In today’s video of the week, Andy from Boatworks Today is working smarter, not harder! He shares with us ways to save money on all your boat repair and restoration projects!
The past week, Andy has taken the time to reach out to his patreons and see if there were any additional topics or tips that they would like to have covered and the recurring theme was about ways to cut costs on our projects. So, let’s get to it!
- The number one question he receives is “Are there ways you can clean and reuse your materials such as paint brushes, rollers, plastic mixing cups”. And the answer is YES, but to a certain degree. First, he demonstrates how you can reuse mixing ups by sharing some tips and experimenting with our GelCoat with Wax. He takes two quart size plastic cups and pours the same amount in each cup. In cup #1, he stirs the paint keeping the majority of material at the bottom of the cup and in cup #2 he mixes the gelcoat and coats the sides of the cups. Once the gelcoat is set up, he brings them back out. The gelcoat that was only coated on the bottom of the cup came out easily, but there was still some thinner material on the sides that became stuck to the cup. And in cup #2 where he coated the sides, it was thicker all the way around and the gelcoat came out in one piece, leaving the cup virtually clean.
- Now as far as other items like brushes and rollers, is it worth trying to reuse them? Andy’s opinion is no – especially with the inexpensive ones. While you can clean them with solvents, what happens is the fiber absorbs the resin and materials breaking down the quality of the brushes. He suggests just going with the cases of chip brushes to save time and money. The time saver here being the amount of time it would take to get the materials out of the brush fibers. The exception to this would be if you have a high quality badger hair brush or a more expensive brush, it will be worth the time to clean with the appropriate solvent and reuse. This goes the same for rollers . Another important tip is make sure you are using the correct roller for the products being used.
- The next time Andy shares with us is when you are ordering materials, order the materials you are going to be able to use within a given timeline. If you order too much material for an entire project at once, and it takes a while to complete the project, the materials can go bad and expire before you get to using them. So be aware of the products shelf life which can be found on the SDS sheets.
- Another thing that can be done to help minimize the expense is to source your materials from as few different places as you can. Look for that one stop shop, like TotalBoat.com or JamestownDistributors.com where you can really get everything all at once. This will help with shipping costs or may even qualify you for free shipping, helping your bottom line. Another thing that can be done to help keep your costs down is to minimize waste. Store your materials properly in a temperature controlled area and again, check shelf life dates.
- And the last tip Andy has for us today is to go online and watch YouTube videos. Look for channels and content creators that are working with the materials you will be using. You can get tips and tricks on how to properly use the materials to avoid mistakes and waste and you may also find discount codes for the products the ambassador is using to save you money on your purchases.
Thank you for following along and checking out today’s video! Be sure to give Andy’s video a like and let us know below what other tips you may have for saving money on your boat repair and restoration projects!
