Finished up my little FD project this spring, the hours spent on it were a bit more than I had planned on but the end result was worth it. Started first with the 1973 Shore Station trailer, Shore Station was a brand of Midwest Ind, later in the 70’s they launched the Shorelandr brand that most are a bit more familiar with. It was a nice little trailer, very sound mechanically other than the bunks being in poor shape. This trailer is built ridiculously heavy, nothing like the new Shorelandr’s you would get with a 14 foot boat. The tongue is 3”x3” and very thick steel, the leaf springs have 4 leafs, the sticker shows this trailer rated at 3060lbs with a single axle 6ply tire, 6120 with tandem axles 6 play tire, even with the single axle its way over kill for the 500lb FD rig. I took the trailer down almost to bare metal, any are that’s had a little rust went bare and was primed, the areas where the original paint was perfectly intact I scuffed. I grinded the welds for the tongue coupler and replaced with a bolt on unit so I can easily replace if it ever gets rusty or worn out again. Every single nut and bolt was replaced, all the rollers replaced, bunks rebuilt. I also treated it to a nice set of aluminum wheels.
The big surprise on the boat was just how many rivets had to be replaced to get the inner transom out. I replicated the original inner with 1” birch appleply, then sealed it with a bunch of coats of the same epoxy polyurethane paint used on the hull and trailer, I then bonded a 1/8” sheet of aluminum to the front face protect the wood from the motor clamps. I replaced all the rivets with stainless binding posts and aluminum backup washers. The outer transom board was done in 3/8 birch applyply and again, many many coats of paint, I hit this outboard with a medium texture, looks great. The paint I used was an industrial paint from Cardinal, 63MGE Aliphatic acrylic polyurethane. I have no idea how this paint till hold up on a boat but the price was right as I had it left over from other projects. I used their wash primer for all the aluminum stuff and it seems to be holding up well. I first sprayed the inside a medium grey, then painted the bottom a silver, then the black color stripe and lastly the gunnels and other trim in the silver from the bottom. I spent a considerable amount of time making the wooden caps for the seats, the tops were pretty banged up for 4.5 decades of hard use. I routers every edge and did a seamless cover job with marine carpet, lots of heat, pulling and stretching but it worked out well.
I had a local graphics guy custom make the decals, they were done in a carbon fiber theme and the reg numbers match the Alumacraft decal. All in all it turned out pretty nice, most people think it’s a new boat, have had a few older guys ask where they can get a new boat like that. I designed and built some rod holder mounts that fit the oarlocks. Rebuilt the carbs on the 2002 Honda 25, also updated the decals on the Honda to a later style. I paid right around $2k for the boat motor and trailer, spent another $1k in bringing it up to this condition, the wheels/tires and decals were the most expensive line items, but Iin the end it ended up being a pretty nice little rig for around $3k. I need to work on getting some more weight up front or getting it trimmed right, but I have seen 29mph on the GPS and that was before I rebuilt the carbs, I think shes got a little more in it. Also thinking about experimenting with some different props, has a 9.75 X 12 on there now, just got a Tiny Tach in the mail so planning on seeing where Im at on that front. It was a fun little project.
The big surprise on the boat was just how many rivets had to be replaced to get the inner transom out. I replicated the original inner with 1” birch appleply, then sealed it with a bunch of coats of the same epoxy polyurethane paint used on the hull and trailer, I then bonded a 1/8” sheet of aluminum to the front face protect the wood from the motor clamps. I replaced all the rivets with stainless binding posts and aluminum backup washers. The outer transom board was done in 3/8 birch applyply and again, many many coats of paint, I hit this outboard with a medium texture, looks great. The paint I used was an industrial paint from Cardinal, 63MGE Aliphatic acrylic polyurethane. I have no idea how this paint till hold up on a boat but the price was right as I had it left over from other projects. I used their wash primer for all the aluminum stuff and it seems to be holding up well. I first sprayed the inside a medium grey, then painted the bottom a silver, then the black color stripe and lastly the gunnels and other trim in the silver from the bottom. I spent a considerable amount of time making the wooden caps for the seats, the tops were pretty banged up for 4.5 decades of hard use. I routers every edge and did a seamless cover job with marine carpet, lots of heat, pulling and stretching but it worked out well.
I had a local graphics guy custom make the decals, they were done in a carbon fiber theme and the reg numbers match the Alumacraft decal. All in all it turned out pretty nice, most people think it’s a new boat, have had a few older guys ask where they can get a new boat like that. I designed and built some rod holder mounts that fit the oarlocks. Rebuilt the carbs on the 2002 Honda 25, also updated the decals on the Honda to a later style. I paid right around $2k for the boat motor and trailer, spent another $1k in bringing it up to this condition, the wheels/tires and decals were the most expensive line items, but Iin the end it ended up being a pretty nice little rig for around $3k. I need to work on getting some more weight up front or getting it trimmed right, but I have seen 29mph on the GPS and that was before I rebuilt the carbs, I think shes got a little more in it. Also thinking about experimenting with some different props, has a 9.75 X 12 on there now, just got a Tiny Tach in the mail so planning on seeing where Im at on that front. It was a fun little project.
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