50's Duratech Sealine?

Jdunham

Seaman
Joined
Sep 9, 2015
Messages
56
Hello,
New to the forums, first time writer.

I just pulled this Duratech Sealine[?] out from behind my fathers barn where it has been for the last 30ish years. I had hoped to make a quick repair of it and to put it to use. I still think that I can do the repairs but when I discovered that these were somewhat sought after for restorations I thought that I should reach out.
Almost all of the issues with the boat are a result of it sitting upright in Vermont for so long. It was purchased for the motor on it and then immediately ignored. Leaves plugged the drain and water was allowed to sit in it over the winters.
Prior to my father acquiring the boat someone ran it up onto a rock or other stationary object and put a rip in the hull about 6" left of the keel starting maybe 6' from the stern and ending about 1' from the stern. This was repaired properly at some time.
Since then, ice has cause some more damage. At the back of the patch, where the damaged aluminum was cut away a crack radiating out from the corner of the cut was formed as ice expanded. I believe that a good inside/outside sandwich patch riveted on will fix this nicely once the deformation has been hammered out of the hull.
The ice also put a bulge in the right side of the transom which looks to be entirely cosmetic. At worst it may mean that all of the transom rivets need to be set. I am not going to attempt to push the bulge in because I do not know how to do it without creating wrinkles. At least as is the bulge is smooth.
At some point in its life someone removed the seat backs and the small decks that support the front seats.

My plan is to do one of the following:
Repair(not restore) and use as it is now, cosmetically flawed
Sell as is
Part out

While these are elegant boats, I really have my eye on a slightly different style so am not overly attached to this one. I prefer the ones that have a hull shape much closer to the older wooden boats with the swept in gunnels at the stern.

It looks like all of my images are too large to upload directly so I will see about linking to them instead, stay posted.

Edit: Here is the link to the Photos
https://app.box.com/s/sw2oet6gw7n8ibeziys081b3wcc6j97f

John D
 
Last edited:

Jdunham

Seaman
Joined
Sep 9, 2015
Messages
56
Hi Again,
I have decided to go ahead and make the repairs myself. Again, I am not doing a restoration, just functional repairs.
I started by thoroughly cleaning the boat inside and out. It appears that much of whatever paint the previous owner applied did not bond well to the aluminum and is flaking off in large chunks. I will deal with this later as it is mostly cosmetic.
I Then went to dent popping and removed all of the dents that I could deal with. Some of the frost bulge on the transom is too large to completely remove but it is MUCH better. I also removed and straightened the skeg and hull where it had collided with something in the past.
As mentioned above, the frost had caused a split radiating from the corner of the original repair. I had planned to just add a new patch over this area but when I removed several of the replaced rivets I discovered that whatever was used as caulking had turned to cumbles and paste.
I cut off all of the new rivet heads and removed the patch in preparation for installing a new one. While I am at it, I am going to radius all of the inside corners.
I will pick up some new aluminum and rivets this week but I do have some questions.
I believe that the repair, while clean and professional, did not use the proper rivet size or spacing. These look like 3/16 or 1/4 inch rivets and they are about 3" apart unless they were filling old holes.
I have 2 questions, what is the proper rivet size and spacing and what caulking should I use in the lap joint?

John D
 
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