Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

[850Merc]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

Very nice SS you have here, it has to be my boats twin. Enjoy the project, I'll be following along.

For the record I put 1/2" MDO on mine and the deck is very stiff (no flex that I can see, and I'm 225 lbs).

 

[sprintst]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

I went over board and did the floor in 3/4...next time 5/8 for me as well. My soggy 1/2 plywood floor had major flex.

I used templates for the floors seats, etc and burnt the old wood in my fire pit. The gunwale supports weren't bad so I just glassed them and coated them in epoxy and then reupholstered. The stainless staples are definitely a must as well as any fittings unless you aren't looking at keeping her. I'm in it for the long haul so I over did on everything like a lunatic.

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

From the Admiral & I to you & yours:

May you have a great weekend & enjoy the company of friends & family....

John

 

[SuperGrover]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

From the Admiral & I to you & yours:

May you have a great weekend & enjoy the company of friends & family....

John

Thanks John - and to you too!

 

[SuperGrover]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

Very nice SS you have here, it has to be my boats twin. Enjoy the project, I'll be following along.

Thanks! I found your restoration thread pretty early on when I joined here and thought the same thing about twin boats (sweet that your friend just gave her to you!). Thanks for posting the detailed pics too - they've helped me alot to plan before I started to dive in...

 

[SuperGrover]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

The stainless staples are definitely a must as well as any fittings unless you aren't looking at keeping her. I'm in it for the long haul so I over did on everything like a lunatic.

Yes - I'm hoping to keep her for ther long haul too (well, barring any chronic cases of 'two-foot-itus' I might catch, um... again...). 16 feet should suit me and my family just fine so I'd like her to last another 36 years. Doing it right, I don't see why she couldn't...

 

[dozerII]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

Yes - I'm hoping to keep her for ther long haul too (well, barring any chronic cases of 'two-foot-itus' I might catch, um... again...). 16 feet should suit me and my family just fine so I'd like her to last another 36 years. Doing it right, I don't see why she couldn't...

Careful SG, two-foot-itis is really easy to catch, then turns in too the dreaded MBS real easy. I found the 16 SS to be real tight for space, and as soon as I saw an 18SS I had to have one, and then I saw a 20' :facepalm:

 

[SuperGrover]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

Wow - I haven't posted in 93 days!? Hmm, even with the 90 day notice in red on the bottom of the page I think I'll keep this thread going if I can. I've gotten a little sidetracked by holidays, winter and work. Thinking too much of spring lately and I have to get back to it if she's going to be usable this summer.

Since I last posted I got the shelter up to cover the boat from the snow (finally) and took some time today to dust things off. I took out the consoles and exposed all of the forward floor that needs to come out. Will post some pics in the next few days. Last week I took delivery of a new steering cable that I ordered back in November. The old cable was seized inside the tilt tube from lack of proper maintenance and I bent the end of it trying to get it out.

I have to do some serious garage cleaning next so I can fit a 4x8 sheet of ply to cut. Well, if I can keep from browsing the Forum long enough... :facepalm:

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

The red banner isn't intended for the Original thread starter, press pause for life's interruptions & come back in 2yrs if you need to....

You'd be surprised by how many people ignore the big red banner & post into a 3+yr old thread. Asking people not to, keeps the thread relevant to the original poster's project, questions, problems, answers & solutions.

Welcome back, and pix pix pix :watermelon:

 

[Watermann]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

Very worth while project boat you have there and I'm sure you're going to enjoy the therapeutic work of boat rebuilding. Keep tearing into her and be sure to look the hull over very closely for damage. I had some cracked ribs in my SN that needed fixed. I also noticed that any loose rivets almost always had a dark circle around them from the aluminum dust oxidizing. Keep up the good work!

 

[SuperGrover]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

Thanks jbcurt - I won't sweat about the thread. I'll save the sweating for the work at hand... :joyous:

Watermann, that's a good point about the dark circles around the rivits. I'll have to see what craziness is under the floor when I pull it.

So this is where I was early this winter with the frame of the tent up:

It's pretty nice and is going to be great to keep it out of the elements. The trailer sticks out so I've just left it open on the front at one side. Plenty of room width wise though:

I marked the center line of the floor panel as the port side is really rotten but I want as much template as I can get. When I get it out I'll cut it along the line and just flip it to make the template work (in theory anyway):

 

[dozerII]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

Great to see you back on the SS SG. Looks like your weather out there is a little nicer than ours

 

[SuperGrover]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

Great to see you back on the SS SG. Looks like your weather out there is a little nicer than ours

Thanks dozer. That pic of the tent frame was taken in November (I think). This is the second uneventful winter in a row that we've had. Last year my wife was due at the start of January so I bought a snowblower to ensure a quick exit out of the driveway. We haven't had a substantial snowfall since! :facepalm:

We were supposed to have a good storm last night but it turned out to be more rain then anything. Crappy winter, but it was nice working out of the elements and I did get the floor up (in one piece too):

Took out three bags of styrofoam to the garbage:

I had to break off the foam in the center between the stringers at the floor joint but the outer foam pieces only went to that rib where new pieces are under the rear floor.
I'm pretty sure I grabbed a handful of mouse nest/poop out of the foam. :twitch:
I'm pleasantly surprised at how quickly the disassembly is going. The rivets drilled out quickly and the floor popped off without much trouble at all. Next is a good scrubbing and vaccuming.

