Another tin boat owner says hello!

Putting a toe in the water . . .


Got a 1958 Blue Star 15 foot "Islander" runabout (tail fins and all) for the regal price of "Get this dang thing outta my back yard!" Well, if you insist.


Talked to Florida DMV, turns out it is so old there never was a title, and it is from a state that didn't title anything under 17 feet anyway. "Bring a bill of sale and $9, we'll set you right up with a brand new Florida title in your name." That has to be the deal of the century from ANY governmental entity. (Tomorrow I find out if they speaketh the truth or not.)


Anyway, I had a 15 foot glass boat which was nasty beyond belief, rotten wood, waterlogged transom, ugly paint, but everything ELSE was good - nice 20 hp Evinrude, teleflex steering, good trailer (no rust, good tires), lots of goodies, bits and pieces, all I really needed was a hull - and now I have one!


I've shoveled out several hundred pounds of mulch, twigs, frogs, salamanders, ants and assorted other animal/vegetable/mineral crud, and it is just starting to look like a boat again.


I've got to remove the fiberglass deck from the aluminum hull - the deck needs some work (cracks, a tear, etc.) and the hull needs to be stripped properly. I don't want to let the aircraft paint stripper get on the fiberglass because it will eat it up (don't ask me how I learned that).


I've been crawling around trying to figure out how the deck comes off - the screws which hold the rub rails are not long enough to go into the hull, and I don't want to force or break anything - I figure I'll ask before I get out a bigger hammer. (My wife tells me that with age comes wisdom. We'll see.) It *looks* like a shoebox joint, but I can't find the fasteners.


Next item is the motor. The 20 hp Evinrude is a 1988 with a 20" shaft, turns out I need a "short shaft" or 15" shaft. I don't particularly want to use a jack plate because I'm thinking that will increase the bending moment on the transom. Anyone have a 15" setup to trade for a 20" setup? I'm told all that's needed is the center casting, the drive shaft, a short pipe, and some gaskets. If that's incorrect, I'll prefer to learn about it before I take the bottom end of the motor.


I'm also going to be asking about a windshield, what that device on the floor in front of the stern is (some kind of an automatic bilge drain?), the best location for the gas tanks and so on, but that's later - first stop is getting the deck off.

Best Regards,

Rivets4ever
Florida

Welcome to the forum and let me be the first to say
ostpics:

I promise to take some pix tomorrow and add them. Honest.

It is already dark here and there just isn't enough light to get any decent pictures.

Best Regards,

Rivets4ever

Pix attached as requested.

DMV didn't exactly lie to me, they just didn't bother to tell the WHOLE truth. The $9 part for the title seems to be correct, but the local office wants a tracing of the hull number (all three digits of it) - wish they'd said something about it before I spent an hour waiting and driving 20 miles each way. Personally, I'd rather visit the dentist than the DMV, at least the dentist provides some benefit to me.

However - if I get a 1958 Johnson/OMC/Evinrude to put on my 1958 boat, I can register the combination as an "antique boat" for $7. Since I need to change the length of the motor anyway, it might be less expense and trouble just to find a 20 to 30 hp short shaft 1958 motor which has been properly restored and overhauled, and sell the 1988 20 hp longer shaft motor that I have. We'll see. I'll probably think about this more clearly after I'm done being mad at the DMV (which may be never).

Spoke to someone who advises me that the deck to hull attach screws are under the aluminum trim/rub rail. Since I'll be taking those screws out anyway and replacing them with stainless, I guess I'll find out.

Anyway, here are some pix of the boat in all its grubby glory (I'm still shoveling it out, it has not seen the car wash yet). Note the front deck - the bow light fits into the "notch" at the front of the top strake. Anyone know if this is still available? I did find a probable source for a windscreen at only $900 (cough cough) but a few clicks further down on Google finds an article on making my own for about $160 and an afternoon. I'm still researching this, there is a company in the Miami area which is a lot more reasonable.

