Finally getting a new (to me) tin boat, a 1436

[poolie]

That's great the guy honored his word and held the boat. I had my fingers crossed for you. You got a steal there. I like the layout you have planned and look forward to seeing all of the progress as you transform the boat.

You're far from wearing out your welcome. We love seeing this stuff

PS: Do consider moving your front seat back a little. You'd be surprised how quickly the front gets crowded.

 

[Hydrilla]

OK, the maiden voyage was a success, in that neither I or my dog fell in the water, the boat didn't sink, and I caught "a" fish- a giant ~8" bass, lol. We had a good time though, I spent a lot of time just getting used to the boat, and making sure Shelby was too. My little transom mount trolling motor does just fine, it's a 34 lb thrust model. That's encouraging since I won't be able to rush out and buy the bow mount one I want anytime in the near future.

For the first hour, I thought to myself, there's no way I'm going to put a casting deck on this thing. But after a while I got used to it, and even spent some time fishing while standing on the center bench. It seems a little tippy to me when you are standing up and walking, or sitting back down, but once you're there, it does pretty well. I think for smaller reservoirs or fishing the creeks of larger ones will be fine. Anywhere that there is significant boat traffic, forget it. Although I'd probably say that about this boat in general, standing or sitting. Oh and by the way I'm 6' even, and 200 lbs. Your mileage may vary.

The boat didn't leak that I know of, although I'm not positive. By the end of a 4 hour fishing trip, I had probably 1/3 cup of water in the back, and the only place I could see it coming from was around the plug. I think it's possible that either I didn't have the plug in tight enough, or I need to fix the plug hole. At any rate, that's a pretty minimal amount of water coming in.

When I got home, I spent some time ripping the outdoor carpet off the center bench, and scraping that *&$#@! carpet glue off. I got to the point that I needed the livewell hatch off, so I drilled the rivets out and removed it without too much trouble. I'm thinking about finding someone to weld the plug hole shut in the livewell (baitwell, really) and converting it to dry storage.

Huntinfool, thanks for the advice about the trailer. I think even if I moved the front supports forward a foot, I would still not have an issue with my vehicle hitting the trailer. It has a really long tongue for a trailer this size. Good point about needing to move the front supports, I will keep checking all the trailer supports every time I change anything.

Poolie, thanks, and HECK YEAH I will be moving the front seat further back!! After today, I realized that my diagram had the seat WAY too far forward. I'm an avid jig fisherman and like to be as "up front" as I can, but in this boat, I'll have the seat as close to the middle bench as I can. It's a small enough boat that I will be plenty close to the front and sides. I will be doing something different with the front compartment(s) as well. I think my drawing is not close to being scale, and I won't have enough room for one big compartment.

 

[FishingBuds]

Congrats on the boat, I have one myself and its worked out well so far. You'll have some fun with it

 

[huntinfool]

Now that I see the trailer with out the boat on it, if it were mine here is what I would do.

I would get two 2x4's ( unless those are 4x4's on the trailer now)and wrap them in carpet and run them long ways from the front to the back and through bolt them to the rails on the trailer frame. That looks like all that would need to be done. ( is the center brace over the axle flush with the frame of the trailer? I would attach it there too.) If it isn't then I would brace it there. It would be simple and would work good. Plus when I mounted them I would make sure that the bunks were on the outside of the strakes so it would kinda lock the boat in. That way when you loaded the boat on the trailer it would lock in, in the front and not drift.

At least that is what I would do.

Keep the mod pics coming.

 

[Hydrilla]

Thanks FishingBuds, I've read through your project before, and you have done some awesome work!

Huntinfool, I appreciate the advice about the trailer. That's what I want to do with it, but didn't know exactly how to go about it.

I had another fun day of fishing, although only one fish today as well. At least this one was around a pound and a half. I'm thankful to have a boat, but nothing motivates me more to do this project than sitting down fishing, with no backrest, using a transom mount trolling motor. On a breezy day like today, you can't make it through a whole cast without having to stop and bump the trolling motor handle. Boat did well again, and I'm getting much more used to it, as is my dog.

 

[huntinfool]

Our bow season opens on Oct. 3 and I hope to be in the woods. I'm hunting public this year so this weekend I am scouting again. I don't know when i will get a chance to take the boat out again, but If i don't see a chance in the future I will try and take some pics of my trailer and show you what I did. It is very simple. I don't have any adjustments to my bunks and If I want to i can take the bunks off and put down plywood and it is a utility trailer. (I built it that way).

Keep up the good work.

 

[Hydrilla]

I appreciate it a lot.

I have created a sort of project file in Excel to track what I have done and what I want to do. I'd use MS project, but that might be overkill for what I want to do, I really just want to track the tasks I'd like to do, how much I project that they will cost, how much they actually cost, etc. I hate being limited by $$ with a project like this, it can make getting any momentum going pretty difficult.

