mercurymang
Master Chief Petty Officer
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2012
- Messages
- 853
Hello all. Before I say anything else, I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year and I hope and pray and 2014 will be a good year for all of us.
In 2012 for some unexplained reason, I caught the boating bug. I did not grow up around boating and it was never anything that I found of interest. I began watching craigslist everyday - I'm sure some of you can relate to this - and as time wore on, I sensed that this new found fascination was much a kin to a train traveling down a steep grade inevitably towards a valley somewhere below. I was going to buy a boat and in October of 2012 I found a 1974 Ebbtide that was relatively close, had a good price and looked very nice to the eye.
I went to look at it around 9pm on a Wednesday and by 10pm, it was in my driveway. I took it out one time and noticed a few things mechanically that I didn't like which led to a winter long project of refreshing the Mercury 650 that came with the boat. By springtime, everything was ready and from May until October, I took it out at least once a week. We even made a trip to Oklahoma and Broken Bow Lake and it has served me well over the past year.
Near the end of the season, I began to feel a soft spot near the back of the boat. I have made regular visits to iboats.com and spend most of my time in the Mercury sub forum as well as this forum. As a result, when I felt the squishy floor, I kind of knew what I was in for. Since then I have spent countless hours on here reading up on how to restore a fiberglass boat. (I have also been saving money).
Today, the weather was very nice down here in Texas and I used my day off to clean up my shop, pull the boat into the back yard, empty it out and get the whole process underway.
I started by trying to peel the carpet off. You can see a picture below that shows a portion of the carpet removed. That took about an hour. After finding some rot, I decided that I'm not going to bother pulling all the carpet out, I'm just going to get my skill saw and begin removing floor.
You can see in the last picture a small section where I poked through the floor. The wood beneath it is holding water so I know that at least the backend of the boat will need to be restrung and glassed. I am going to work my way forward and see how far the rot goes. If I goes too far, I will obviously have to pull the cap.
At any rate. I am done for the day but I will post some pictures. I hope you will follow along. I know that there are quite a few experts on here and I'm sure I will have questions as I go.
Happy New Year
In 2012 for some unexplained reason, I caught the boating bug. I did not grow up around boating and it was never anything that I found of interest. I began watching craigslist everyday - I'm sure some of you can relate to this - and as time wore on, I sensed that this new found fascination was much a kin to a train traveling down a steep grade inevitably towards a valley somewhere below. I was going to buy a boat and in October of 2012 I found a 1974 Ebbtide that was relatively close, had a good price and looked very nice to the eye.
I went to look at it around 9pm on a Wednesday and by 10pm, it was in my driveway. I took it out one time and noticed a few things mechanically that I didn't like which led to a winter long project of refreshing the Mercury 650 that came with the boat. By springtime, everything was ready and from May until October, I took it out at least once a week. We even made a trip to Oklahoma and Broken Bow Lake and it has served me well over the past year.
Near the end of the season, I began to feel a soft spot near the back of the boat. I have made regular visits to iboats.com and spend most of my time in the Mercury sub forum as well as this forum. As a result, when I felt the squishy floor, I kind of knew what I was in for. Since then I have spent countless hours on here reading up on how to restore a fiberglass boat. (I have also been saving money).
Today, the weather was very nice down here in Texas and I used my day off to clean up my shop, pull the boat into the back yard, empty it out and get the whole process underway.
I started by trying to peel the carpet off. You can see a picture below that shows a portion of the carpet removed. That took about an hour. After finding some rot, I decided that I'm not going to bother pulling all the carpet out, I'm just going to get my skill saw and begin removing floor.
You can see in the last picture a small section where I poked through the floor. The wood beneath it is holding water so I know that at least the backend of the boat will need to be restrung and glassed. I am going to work my way forward and see how far the rot goes. If I goes too far, I will obviously have to pull the cap.
At any rate. I am done for the day but I will post some pictures. I hope you will follow along. I know that there are quite a few experts on here and I'm sure I will have questions as I go.
Happy New Year
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