Last pic is the factory brochure off Wikipedia. The rest of the pix are half a century newer.

Very interesting boat. Looking at the pic taken from the stern, it reminds me of the amphicar that one of my friends dad had back in the late 60's. Are you planning on restoring it all back to original or making modifications to it?

Likely going for original, or at least within shouting distance of it. I like the looks of these older boats and I think it would be a shame to hack this up. I saw a company (in Colorado, I think) making brand new fiberglass replicas of "fin boats" using modern components, engines, etc. Boat with trailer and motor, just add fuel and water - better sit down - $25,000! Ouch!

When I'm all done, complete, everything, I doubt I'll have 1/10 of that in it. In fact, I won't have much more than just the sales tax amount on the $25K boat in mine.

Guy I know had an Amphicar, and yes, now that you mention it, there is a resemblance. He happened to be a moron and managed to sink one fine day, it in completely calm water - fortunately only three feet deep, but it was never the same afterward.

I'm going out later this evening and taking some rub-rail screws out. I'll also be seeing my buddies at the DMV on Monday, and I'll try for the $9 title special then.

Have a nice weekend!

Best Regards,

R4E

that air horn is my favorite part! you definitely need to get that thing functioning!

Whoa cool boat. Looks like an old convertible. That would look smooth with a retractable top shade.

Yeah the air horns are definitely "period". (There are two, one showing, one lying in the bottom of the boat.)

Now I just need a captain's hat, a blue blazer, a martini, and a bikini-clad blonde, and it is 1958 all over again. Of course, since I was only 12 years old in 1958, I would have had NO idea what the blonde was all about. Now that I am a little older and might have some clue, my wife would utterly kill me if she caught me with a blonde, so I guess I'll have to settle for the captain's hat.

I removed the right rear trim strip and found no fasteners of any kind holding the deck to the hull. Since I had to go inside to get the tracing of the serial number anyway, I crawled around in the crud for a while and found no fasteners anywhere from the inside either.

It is definitely a box (shoe-box) joint - the deck overlaps the hull and comes down over it on the outside. I slid a screwdriver upward between the deck edge and the hull, and some gentle probing found no fasteners at all there either - nothing hidden under any trim strips. There's a row of rivets just under the deck at the bow, but I know that doesn't hold the deck because you can't get to the back of the rivets to buck them, they are internal, so that's not it, and there are no corresponding rivets on the back half of the boat at all.

A little gentle wiggling and probing leads me to believe that the deck may be GLUED or bonded to the hull (and unless I've missed something pretty obvious, that seems to be the only remaining alternative). The right rear is slightly loose, and I can flex the hull a bit and lift the deck slightly. I'm going to try gently wedging things apart and see if that gets me any results. Another reason I think it may be glued is the hull is quite rigid so there would be no problem with a flexing hull breaking the glue joint.

Of course, if anyone can tell me "Oh yeah, on the '58 Blue Star the deck is held on with XXXX", that would be a great help, but unless Bueller pops up and answers (Bueller? . . . Bueller? . . . Bueller?), once I get it apart I'll tell how.

Once I get the title sorted out (Monday, I hope), this thing is going for a ride to the car wash.

Best Regards,

R4E

It is PERFECT!

(And Ferris took the day off, he's sick, I hear.)

Please keep posting progress and pics.


=D> =D> =D>

Returned alive from the DMV . . .

Title was $8.25 (after they made me go away and crawl down inside the hull to get a pencil tracing of the hull number) plus $3.25 for an affidavit of non-use because I won't be registering it until it is ready to go into the water.

"Would you like the electronic title?"

"Naah, I want a piece of paper I can hold in my hand, I don't trust the state's computers."

"OK, look for it in about two weeks."

And at the next window there was a guy who has had an amateur radio license since the days of Guglielmo Marconi, and he wanted the number on his license plate. (Florida issues an amateur radio operator specialty plate.)

