66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

[proshadetree]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

Oven cleaner is about the best Ive found but it will turn aluminum diffrent colors.Simple green and a lot of scrubing will work to.

 

[North Beach]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

Thanks Proshadetree! this stuff is loose and dotted all over the bottom so it should come off fairly easy.

 

[North Beach]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

We had a nice day here weather wise so while my brother was grinding and welding on the Hillbilly Gantry (see other thread), I decided to yank out the flotation and shop vac all the debris out of the boat bottom.

Thought i'd post up a shot of what it looks like.

I know there hasn't been much progress to report, but basically I'm just running around ordering up all the stuff I need for the new floor and waiting for it to arrive.

As you can see, there's a fair amount of motor goo down the center and I'm still fighting over what I want to use to remove it. I'm thinking at this point I'll just scrub it with engine cleaner and drain it into containers.

 

[North Beach]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

OK. Another nice day temerature wise and the wife decided to do a one day road trip to visit family. So... I decided to go buy a couple gallons of commercial de-greaser and have at it. After scrubbing and a lot of scraping with a plastic putty knife, this is what I've come up with so far.

I had to run wire thru the bottom of the VEE in the stringers due to build up of engine gunk-the water wouldn't even drain.

Danged bottom is just about as clean as I can get it. I think I'm gonna let it air out a couple of days and get the new foam in.

I'm thinking about using the extruded(blue or pink board) instead of expanded so I won't have to deal with the beads in the bottom. Any thoughts?

 

[North Beach]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

Thought I'd add an update of recent progress.

Knowing cold weather was eventially goint to happen I decided to use up some of the materials left over from recent jobs piling up and try to close the carport in. This is what I started with.

I took that shot while we were building the Hillbilly Gantry for lifting the front of the boat.

Here's what we ended up with about five days later. Days four and five included about an inch and a half of rain. Got it closed in just before the temps started to bottom out. BTW, the date is screwed up on my camera and evidently I'm too danged dumb to fix it.

We had an old redeye heater that burns just about anything out in the shop so we filled up a bunch of cans of deisel and started heating it up. Everything was pretty much OK till the temps started getting into the single digits. With no insulation the metal roof started condensating and drops started freezing on the ceiling. No Problem! That is until I overslept this morning and the heater ran out of fuel. Danged inside of the Boatel looked like a rain forest

So we experienced a heat wave today. Started at 6 degrees and climbed to 16 so I hitched up the boat and drug it out into the yard. We cant really do any of the floor or gluvit work until we get into some higher temps so I fired up the 89 dollar gravity feed blaster and dumped in a 50 # bag of walnut shells and started working on stripping paint off of the rivits. A lot of them would have required some heavy sanding and I hoped the shells would do the trick. I blasted till I ran out of shells. Did a pretty good job, but it was a tad on the slow side. I figure three more bags and one long day will do the rest.

After I ran out of shells, I fired up the orbital sander with some 100 grit pads and started on the paint. I'm really amazed at how quickly this setup takes off the paint. Base on how things went today, I'm thinking one long day to finish everything I can reach before I have to pull the trailer out from under it minus the blasting.

If we don't see snow I'll be back on the sander tomorrow.

 

[DJ]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

I'd hit those rivets with Gluv It, from the inside.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

That hull looks perfect. No signs od rock dings or dents! What a beautiful example of proper use and storage.

DJ is right. I would use a can of gluvit and hit the seams and rivets.

 

[North Beach]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

I have a fresh can of gluvit setting here in my office for just that purpose. We hit 32 degrees today. Maybe later in the week we can get that done.

I managed to get the starboard side (minus the rivits) done before it started snowing today.

I'm gonna need three more bags of walnut shells to finish off the rivits and they won't be in till later this week, so I guess the next couple of days will be spent sanding the stern and the top side after I remove the last of the bow mounted hardware.

 

[North Beach]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

OK, yesterday evening I fired up the heater in the shop and spent the evening removing the aluminum bow and stern castings, all the bow mounted hardware, the windshield (which was danged fun considering they evidently didn?t have phillips head screws in the 60?s), the gunwale rubber and all the top mounted hardware. I also dis-assembled the Mercontrol unit and found 4 broken plastic shaft sleeves.

We got weather in the 40?s today so I wheeled the boat out of the shop and spent the entire evening blasting the rest of the rivets. Now the only thing left is sanding the stern, the top, and everything I couldn?t reach on the bottom while trailered.

Looks like we?ll be suspending the boat and getting it off the trailer this weekend. Once that happens, we?ll be working on the trailer and the boat.

So I?m basically working my tail off here and the wife is standing on the porch shaking her head EVERY DAY when the UPS guy shows up. Yesterday we received 3 boxes of walnut shells and today they?re gone!

BTW, the 89 dollar blaster works great! You have to stop periodically and remove what looks like mud from the tip, but overall, I?m happy with it?s performance. I?m blasting all the rivets in an attempt to make the fresh paint look crisper. Plus, I really didn?t want to sand all three million rivets!!!

Tomorrow, I?ll be in DC talking with the folks at West Marine about paint.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

You're doing a great job. Keep up the good work. That's going to be a sweet ride when you're done.

 

[North Beach]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

ezmobee,
Nice job on cleaning up your 66! What model is that? I have the 66 brochure.

