Found a Starcraft Mariner 220 '76 ... let it begin

[jonnyfish]

Wow, it's crazy to see how long it was since I posted last.

Long story short, I punted on this project last year as I ran out of time before fishing season and wanted badly to get on the water with my new boat.

Let's just stop there, I LOVE this boat. It handles big water and big waves like a charm, and I definitely feel like i have control over the vessel fighting big waves. Absolutely everything I wanted out of the boat.

As you can imagine, i was boating on borrowed time with that transom, it has likely gotten worse than last summer, but oh man, it is definitely time for a new transom. Thankfully nothing bad ever happened when I was on the water, at the time I wasn't sure if was on borrowed time or not, but now seeing the wood, I can safely say that was a gamble, and will never do it again :\ On the bright side I caught my biggest fish to date in this boat, so you know it's a keeper.

The good news is the project is in full effect!! I had some awesome help from a good friend of mine who is a great problem solver and is stubborn when it comes to kinks in a plan, which was perfect, he had a motor lift, which was the main tool needed to get this project into full swing.

I've gotten the old transom off, which was a minor headache. ALL THOSE SCREWS in the splash well, it was kind of maddening. I was lucky in that the wood was solid enough that I was able to lift it out in one piece. I also found a neat little Easter egg when I got the end caps off, the metal seemed to overlay the wood, and the two upper transom boards were inserted horizontally. I'm not sure if this was the actual practice of Starcraft or a previous owners doing but it was a real head scratcher.

I may have made the wrong choice, but I cut the extra metal, to get the transom out, it did not seem structural, and was more of a pain than anything.

Next up, cut and seal the new lumber for the new transom.

Pics in the following post.

 

[jonnyfish]

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[MD28]

Welcome back Jonny. That is Starcraft practice I believe. It probably was easier to install in the assembly or just cheaper. I don’t know why the aluminum was run over the transom like that, but mine was the same. I believe that is a Starcraft assembly thing too. I cut mine as well and made the new transom with one solid piece. That is the standard procedure here I think.

 

[Watermann]

Welcome back, looks like you have some corrosion to clean up on the inner transom skin. All that white on the wood will correspond to corrosion damage on the AL skin. You can't do a very good job cleaning that off with the splashwell still in there.

 

[jonnyfish]

What is the best way to clean that corrosion up? Using a radial sander or the like?

 

[Candutch]

Welcome back Johnny. That is a nice musky you got there or one monster northern pime, can't tell on my phone that we'll.
To clean the corrosion I wire wheeled it off then wiped with acetone and skimmed the badly pitted spots with JB Weld.

 

[Candutch]

Northern pike...what the heck is a pime.

 

[MD28]

Looked like a musky to me. What did you do with that beast? I’d hang it on the wall for sure!

 

[jonnyfish]

Yes it was a musky. 48 inches and very fat. I released it, haven't had a replica made yet but I still consider it about once every other week haha, it was a beast.

 

[jonnyfish]

So, I do have a question that I would like everyone to chime in on. And would really appreciate a better understanding of, however much knowledge you guys can provide would be awesome.

My buddy and I continue to go back and forth on the wooden board on the outside of the stern. Earlier in this post, a few different people chimed in and said they omitted this in their rebuild. Ultimately, this is what I wanted to do. One or two cited that the pressure from the motor on that wood causes splintering, which in turn will introduce rot. This makes perfect sense to me and seems like a bad idea.

However, my friends main point is that it adds structural strength to the transom, and says, if it was originally engineered this way it was done for a reason. The latter part I'm more skeptical of, after seeing some of the oddities in how they installed the upper transom wings, separately.

So I go back in forth between extra strength, and having it rot out, and then of course having to take the motor off again (so fun).

I think one person mentioned they replaced it with something other than wood, I'm very interested in this concept. What was the material? Is it something I can buy and cut myself? If I could find a material that would not splinter and rot, but still add some of the extra strength on the stern, it feels like a win win.

I might be overthinking this a little bit, but I know I have a good boat on my hands, and I want to do everything I can to make it last for a long time.

As always, thank you guys for your knowledge and willingness to share.

 

[Watermann]

On the transom motor pad, that 3/8" home plate sized piece of plywood on the outside of the transom adds absolutely nothing in the way of structural strength. What it added was a sooner or later failure point as that is a constant wet area of the boat. The wood will rot and become as area for corrosion to get a foot hold.

These pads are not used on SC boats now.

On my SS I replaced the pad with .100 AL but only because the transom had non BIA standard holes for mounting a dorm fridge motor and there was pitting caused by the wood. The plate is completely back buttered with 5200 so no water will get between it and the transom skin.

This is how it looked after paint.

 

[jonnyfish]

Nice, I'm guessing that was a custom job, unless you have the skillset and tools to do that yourself.

Approximately how much did it cost to have that piece cut?

I may forego it, it's just hard to do when I have someone bugging me about it telling me i should replace it, lol.

 

[BWR1953]

Nice, I'm guessing that was a custom job, unless you have the skillset and tools to do that yourself.

Approximately how much did it cost to have that piece cut?

I may forego it, it's just hard to do when I have someone bugging me about it telling me i should replace it, lol.

Ohhh... he has the skill set all right. :eagerness:

 

[Watermann]

I have my very own stockpile of 5052 AL in different gauges. I used my table saw with a non-ferrous metal cutting blade to make the cuts so it cost me nothing but my time.

Many have deleted the motor pad from their builds and I would've too if not for the reasons I had but no way would I put one on made of plywood or any other material that is subject to failure in the future.

Here is the pad all clamped up until the 5200 set.

 

[jonnyfish]

Thank you for your insight waterman, I'll need to investigate closely the next time i work on it in the coming weeks. My initial thought is that there is nothing on the metal that is bad enough to warrant a large aluminum patch/plate, similar to what you have fashioned.

Seems like all signs from you guys are pointing to deleting that piece all together. Not sure why it makes me so nervous but clearly I need to get over it.

 

[nrf414]

jonnyfish beautiful mariner. Look to find one for my next build. Delete the spare timber on the transom. You will sleep better at night knowing you have removed the fail point and your hard work is not being wasted.

Awesome musky too btw. We dream of landing fish like that.

My SS build is my first. I can tell you though that without a supportive network of people like the ones on iboats and local Starcraft friends I would have probably given up already. There's so many learning opportunities about different things. It's a great experience and in the end you have the pride of knowing you built it.

 

[jonnyfish]

Thanks nrf414. It is so valuable and appreciated to have a community like this available. Many of these projects are daunting, but the idea of restoring a boat to what it should be is very cool.

I took a peak at your restoration project and it looks awesome! I'm very jealous of all the paint jobs on here and am hopeful I will be able to do that to my boat at some point, it would be cool to give it a fresh new look.

Thanks for your input on the back transom board, it makes me feel better knowing guys generally delete it, and it does nothing good for the boat.

 

[nrf414]

Yep it's a labor of love for sure. It's awesome when it's done though. It's not that hard, just gotta stay with it and heed the cheap advice

 

[jonnyfish]

Small update this weekend, didn't have a ton of time but the weather was nice so I was able to cut the transom.

I'm slightly nervous about dropping it in when it's all done, I'm unsure if how precise everything must be.

Hoping I'm close though

 

[jonnyfish]

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