Now to go shopping for Gluvit... Comon spring sales!!

 

[SuperGrover]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

So I made a little bit of progress this weekend.

I found that most of the marine stores in Sarnia sell only West System epoxy and their prices are all over the place. A gallon of 105 can range from $80 to $100! :greedy_dollars: I was hoping to try something different, but I do have some West already and it's probably best not to get started with all the products in a new system. Ordering these kind of supplies online is still expensive when you factor in shipping and, surprise, surprise, not everyone will ship hazardous materials to Canada. Even trying to order from West Marine it comes from the US (according to the pop ups).

We had our first beautiful spring-like day today and I'm happy to announce that the temp in the tent was quite a bit higher than outside or the garage. That's to be expected, but a nice surprise. Looks like I 'll be able to epoxy sooner then I had thought!

I started the restructuring of the forward floor supports using some 1.5" channel aluminum:

The crosspiece was a little challenging to measure and fit (thus, the persuasion marks on it):

I'm only taking the floor as far forward as the marks at the red arrow instead of all the way past the original floor rivets at the blue arrow. The plan is to create a 'wet' anchor locker with clear access for water travel to the bilge (stay tuned):

It looks like the next step is going shopping for plywood, etc...:bolt:

 

[SuperGrover]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

Finally some time to make a bit of progress on Whippoorwill.

I hooked up the Springbok to the van and headed to Lowes to pick up some plywood. Every time I do this I get comments - this time it was a guy who understood and mentioned how they are good for everything. Yup - it's a utility trailer that floats...

Two sheets of 23/32" AraucoPly - nice stuff but I'm surprised that I had to weed through a few before I found a couple of nice flat ones:

The original had dried out a bit since I had taken it out and I cut it in half to use the good half as a template:

I went from the original 1/2" plywood to pretty much 3/4" which was going to affect the template. I got the original angle of the cut:

and transferred that to the new plywood:

The new wood is two plys thicker then the old stuff and I added about 5/32" to the template:

Although I marked them on the template, I didn't cut out the notches for the ribs right away. I wanted to test fit it first and I'm glad I did...

 

[SuperGrover]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

I marked on the hull at the center point of each rib and just double checked it with what I had drawn from the old floor. It was pretty off on a few ribs. On the forward two ribs (on the main piece of plywood), the cutouts were obviously needed. Even though I cut them out a little smaller than the original, they are still a little big. I used a piece of aluminum angle I had to check if the floor really needed to be notched for the other ribs:

No, no, no and yes:

 

[SuperGrover]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

So I only notched one more. It looks goofy (which will bug the heck out of me :facepalm but it will be level and solid:

I had to pry the aluminum at the bottoms of the side panels up to get the floor in the proper place. You can see I've used the clamp ends to keep them up.

It's the most solid she's been in a long time I think. It's a ways from being finished but it's still nice to stand on it and feel it solid underfoot.

I want to take advantage of the time I have this weekend to measure (twice!) and cut plywood so the next step was dry fitting the consoles back in place to get new measurements for the wood panels on them. I'm going to raise them so the water properly drains from the bow cover and I've read enough posts of people having difficulty getting their windshields to fit after they have them out.

When I epoxy the floor I'm going to glue blocks to fasten the inner console panels to (another reason for the dry fit).

I was worried about the windshield screw at the rear brace (shown above the motor control) but there were absolutely no issues with it lining up or fastening even with a height change :whoo:.

 

[SuperGrover]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

Strange - the forum software is having trouble counting the number of pictures in my posts, causing me to cut and paste over and over again....

The water should drain better like this:

I'll bring the wood up higher on this one:

She seems to fit pretty well (knocking wood here):

That's all for now. Happy Easter everyone!

 

[lakelover]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

So I only notched one more. It looks goofy (which will bug the heck out of me :facepalm

It's good to see all your progress. As I went through my boat fixing things up, I noticed a lot of places in the original manufacturing that was asymmetrical or plain out-of-whack. Especially rivets---in a lot of cases it looked like the riveter had a hangover that day or something. I guess the manufacturers know it's not rocket science and their goal is to punch out as many as they can as fast as they can, hopefully while still maintaining some level of quality standards.

I have a lot of places in mine that are "my little secret", and once I realized that no one but me would probably even notice them, I could relax a little. :laugh:

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Another beloved Starcraft SS16 restoration started...

Strange - the forum software is having trouble counting the number of pictures in my posts, causing me to cut and paste over and over again....

FYI, smilies count as pics.