1974 Starcraft SS "Restoration"

j-arnold.5

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Jan 25, 2015
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I'm not necessarily new to the site, but this is my first post! (Bare with me if I do something wrong). Here's the quick background story: I graduated college in May 2012 and decided I needed to spend my money like a grown up :joyous:, so I found a $400 Starcraft on the c-list in Dayton, OH (about 1.5 hrs south of me) and away I went. This thing was parked in a field with 8-10 other boats and even a couple airplanes. The guy looked like Santa and everything went fine, but I wouldn't necessarily want to go through that again haha. The tear down started in July of 2012 and the project was finished just in time to head to Canada in August 2014, save for a few ongoing improvements. Once the boat splashed most of the progress stopped...haha. You all know how it goes. So anyway, my plan is to post all of my pictures and give some details as I go. I gathered a lot of ideas from the Starmada, so hopefully I can give a few in return. Here goes!

She came home in interesting shape:
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I'll get on to posting more tomorrow, but here's something to look at for tonight.
 

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jbcurt00

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Welcome to the Tin-sanity

How about a nice pix of your rig:
fetch


Nice looking 16ft SS, right?

What's the OB pushing this tinny?
 

Watermann

Starmada Splash of the Year 2014
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Jan 12, 2013
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:welcome: to the iboats tin division

Like they say "post em if you got em"
 

classiccat

"Captain" + Starmada Splash Of The Year 2020
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Welcome j-a.5! :welcome:

You did supply a teaser photo...which gets your foot in the door...however teasing the mob is ill advised :spy: :madgrin:

Nice deal you have there...hull and trailer I assume?
 

Tnstratofam

Commander
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Aug 18, 2013
Messages
2,679
Okay now you've got the tin crowd interested. Pics first off . That's always a good start. Unfortunately we can't get enough so keep em coming.:hungry: Looking forward to seeing how she turned out.:pop2:
 

1973Chieftain

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May 31, 2010
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1,298
Welcome to the tin dry docks! What shape was the interior in?
 
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j-arnold.5

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Jan 25, 2015
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More coming later tonight...still trying to figure out the best way to put pictures on here, but I'll get the hang of it.
 

Watermann

Starmada Splash of the Year 2014
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Man that sucks if the nav console/windshield was missing, I don't see it laying in there either.
 

j-arnold.5

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Jan 25, 2015
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So as you can see, rough shape all around. I was told that the hull leaked very little, and that was good enough for me. Nothing looked unusual as far as wear, or I guess I should say that it looked like you would expect a 40 year old boat to look after sitting in a field for who knows how long. Somebody made an attempt at some kind of restore, which involved throwing away good original parts and putting in a treated plywood floor. Transom repairs were made by adding 10 lbs of stainless screws through the back of the boat. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Still though, it was solid in all of the right places.

Now for a major disclaimer (Starcraft SS purists may want to look away now); I never had any intention of restoring this thing to its original glory. As you can see, there were a lot of missing parts to start with and I had no interest in sourcing them. I wanted a decent sized boat for fishing my local restricted horsepower lakes and this hull fit the bill. On the plus side, this boat would probably still be in that field if it wasn't for me, so keep that in mind!
 

j-arnold.5

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Jan 25, 2015
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The first repair came in the form of fixing a big dent where something happened with the trailer tiedown and it tried to pull through the mulch of a transom. It was nothing a bolt and a walnut block couldn't fix:

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j-arnold.5

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And then onto paint. I skipped a lot of pictures, but you guys know the deal. Feel free to ask any questions about interim steps I'm not discussing.

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j-arnold.5

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The amount of holes in the boat was depressing. It probably wouldn't have been a deal breaker, but it's something I'll pay more attention to if I ever buy another old aluminum boat.
 

j-arnold.5

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Jan 25, 2015
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And back to the transom. I replaced the mulch with a new transom. The knee brace was cracked so I used aluminum angle to fix it right up. I skinned the transom on the inside with 16 gage aluminum. At this juncture, I wasn't aware that my jig saw did a much better job of deal with thin aluminum than my grinder. I did a real hack job but it all got covered and trimmed out and nobody has to know about it haha.

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j-arnold.5

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Jan 25, 2015
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I'm still figuring this out as I go, I'm not going to delay a whole lot in getting this whole thing uploaded and spelled out. Hopefully my pictures and commentary answer everybody's questions. If not, I'll circle back around when I'm done posting and see if I missed anything.
 

j-arnold.5

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Jan 25, 2015
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Somewhere in here my picture taking took a backseat to my boat building, but here is what I have from the flooring:

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