 

[jpmurphy]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

This is going to be a great project for you. I'm redoing an 87 Gregor alum 16 footer and I've had to gut everything down to bare metal also. So, I can feel how intimidadted you feel, I've never done this before either.

I can tell by your enthusiasm that the finished product will be far better than the original factory boat.


Keep at it. I especially am looking forward to your progress pics. I'm starting on the hull of my boat tonite as soon as the shop warms up, but that may not be until April or May !!!

 

[ezmobee]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

ezmobee,
Nice job on cleaning up your 66! What model is that? I have the 66 brochure.

Thanks! Mine is a Jupiter. This year will be our 5th season with it since acquiring it and fixing it up. It's been a blast. I'd would love to upgrade to a 17-18' bowrider with a deeper V.

 

[willyrocket]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

Specs on the blaster? Where did ya get it? Also where you getting the shells?

 

[North Beach]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

WR,
Here's the info on the 90# Clarke Gravity feed Blaster at Tractor supply

http://www.tractorsupply.com/webapp...10551_10001_44254_-1______?rFlag=true&cFlag=1

It's listed on thier site for 99 bucks now. We used a small to medium shop sized Craftsman compressor-I think it puts out something like 9.4 cfm-nothing special.

The fine grade walnut shells came from Kramer Industries. Here's the link

http://www.kramerindustriesonline.com/blasting-media/walnut-shells.htm

JP, I hear you! This danged 22 footer is presenting a few problems-Like I'd really love to be able to flip it to work on the bottom prep and paint but there's absolutely nothing wrong with the drive train or the stern so i'm not taking it out.

 

[North Beach]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

In the midst of all this grunt work, we want to remember all the little stuff that must keep moving forward also. We?re removing a lot of hardware and signage from the boat and some of this stuff takes a while to duplicate/restore. With this in mind, I contacted a friend of my son who owns a metal fabrication shop here locally and he got all excited about the OLD BOAT as everyone refers to it. He took my old busted up vinyl Starcraft emblems, scanned them, did some tweeking on the computer, and waterjetted me a new set. This is the prototype

The other two sets are off to be powdercoated black. I know they?re not exact repros, but they?ll have to do. Finding 43 year old vinyl emblems so far has been impossible.

The Powered By Mercruiser Drive foil backed emblems on the stern are also not available. So I took a photo, emailed them to my sister who is a graphic artist. She sent them to a guy she knows and for 10 bucks I got back an electronic file that I can take to the cheapo sign folks and have a couple of decals made. Much simpler that I thought it would be. Here?s the photo I sent them and a print out of what they sent me back. Close enough for me.

I ordered a tube of 240 and 120 grit greaseless polishing compound like the British guy uses on Youtube for polishing aluminum, put some Ryobi Home Depot polishing wheels on my cheapo grinder out in the shop, and did a test on the bow and stern castings. Here?s a before and after shot.

They still need a little work, but I think I just saved myself a ton of cash and even better, I won?t have to wait three months to get them back. I also bought a bunch of small wheels for the air Dremel and we should be able to polish some of the miles of aluminum trim on the boat without removing it.

Now if I could just do my own chroming, I?d be set!!!

 

[sschefer]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

Have you dedcided on paint yet. I just ordered all mine from Interlux via West Marine. 700.00 worth of paint but I went with their VC Performance Bottom Paint. Mines on bunks anything less than the best just seemed like a waste of time and money.
FYI - Interlux say's 80 grit open coat. As soon as mine gets back from having the hull welded up I'll be sanding and painting. The weather here is a little more comfortable. Only down to the high 20's at night and 50-60 during the day.

Watch out for that GluVit and cold weather. I put some on when it was in the 40's and it took two weeks to set up. I read the instructions and figured there had to be some tolerance... Nope, there aint.

As a side note, if you haven't gone through and tighened up all the rivets, you should. GluVit will stop most leaks but it won't make loose rivits go away. They will just continue to get worse.

 

[DJ]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

Very cool. Nice work.

It's all in the details!

 

[North Beach]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

Thanks DJ!

SS, what do you mean by 80 grit open coat? And my meeting in DC was re-scheduled for tomorrow, so I'll be talking with the folks at West Marine about paint then.

The sanding and blasting is making such a mess, I think I'll try and get that phase finished or close to finished before I apply the Gluvit. The deck wood has been in the shop air drying for about three weeks and I still need to cut and seal it. Another week or so of tearing things up, ordering stuff, and general prep and we should make the turn to actually putting things back together

 

[sschefer]

Re: 66 Starcraft Sunchief Re-Build

Thanks DJ!

SS, what do you mean by 80 grit open coat?

Open coat is a generic term more or less for not being water proof. Just get production grade paper. It's cheaper and for what you're doing works fine.

Before you talk paint with West Marine, talk with a pro. Go to www.yachpaint.com and send them the specs on your boat and tell them what you expect from the product. They will tell you exactly what you need and recommended the correct products.

My first correspondence with them gave me several options. From that it was easy to determine the correct route for me. I then told them my plans and they fine tuned them for me. Following that I sent the spec's on my boat and they created a list of products and amounts that I would need. They left nothing to doubt and I know I will have exactly what I need. I did order the product through West Marine since Yachpaints is the manufacturers site and not a point of sale.