I am considering selling a motorcycle to fund this project. I have an older Vulcan 1500 that I've had a long time and have enjoyed a ton, but now that I have a big touring bike as my daily "commuter car", the Vulcan has become more of just a toy. It's not worth a fortune, but it is a nice bike, and it would easily fund this boat project, and buy me a handfull of rods and reels (which I have very few of anymore) to boot. Decisions, decisions...

In the mean time, the cheap stuff I can probably do pretty soon would be the trailer mods, and some paint stripping. I have lots I can read here that will help me decide what method I should use. I cringe when I read about it taking someone 30 hours to strip their boat, but if that's what it takes... as long as I get to take fishing breaks inbetween

 

[huntinfool]

I hear ya. If I had something to sell to help fund this it would make it much easier. That way i would have the money I needed for every project and just get them done. But I don't so I just get them done as I can. I had already started on my boat and was way past the 1/2 way point when I found this website. I didn't flip my boat over and sand it down and put steelflex or what ever on the bottom of mine. So I will have to take the motor off and battery and fuel take out and then i shoudl be able to flip it and do that...I just can't decide if I really want to do it or not.

 

[Hydrilla]

I am tempted to do the Steel Flex thing too, but right now I'm leaning toward regular paint. For one thing, it's already getting close to the lower temps that I'm reading isn't that great for using this stuff, and I don't want to wait until May before it gets up to 80 degrees again to paint the boat.

I was wondering how you guys would solve my problem of where to put the gas tank. I am still planning the layout, and it's obvious to me that a 6 gallon won't fit in the very back, like in my drawing. It's just too small of an area. I don't want it laying out, so it will have to go under something. I'm not keen on the idea of cutting out the rear bench and re-bracing it, but would you go that route in order to make a rear deck big enough for the gas tank to go under? If I did cut the bench out, I would probably have the rear deck come forward one more rib, leaving 2 visible in the center of the boat. I'd probably leave the sides of the bench so I could use them to connect some cross supports.

 

[FishingBuds]

Looking good

I had the same problem on the 6gl tank, after several trials I ended up going down to a 3gl tank that fits just fine in the back transom. But, now all I do is go to electric lakes #-o

 

[Hydrilla]

I accomplished a couple of things this weekend. First, after 2 full days of fishing out of the boat, with 2 different buddies instead of just me and my dog, I made the decision about what kind of floor/deck I want to do with this boat. Yesterday the guy that went with me had a real hard time while standing. He lost his balance a lot, and actually fell a couple of times. I only slightly lost my balance a couple of times, and only as a result of the front of the boat pitching around from my friend dancing the huck-a-buck. Today was a different story. Similar body of water, similar waves/wakes, etc but the guy that went with me today didn't lose his balance once, and neither did I. We stood the entire day, very often fishing while standing on top of the benches. Based on this, I'm going forward with my plans to deck the boat. I'm only going the height of the benches, not all the way to the top. I know it can still be tippy but I think it will be fine.

Second, I brought some stripper home (paint stripper, keep it out the gutter), took the boat off the trailer and flipped it over, and started working on removing some paint. I tried the saran wrap trick with limited success. I haven't had time to scrape it all but it looks like the stripper is going to remove around 75% of the paint. I found a spot of JB Weld on the bottom of the boat that isn't on a rivet, so it has to be a hole repair- I'll have to add that to the list of things to fix correctly.

Also, and here's something you guys can help with, it looks like the splashwell has a badly dented area that looks to be caused by a battery bouncing around. When you look at the boat from the bottom, it's obviously bent out in that area. Should I worry about this if it's not leaking? What would be the fix? I'm attaching a pic of the dented area, and of the side of my boat covered in saran wrap.

 

[shizzy77]

depending on how many different layers of paint you have, you may need to repeat the stripper/saran wrap process. It seems many times that the top layer is a cheap rattle can job and that seems to soak up all the stripper and bubble up right away. the first layer is usually a factory paint and it seems to be tougher requiring you to scrape off the first round, reapply the stripper and saran wrap and let it sit longer.

 

[Rat]

Also, and here's something you guys can help with, it looks like the splashwell has a badly dented area that looks to be caused by a battery bouncing around. When you look at the boat from the bottom, it's obviously bent out in that area. Should I worry about this if it's not leaking? What would be the fix? I'm attaching a pic of the dented area, and of the side of my boat covered in saran wrap.

