Now for the story of time and money. This is what I think is lacking on most build posts that I think will be an eye opener to people who are thinking of undertaking similar projects. No tool costs included since I didn?t buy any specifically for this project, but take that into account if you will need to add tools. Again I?m just a guy hacking away at a boat in my backyard, could someone more skilled do it faster and cheaper, I have no doubt.
$350 - New console and entry door, Craigslist
$150 - Fiberglass cloth, resin, filler, and core material. Mixing cups/sticks/brushes (made a much larger buy for the whole boat project, this is an estimate based off of the quantities used)
$40 - sanding discs, sand paper (get 3m/norton/mirka good quality abrasives, they last way longer than the HD or lowes stuff)
$40 - Aluminum & rivets
$150 - filler, primer, paint, acetone, brushes/roller naps
$730 - Total cost of the console to the point of being ready to cut holes and mount accessories. Sold the original console for $400, so was into this for roughly $330 out of pocket.
Time - mocking up, layout cuts and cut it in half - 4 hours
Sanding and prepping for reattaching back together + attempting to get as much fiberglass snow out of my garage as possible - 6 hours
Glassing together, bonding in core, glassing again - 6 hours over a few nights
Filling, fairing, priming, and painting - 10 hours over several nights.
26 hours of time roughly. If you put even a small price on your time this can get expensive quick, but if you valued your time there?s plenty of turn key boats other than a seacraft you could buy. If I had to pay a shop to do this, it would have been done much quicker but the cost would have been out of reach for me.
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