1988 wellcraft bowrider to cuddy" conversion (Splashed)

[mickyryan]

just getting back into boating, my daughters are now 17 and 19 so i feel i can take more risks
got boat last week,she gave it to me but i gave them 200 dollars to go get dinner or something.
Was pretty awesome she had all the original paperwork and logs of history on boat .
First thing i did is replaced spring on trailer so i could drag it home.
next tagged in my name as well as trailer,
following night i used marvel mystery oil and pb blaster to try to un sieze the engine that had sat for 4 yrs, no go after half hour gave up ,try tomorrow.
tomorrow comes Im ancy i go out and hit starter and got sprayed with pb and marvel mystery oil but didn't care she was broke loose .
Decided to try to start it with starter fluid just to see if shed fire up ... it did
Saturday morning i woke, hit home depot got wood and all the things i would need to yank engine and out drive i made a 4x6 beam with 4x4 posts and a electric winch to yank motor, then decided to yank trailer from under it so broke out my engine lift and lifted bow with that and the stern with the new beam , worked like a charm. i will pop pics up soon.

 

[mickyryan]

I was trying to find a supplier for old Wellcraft parts or aftermarket to replace dash and gauges , the trim pieces are warped , at this point I might just make another top half of boat and do it differently then original making the dashes and getting rid of the bow rider part, its kinda sad that finding parts for boats isn't as easy as it is for cars for restoration.

its a 17 footer so not a boatload of room but its fun project so far.

I wouldn't mind making it into having a pilothouse or a older style mini cabin hard top, is this hull good for that kinda thing or am I going to regret it?

 

[mickyryan]

No Title

 

[Vintage Rider]

"Just needs a little work!" Where have I heard that before? Nice looking boat and a very good price. If it were mine I'd keep it a bowrider. As you've already noted, not a ton of room now, less with the bow enclosed.

 

[mickyryan]

true, I think ill just keep it as is, it was mainly to get my feet wet anyways for bigger project plus like fact its small enough to hide behind my fence

 

[mickyryan]

No Title

figured out why everything failed after many years , the foam holes were never epoxy over and the screws ran in were never sealed including the depthfiner in transom and the other stuff they screwed in instead of epoxying on. had oak stringers.
today I got the stringers out ,
sawzaw long blade demo, occilating tool for foam that was left after saw zawing most of it out ,
I'm wanting to leave as much fiberglass that was around stringers 1/4 at bottom as a place holder and for the pb when I install new ones , is that ok or do I need to grind everything back to the hull.
I'm leary of grinding that close and going thru hull plus I figured the glass is on there very well why grind it off

 

[mickyryan]

transom cut ready to go back in as well as front stringers and ribs I'm going to install the transom first then the ribs and stringers but leave out the ribs and stringers between transom and engine compartment till last so I can work on transom and stringers same time . all the cut wood is presently in my airtight shed with a deyhydrater on so it should dry out wood np if it even needs to .

 

[produceguy]

Nice looking boat. I don't recall seeing anyone disassemble a I/o like that before. I'm sure someone on here has I'm just impressed.

 

[mickyryan]

No Title

well I have the stringers bedded and transom replaced now getting ready to build the motor mount and the 2 connecting stringers from transom to rest of frame, I purposely cut the stringers shallow as to sit on a bed of fillet material apr 1" to keep them from ever sitting in water, I am trying to decide if I want to include drain holes on each cavity or make them airtight removing need for foam.
If I go with foam I will drill a couple holes in the fillet material to allow for each area to have drainage.

The deck will be 3/4 because lets be honest, not too many skinny people around and I don't want a flexing and cracking deck.

 

[Woodonglass]

Wow!!! That's gunna be a LOT of PB Filleting!!! A LOT more than's needed!!! 1/4" is plenty since you'll be encapsulating everything in two layers of resin and glass. This will help a lot...Fabricating Decks, Stringers, and Transoms. If you do the glassing properly you won't have any worries about anything getting wet again. I'd highly recommend putting foam under the deck. Either the 2 part pour in stuff or the Pink or Blue Slab foam from the BigBox Stores.

 

[mickyryan]

I debated for like a week about just that and came to conclusion if I kept the wood high and dry it would never rot also I will be using glue for deck to stringers limiting chances of rot that way as well the only thing I have yet to decide is if I make the areas water/airtight to get away from foam or use foam and put small holes through pb for drainage in event I get a failure someplace.
Btw Wood, your pb is much easier to work with then bondo glass and I had the thrill of figuring out it was a waxed product after I had used it ! lol so had to resand and clean up before I just made my own!
I have 1708 to layup(will do 2 pieces each side) with and 6 oz fabric to top off with. pre coated all wood first with thinned resin.

 

[mickyryan]

its been about 24 hrs since I glassed it wasn't able to get to it yesterday do I need to sand the polyester or will acetone make it grab by itself again it does get sticky when whiped with acetone?
I will probably attempt the 2part foam , like you say if done right shouldn't get wet again plus I like fact that it does quiet the boat some as well and gives support however slight it cant hurt

 

[mickyryan]

I am using this as a learning boat today I learned not to answer phone while just mixing a batch of pb , lol
also learned gloves are not created equal ! these gloves I purchased are medium duty and man they rip so easily.

next thing I learned is you can never go wrong with a nice fillet radius to glass out on , a couple were tight and although they looked good I still got a couple air pockets to grind out and fill in I guess.

 

[Woodonglass]

No need to sand. Quick wipe down with acetone and you're good to go. Again, the Large fillets are really not going to ensure the stringers won't get wet any more than the normal 1/4" fillets. The encapsulation of the Resin and 1708 glass fabric is what keeps them water tight. As long as that barrier is not broken then there's no way for water to get to the wood core. The fillets are there to make it easy for the fabric to transition to the hull and to keep the wood from riding on the hull creating "Hard Spots" that could potentially damage the fiberglass.

 

[mickyryan]

awesome yeah next boat I will definitely keep em closer to hull, super happy with way things are coming along so far except the air pockets in a couple spots but I will get them taken care of

 

[mickyryan]

No Title

 

[mickyryan]

think my dog stole my 6 " roll of fabric
anyways got the transom on with np again I'm really hating this 1708 seems it always wants to have air bubbles here and there , think its going well will post pics when I remember to bring phone in
think tomorrow I will just pick up some csm and fabric and do over top of stringers and another layer on the transom, feel transom is rock solid but needs another layer on inside

 

[Woodonglass]

What's your process for laying the 1708?

 

[mickyryan]

sand lightely to scuff, clean with acetone then wet the previous layer, then apply the 1708 with roller give it a generous amount of resin, wait for it to clear go back over the spots that wont turn clear then after all is wetted I take and roll it down moving from inside to out to remove the bubbles

 

[mickyryan]

I added microspheres to the glass not sure why but it seems to be working better ? then just strait resin
I am probably overkilling it anyways with 2 layers of 1708 and the csm on 3/4 " stringers , if they were bigger stringers it would probably be easy , also I did use my router and half rounded all the tops of stringers.