The dent is on the planing surface and *could* cause some porpoising. I say *could* because it doesn't look that bad. A dent that is like that is called rocker, even though rocker usually describes a condition where there is a noticeable bulge outward all the way across the bottom of the hull from port to starboard. A small area like this may or may not cause problems and it's not that easy to fix. You can try using a dead blow hammer and a dolly to work it out but you will probably find that the metal has significant expansion. In that case the spot will pop inward creating a hook. You could probably take up the extra material in the strakes, this would deform the side of the strakes a little bit, but not effect the performance as much (or at all) as hook or rocker.

This small area will cause aeration of the water leaving the hull as well; so I would not mount a sonar transducer near it or you will get bubbles across the beam leading to crappy readings while on plane. It's hard enough to find clear water on a riveted hull anyway.

I would leave it and test it before I attempted to fix it if I were you. If it causes significant performance problems then I would look into getting it fixed. At that point I would recommend cutting it out and patching it with a new piece.

Good weight distribution and a Dol-Fin will proly correct any performance problems created by this small rocker.

In the future tho use a piece of wood to absorb the shock and distribute the weight of the battery; don't set it right on the hull bottom. But I bet you have already figured that out.

 

[Hydrilla]

shizzy77, it does look like some of the paint that is being a little stubborn may be original paint. I'll stick with it.

Rat, thanks for all that info. I'm not interested in trying to fix it other than cutting out that section and getting a new piece welded in. The boat was like that when I got it, I've not used a board, but I only put the battery in there when I get to the lake, and since I'm electric only at the moment, I doubt I've made it any worse. Good point about the board though, and the transducer concerns.

 

[Hydrilla]

The paint stripper still hasn't worked that great, even after a couple applications, so I decided to go with a wire wheel. I first tried one on my drill (not a cordless), a 3" wire wheel, and I felt like I was stripping a battleship with a Dremel. Not to mention the difficulty of trying to control the drill while dealing with the torque of it. I went back out and got a 5" wire wheel for my grinder, and it has done much much better- it's easier to control and it is making faster work of the paint. I hope to finish removing the paint this weekend. I know that I'll have to sand it again before I use primer because of the oxidation, no worries. I'll post a pic by Saturday at the latest.

 

[huntinfool]

Keep up the good work.

 

[Hydrilla]

If anyone here is in the NC Triad/Triangle area and can weld aluminum, or if anyone knows/can recommend someone that welds aluminum in/near the Greensboro/Burlington area, please let me know. I have a few things that I'd like to get done, and can't spend a fortune. I want to get the livewell hole sealed off, I have a couple spots that need fixed (one has JB Weld on it), and I may need to get a small section cut out and a piece welded in where the previous owner's battery beat it up pretty good.

I called a welder I found on Google that's not far from my house and he said he'd look at it but it depends on the thickness of the aluminum on whether or not he can do it. Are some of the thinner jons difficult to weld? I'd rather go with someone from here, or someone that is recommended at least.

 

[Hydrilla]

I got the rest of the paint off the outside of the boat today. I gave the paint stripper another shot, and it worked like a charm. The only thing I did different is apply it a good bit more liberally this time, and I didn't wait as long to get the paint off. I learned that it doesn't pay to be stingy with this stuff, just schlop it on there.

After I was done, I flipped the boat over on some sawhorses, and filled it with water up to the top of the ribs. Not a single drop of water after 30 minutes. Bummer, I had my Sharpie all ready and everything I still have the one spot that had a bad JB Weld patch that I need to fix, but it's toward the front and close to not being under the waterline. I'll go over the transom bolts/rivets with some marine sealant and call it a day, I guess. I got some self-etching primer tonight but I've run out of time so it will have to be another day. Danged family fun day tomorrow, no more boat work this weekend!! :evil: :mrgreen:

Here's a pic of the boat with the paint removed. You can kind of see where I used the wire wheel, and where I used the stripper.

I also removed the vertical bow support piece from the trailer and moved it forward enough so the azz end of the boat isn't hanging off the trailer (I do plan on getting an outboard, and that would present a problem). I'll have to see if it's far enough forward that it will hit my tow vehicle now.

 

[Hydrilla]

Forgot to mention, when stripping the paint, I knew something was up right away with the transom support pieces, it looked like there was red rust under the paint. I brought a magnet out, and as I expected, it stuck to them, meaning they are some sort of steel instead of aluminum. Am I right in thinking that they need to go, or does the "nothing but aluminum" deal only apply to bolts and stuff? Either way I think I'm going to take the pieces off, cut the wood down to the same height as the transom, and eventually put an aluminum transom cap on it. Here's an upside down pic of the outside transom support piece, with a magnet stuck on it.

EDIT: We won't be going to meet my extended family like planned today since my wife got sick. Not the way I'd plan it, but I will be able to work on the boat today. More to come later this evening.

 

[Hydrilla]

Just got 'er primered a little bit ago, waiting for it to dry. I used a flexible sanding sponge and a tack cloth, worked great.