1968 18' Starcraft Holiday V. I want to raise the deck. Can't find post I saw.

adamjr

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Jul 23, 2009
Messages
272
Hello all. I have an 18' 1968 Holiday V. I want to raise the deck 2 inches to make room for a belly fuel tank. I am waiting on a quote from a local metal supplier (emailed a request) to fabricate new stringers (2 inches taller) as well as what I'll call pseudo stringers for the outside edges of the deck.

So here are some questions if I go that route;

If I go the route above and if they can fabricate the stringers and pseudo stringers 12 feet long I'm not sure what the thickness is of the original stringers. They have 5052H32 available. I was thinking of using 0.080" thickness. Is that overkill or not thick enough. I'm not a great thickness eyeballer but the existing looks about half the thickness of the 1/8" thick 5052 square tubing I have.

There was a thread that I saw a few months back and I can't seem to find it. The person doing the project was using material from road signs and cutting them with a non ferrous blade. There were a ton of photos. Can anyone point me to that thread?
 

bob johnson

Rear Admiral
Joined
Feb 25, 2009
Messages
4,304
most road signs are over .100" thick and many are .125' thick.. is a longer belly tank an option? making and riveting all new stringers is a big task. I think the ones in my big holiday are only about .062" thick.
 

adamjr

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Jul 23, 2009
Messages
272
Thanks Bob for your reply. The thickness you stated would fit right into the visual estimate I gave. That would be 1/16".

The deck is already removed. Removing the old stringers wouldn't be all that difficult. It's just a matter of drilling out the old rivets and removing the screws that hold the wood the motor mount attaches to from the original stringers.

The pseudo stringers would attach to the stiffeners in the same place where the original decking was attached.

I already have a belly tank. It's a 26 gallon unit that fits nicely between the original stringers but with the filler neck and fittings it won't fit beneath the standard height deck. I had purchased some square tubing to lift the deck but I'm running into issues where going with something with a profile more similar to the original would work better and be far more simple.
 

Watermann

Starmada Splash of the Year 2014
Joined
Jan 12, 2013
Messages
13,747
Hello all. I have an 18' 1968 Holiday V. I want to raise the deck 2 inches to make room for a belly fuel tank. I am waiting on a quote from a local metal supplier (emailed a request) to fabricate new stringers (2 inches taller) as well as what I'll call pseudo stringers for the outside edges of the deck.

So here are some questions if I go that route;

If I go the route above and if they can fabricate the stringers and pseudo stringers 12 feet long I'm not sure what the thickness is of the original stringers. They have 5052H32 available. I was thinking of using 0.080" thickness. Is that overkill or not thick enough. I'm not a great thickness eyeballer but the existing looks about half the thickness of the 1/8" thick 5052 square tubing I have.

There was a thread that I saw a few months back and I can't seem to find it. The person doing the project was using material from road signs and cutting them with a non ferrous blade. There were a ton of photos. Can anyone point me to that thread?

Yeah that could've been my Chief thread. I put in a belly tank and had to raise the deck. Yeap I used the metal saw blade and road signs to create most of the AL upgrades. The deck supports are probably under .080 but I'm not exactly sure as I didn't mic them. 1/8" thick = .125 so half that is around .060 which would be close. 90 degree bends in AL gets tough the thicker it is. The road signs I have are mostly .080 5052 AL and tough to make a tight 90 bend without cracking. .

I was able to just move the stringers/deck supports out to the edge of the belly tanks extra width leaving an 1/8th inch or so room on either side and riveting them back to the ribs. It came out that I needed to then raise the sides of the deck 1". I used 2 x 1/2" thick strips of marine ply that were 1.5" wide and well sealed. I riveted the first strip down to the rib ends with large flange rivets and then used SS screws to attach the second top 1/2" strips to the bottom strips. Using the ply strips on the sides gave a very stable platform for the decking to attach to.
 

bob johnson

Rear Admiral
Joined
Feb 25, 2009
Messages
4,304
id probably piggy back some 2x3 angle aluminum to the stringers you have, to raise the deck, before I got so drastic as to tear all the stringers away from the hull, THEN MAKE NEW stringers and rivet them all back on!!!!!!!!!

but a $100 worth of .093 enequal leg angle... and rivet it sideways to the stringer you have to raise the stringer... I think 3" verticle x 2" wide lip would be fine.... you could bend some to run sideways from stringer to stringer to give it more support


good luck

bob
 

Vtstar

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Feb 15, 2011
Messages
33
I used a stop sign to fill in hte gap in the aluminum created by a butchered transom. I then used it to cover and stabilize the back. I wanted to bend it up and over the top of the transom but the stuff does not bend easily at all. I had no metalworking tools, just clamps, hammers etc but I imagine it would take some serious equipment to get good right angles out of this stuff. It did cut easily enough, no issues there. Finally, mine had the actual layer of reflective and colored material laminated to one side that was not easy to remove.

 
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