to or not to on 14ft harber craft

ok got this 14 ft harber craft and need to do a few thinings it has some leaks and need to pound rivets then going to gluvit the bottom.
i been thinking about decking the boat but having a hard time deciding what to do. At first I was going to put a deck in the front and put the fuel and battery under it. but now I'm thinking maybe I will deck the middle put the fuel and battery there and maybe a live well
is there any issues with removing the seats out of the boat. do you just have to ensure that you re brace the sides
here is what I'm working with

Yes if you remove the seat you will need to have it braced somehow. But why remove the seat? If you want to deck the center of the boat then just use the center seat as part of the deck. You can cut the top off the seat and put your live well in it and make room for your battery and fuel tank. Do a search here and you will see that there are several different ways to accomplish what your wanting to do.

i agree. you will have to have some kind of side support. i personally like to have a lot of room in the middle of the boat and i usually fish with a partner so i like to have a big rear deck for them to fish from. for these reasons, i do not like having a middle bench. if you just want a small rear deck or dont care about the rear deck then i would leave the bench and use as metioned above. i hope this makes sense.

I have been reading a fair bit on here and looking that is how I have gone from a front to a mid deck. My thought to removing the middle seat was for more area under the deck for storage/options
I figured i would leave the rear seat in for me to sit and drive then deck the mid and leave the front and build a removable type deck there . I have 2 younger children that may at time want to come out fishing so I need to provide an area for them to sit or others to get to the fishing location.

Well try and imagine this...two young kids in a boat with a middle deck and wanting to go from the front to the back and having to crawl over the middle deck while hanging on in the waves.

If it were me I would deck the front and rear and take the middle seat out and leave a bigger area that was more open for them to move around in...but that is just what I would do.

huntinfool said:

Well try and imagine this...two young kids in a boat with a middle deck and wanting to go from the front to the back and having to crawl over the middle deck while hanging on in the waves.

If it were me I would deck the front and rear and take the middle seat out and leave a bigger area that was more open for them to move around in...but that is just what I would do.

Click to expand...

That's exactly what I did, but not for the kids, for me! I hate crawling over mid-seats and decks in a small craft; now I have a nice open cockpit to wallow around in. Of course, now I am trying to figure out where to stow all my stuff. Everything is a compromise...

ok so yesterday was beat the rivets and today was gluvit day. now I need to figure out what to use for paint on the boat
type and colour
then I will flip it over and will start on the inside
I have all the seats removed so pretty open to options
paint pointers welcome

skinny said:

ok so yesterday was beat the rivets and today was gluvit day. now I need to figure out what to use for paint on the boat
type and colour
then I will flip it over and will start on the inside
I have all the seats removed so pretty open to options
paint pointers welcome

Click to expand...

How did the glove it do?

well it looks like the gluvit will seal the leakage I had I used a qart of it and only went up to the rib down the side of the boat. Thought is if i'm getting water in above that she is going under anyway .

i just need to top coat it but I'm not sure on the paint colour or type to use I may stop at a TSC store and see what they have for colour/type I hear lots of people using tractor paint

well it's looking like ford blue on the bottom and white on top . now I'm also thinking of painting the inside too
I'm also still trying to decide on casting decks
not to sure about hw to go about bracing the decks. I had thought about having 2 rails riveted in along the sides to work from but not sure yet