"Sorry sir, that number is in use."

"Impossible. Here's my FCC license - this is a FEDERAL document and it supersedes anything - ANYTHING you've got!!!"

I left with my title receipt while the DMV was still in the "Oh ****" mode and before the black Federal helicopters arrived to back this guy up, because he is 150% right (and was 300% p.o.'ed). I was tempted to stick around and watch the DMV grovel, but I have learned that it isn't healthy to hang around war zones.


Anyway, now I can take this thing to the car wash and de-crap it (technical term) so I can keep looking for how the deck comes off. I have a gallon of some really nasty aircraft paint stripper, but I don't want to use it until the fiberglass deck is someplace else. This stuff is so vile that it has eaten a large hole through the metal can it comes in - and this is the "mild" version!

Found a 1958 35 hp motor restored and guaranteed (!) from a guy in Tampa, but it is a little too big and a little more than I really want to spend. I may revise that decision if nothing else comes up, but I'm not ready for the motor anyway.

Best Regards,

R4E

I swear these droids at the DMV are dumber than a box of rocks.

Just got a phone call "Can you come back and see us?"

"Ummm, why?"

"We forgot to get one signature."

"Can you mail it to me?"

"No, we have to see you . . . "

It is only a 30 mile round trip, and it can only be done at their convenience, which means during MY business hours.

I hereby nominate the DMV office for immediate conversion to an artificial reef, complete with pre-installed shark bait.

Is this going to be like airplanes, when the height and the weight of the paperwork equals the height and the weight of the airplane, then it is OK to fly it?



However, I did find the boat horns for the deck on eBay ($70 a pair, new) and the side step plates at $20 each somewhere else. Car wash expedition this weekend!

Best Regards,

R4E

Went back to the Seventh Circle of Hell (AKA the DMV) and at first they couldn't find anything. Naturally, the clerk who called me was out to lunch (physically and literally), but the supervisor eventually found the papers. Signed my name and dated it and asked the standard Windows questions - are you sure? are you really sure? cross your heart and hope to die? She said no, I was done, they'd mail me the title. Uh huh. Lets see if they call me again . . .

As to the boat, the deck is glued onto the hull, oh boy is it glued, man oh man is it glued, holy **** is it EVER glued.

When the boat was built, the deck was placed on the ground upside down, the hull was lowered onto it (also upside down) and the joint was LIBERALLY filled with some kind of black adhesive laced with bits of chopped fiberglass, then smoothed off. In the past 50+ years, it has dried absolutely rock hard. It is about an inch deep and an inch wide, and runs all the way around the hull/deck joint except for the transom.

The solution is going to be to turn the hull upside down (after I finish cleaning it out), drill a bunch of holes and then chip out the hardened crud with a chisel, chunk by chunk. Luckily the boat is only 15 feet long, not 50 feet long, but that still leaves me with something like 30 feet of petrified glop to chip out. It does seem to come out in chunks instead of tiny grains, so this shouldn't be a terrible job (he says here) - we will see. The screws that hold the trim strip on do not seem to go into the hull, just the glop. They should be a lot easier to remove with the glop gone, so even if they do go into the hull, they'll come out with less cussing. Ugh.

Fortunately, I have an engine hoist (cherry picker) so flipping this over won't be too terrible. It is going to be a messy job, but so be it. I suppose I can use a day of mindless hammering. Right.

Pix when it comes apart.

Best Regards,

R4E

It sounds like you need to invest in an air chisel. :mrgreen:

Actually . . . I have one!


Thanks for the reminder ;-)

I'll try it but I need to be careful because the air chisel might be a bit overpowered for this application - I'd like to have something left to put back together again when I'm done. But good idea, always examine alternatives! (dynamite?)

Best Regards,

R4E

You know what they say, "If God didn't want us to use power tools he wouldn't have invented them." or something like that. :mrgreen: