Re: I need help identifying my MFG, I have the serial number.
Steve! Thank you very much for taking the time to explain all of that. Furthermore, thank you for the very fine compliments!
So to tell a little bit about her. As you can see from the before and after pictures I am not completely sticking to the original MFG design. For 2 reasons, first a windshield was not on the boat when I got it and I have decided that I am going to make a custom wood framed windshield for it this winter. Second, I am the kind of guy that likes to do things thoroughly, but do them thoroughly “my” way. In this case the wood is my ‘signature’ to making her a unique boat.
I am naming her “The Great American deal” because of the way I acquired her. I’ll tell you why after the story…
I had replaced my 1952 ford lawn tractor which had a blown head gasket (but still ran), bent mowing deck and weak transmission with a brand new John Deere. So I put the Ford on the lawn with a $200.00 sign on it thinking I would be lucky if I got $50.00 for it if not paying someone to take it away! A young kid pulls in the yard with this boat. It had a 5 ? HP Johnson on it with 3 brand new seats, 2 nice condition metal Johnson gas cans, a brand new tarp and 2 new tires for the trailer. He wants to trade even. I was thinking ‘this is my lucky day!’ So I held back my excitement and pretended to scrutinize the boat, as if my tractor was worth anything. Well you can tell by the pictures that it had the worst hand paint job ever seen, black rubberized undercoat sprayed everywhere (one of the reasons for the wood on the bow) and improperly mixed maroon enamel paint that had never fully hardened (made sanding it really fun…).
So I had the Merc sitting in the garage, and I said “Ya! You got a deal!” So we unhooked the boat and loaded the tractor and away he went…
I back her in garage, clean her out, rig up the Tower of Power and set it on the transom…. Which began to crack, bow out, pull in the sides until the bottom of the motor hit the floor! I scratched my head and began to redefine the definition of swearing repeatedly. I put the Merc back on her stand, went into the house and got drunk. So after that I decided to lick my wounds and make her water worthy. It didn’t take long before I decided to take the effort of ‘water worthy’ to a full rebuild and have a great boat for Lake Champlain.
So why did I decide to call her “The Great American Deal”? Because when we traded the boat for the tractor…. We both thought we got a great deal for ourselves and SCREWED the other guy!!! LOL!!
