least I can tow the boat down to the mine for storage now.

Edited November 24, 2010 by martinarcher

[Levi900RR]

Dude, what a Job... Looks great!

[Bill_AirJunky]

Wow, looks great. Especially considering all the twisting, reheating & bending you had to do to get it to fit!

[martinarcher]

Haha. Thanks guys. It was certainly a job, but it was well worth it. Nothing like a software engineer in the garage doing metal work.

I guess it's the only boat out there with a custom chop top Titan III. I'm just happy I got it to fit perfectly.

I'll give the guys at Start One props. Their fab skills are awesome to get the connectors on these towers to line up so well and the towers to fit perfectly. I have a new appreciation for what you guys do!

Edited December 22, 2010 by martinarcher

[Michigan boarder]

Beautiful job, looks perfect!

[StarOneWake]

Insane job, that is impressive! It looks perfect on the boat too, can't wait to see it polished!!

[martinarcher]

Thanks guys. I think it's going to look awesome polished. I guess I'll find out next spring.

I'm thinking I'll have a few new Star One spinners to add to it as well.

[Bobby Light]

Thanks guys. I think it's going to look awesome polished. I guess I'll find out next spring.

I'm thinking I'll have a few new Star One spinners to add to it as well.

Turned out good man, are you going to polish it up again or powdercoat it? Little trick I learned from my pipe fitting days. Get a damp/wet rag and heat up the weld with a torch, when the weld is very hot put the damp/wet rag on the side you want it to pull/shrink to. Works everytime, no presses or ratchet straps needed. Obvioiusly on shorter runs of pipe like you were dealing with the net result will be much smaller than a long run of pipe would see.

Anyways nice job. I have quite the laundry list of winter projects going on myself.

[rugger]

Wow. You've certainly earned it after all that work! Unless you've got a steady production line, good metal fabrication is always more of an art than a science. Nicely done.

[martinarcher]

Turned out good man, are you going to polish it up again or powdercoat it? Little trick I learned from my pipe fitting days. Get a damp/wet rag and heat up the weld with a torch, when the weld is very hot put the damp/wet rag on the side you want it to pull/shrink to. Works everytime, no presses or ratchet straps needed. Obvioiusly on shorter runs of pipe like you were dealing with the net result will be much smaller than a long run of pipe would see.

Anyways nice job. I have quite the laundry list of winter projects going on myself.

Thanks man. I'm planning in polishing the entire tower. It's going to be a lot of work since there are lots of grinding and tool marks on the tubing from all the fabricating. Powdercoating it would certainly hide a lot of those marks, but I just hate to cover stainless. After it's polished it is maintenance free and looks second to none.

That's funny you mention the heat and cool method. We tried that, but like you said, the results were so small with the short run of tubing we had to resort to the hydraulic press to get the tubing where we wanted. The good thing is, it worked well and didn't mar or hurt the tubing at all. After a few hours of tweaking everything was back to parallel like I had it when we tack welded the connectors on the tower.

I'll tell you what, to tweak the overall dimensions of a tube tower, the heat and cool rag method would probably work like a champ! That's cool you were a pipe fitter. I'm always learning cool stuff about people on the crew!

[martinarcher]

Wow. You've certainly earned it after all that work! Unless you've got a steady production line, good metal fabrication is always more of an art than a science. Nicely done.

Thanks man! After your wedge mod, I had to come up with some metal fab skills to earn it.

[Bobby Light]

Thanks man. I'm planning in polishing the entire tower. It's going to be a lot of work since there are lots of grinding and tool marks on the tubing from all the fabricating. Powdercoating it would certainly hide a lot of those marks, but I just hate to cover stainless. After it's polished it is maintenance free and looks second to none.

That's funny you mention the heat and cool method. We tried that, but like you said, the results were so small with the short run of tubing we had to resort to the hydraulic press to get the tubing where we wanted. The good thing is, it worked well and didn't mar or hurt the tubing at all. After a few hours of tweaking everything was back to parallel like I had it when we tack welded the connectors on the tower.

I'll tell you what, to tweak the overall dimensions of a tube tower, the heat and cool rag method would probably work like a champ! That's cool you were a pipe fitter. I'm always learning cool stuff about people on the crew!

That thing will look incredible if you polish it all out again. Lotta work but worth it in the end. Little of that world famous collinite on there and it will look new for a long time.

My pipe fitting jobs were some of the hardest, funnest, and most memorable I've ever had. The biggest I ever did was 60" natural gas pipeline. It would take me 12+ hours just to prep for welding. 9" grinder and 4 discs (worn down to the nub) later..... Usually it was just 2-24" pipe though. I'd use that heat and cool method on the 2-4" all the time, I called that 2" spaghetti pipe. That's what it looked like by the time you welded 120' together. I'd use that method to get it all squared up again.

[martinarcher]

That thing will look incredible if you polish it all out again. Lotta work but worth it in the end. Little of that world famous collinite on there and it will look new for a long time.

My pipe fitting jobs were some of the hardest, funnest, and most memorable I've ever had. The biggest I ever did was 60" natural gas pipeline. It would take me 12+ hours just to prep for welding. 9" grinder and 4 discs (worn down to the nub) later..... Usually it was just 2-24" pipe though. I'd use that heat and cool method on the 2-4" all the time, I called that 2" spaghetti pipe. That's what it looked like by the time you welded 120' together. I'd use that method to get it all squared up again.

Agreed. I have all winter to do it so it's game on. It will certainly have a good coat of Collinite's before it goes back on in the spring.

Sounds like a cool job that would be fun, frustrating, and rewarding all at the same time. I can't imagine prepping a 60" pipe! That's awesome. I'll keep the heat and wet rah method handy.