Well my 36 pd on a 1854 prodrive with tapered chines with me (230), 6 gallons of gas, one batt, and spotlight/lifejackets etc is now only hitting 24mph. My hull is beat to he'll and hooked across the entire transom. I think filler and teflon are my only option. What kinda teflon are you guys going with? screw on or glue on and what thickness?

Epoxy filler on etched aluminum. West System Epoxy.

under teflon or no teflon?.................... i just realized i put this in the reviews forums. Please Move.

Will it not chip off? I run 100% stumps. My boat is only 10 months old and looks like a sledgehammer went down it 300 times?

1/2 inch? ive never seen that. 1/4 but not 1/2. that would weigh way to much. im still not sure about puttin it on a mud boat. you just dont have the hp to start with. on an air boat its going to rob hp. thats with 200-300 hp to start with. drop the starting hp to a 10th of that and approx the same amount of weight added and things just dont look good.

I bet you won't waste your money on another 1/8th hull again. I learned my lesson the hard way, just as you did.

it will help way more then you think.

Now that you've got the dents in it is the best time to fill in the dents with epoxy and then teflon or polymer.

Why is now the best time? Because you have stretched the aluminum so much now that when you hit stumps your dent will only get slightly bigger vs when your hull was brand new it made a huge dent.

If you fill it in now you it will last a lot longer than if you dont do it.

I see guys wanting to add teflon or polymer to a brand new boat, and thats all good for the use it was intended (to help run over vegetation and other stuff better) except when you run stumps. If you had put it on when the boat was brand new it definately would have helped your dents, but in the long run the aluminum bottom still would have dented just as bad, plus the teflon probably would have started either cracking/chipping or something.

i have teflon istalled on my 1860 I think its .375" thick....

about 600 bolts hold it to the bottom...Went over about 100 gravel bars....no damage yet...

gravel is where i would expect it to work best. we never had any prroblem with airboats w/o poly when in the water, mud and veg. it was when you ran dry ground or on sand rocks etc.. a good new bare gelcoat hull would run about at its best in the water or wet veg. slick bottom would give some protection and was mostly used to repair a worn gel bottom. it is slicker and would run dry better. ploy was a sacrafice used when you needed the most protection on a glass boat. it was always your best bet on alum boats as alum will not run dry. sticks like glue. the old way was to use steelflex to glue a thin stainless bottom to an alum boat. ive seen several boats with this but never seen how it was done. most of the boats were sleads or race boats. old timers said they will run with the ss bottom.

Problem with SS is it gets hot when running dry through the grass and will start to stick. Poly is the best for aluminum in grass and stumps. Down here we have a lot of lime rock ledges in some areas. That is where the SS shines.

Nathan

ILL AGREE WITH THAT

Poly gets hot and sticky when running dry but we do not have to worry about that. Glue some .125" uhmw to the bottom after you fill in the dents.

That's life dude, sometimes shit doesn't always work out the way it's supposed to.

I have probably the heaviest hull around and the Teflon/UHMW is since but it has its lifespan also. Running rivers with rocks it will only last a few years so be prepared to spend the money. I have a 9/16 thick hull with ¼” Teflon installed by Hoyt over at GT. It has about 200 hrs on it and has some nice cuts in it but it still performs like it did on day 1. I would look around to see what fastener is best for you (bolts or glue) if you can find someone to glue/epoxy it on for you and be able to remove it in a few years that might be best for you. I went with bolts because I did not want it to come off. With bolts involved when I have to replace my Teflon I will more than likely have to pay a welder to patch the holes and have new holes drilled and tapes. It all depends on the amount of corrosion on the existing holes.

.. I would not go with Teflon anything thinner than ¼”

Where is the best place to get it?

9/16 ? OR 3/16

if it is 9/16 ill bet it is heavy.

5/16 aluminum and 1/4 teflon.....I would call Hoyt at GT to get teflon.