screwloose
Seaman Apprentice
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2012
- Messages
- 38
I figured I'd post this over here, I had posted a few questions about it before I bought it about the way the new transom was redone but got no real replies.
Its a 15' Starcraft, the title says 1960, it measures just a bit over 15', its 6' wide at the windshield, and has a 15" transom.
It was originally for sale on CL with a manual start 33hp, it was for sale for a long time with no takers at $1300 with a running motor ready to use. The seller finally sold the motor separate and offered the boat for $500 cash with no motor, no trailer.
The boat has a new transom, and new deck. The deck is 1/2" plywood with a layer or two of glass mat and resin on both sides, glassed in place.
The transom now is the odd part, the guy who owned this worked for a fiberglass shop that did a lot of heavy truck work and some older Corvette restoration work. My guess is that the transom failed, so he fixed it the only way he knew how, with fiberglass he had on hand. What he did was to cut away the damaged area, basically the immediate area around the motor, he then dug out the old wood core, then he laid up a new transom using both glass mat, and premade fiberglass panels meant for trailer repairs on semi trailers. I think the result was about 7 layers of both glass and heavily sanded fiberglass panels cut to fit snugly in the transom cavity. He then glassed up and closed up the torn out section of the outer transom skin. This was all done several years ago and the boat has been in use with a 33hp Evinrude for some time now.
He had pics of the whole process, and the fact that its lasted this long pretty much eased my mind on the method.
It no doubt added weight but certainly no more weight than a wet wood transom would ad, and at that, I doubt it could have added more than maybe 20 or so lbs over the original plywood core.
The only part I wish he did was to make it a 20" transom.
I now need to find a motor suitable for this boat, the 33hp was pretty fast, it moved the boat in the 30 mph range but that's going by the GPS in my phone.
I drove it when he first listed it but wasn't too fond of the manual start motor, or the short transom but after he sold the motor, and I found a trailer elsewhere we made a trade and money exchanged hands. I had a tractor for sale for the same amount, and what it boils down to is that I'd have taken $200 for the tractor but had it listed high. I'm sure he felt the same way about the boat. Guessing by the sale sign in front of his house and a for sale sign on every car in the yard, he either needed cash or was moving. Either way, I now own a 1960 Starcraft.
The boat looks to have had two bench seats, they're gone and the new deck has two steel pedestals and two padded fold down seats. They work but attached to the 1/2" floor with my 300lbs on them will no doubt make them flex a bit more than I like. The last owner did put a backing plate on the bottom side of the new deck, but my guess is that its only 3/16" aluminum plate attached to the underside. The seat posts have stainless studs sticking up and nylock nuts and washers holding the seat posts down. The seats actually felt better on the water than sitting on the trailer for some reason.
I thought about maybe putting in a set of back to back seats so I have a reverse fishing seat as well. The boat also came with a matching Bimini top.
Repairs are mainly going to be paint, the whole boat was at one point repainted, both the top blue, and lower white paint are peeling, apparently it wasn't sanded at all. The bottom paint blasts right off with a pressure washer. Removing the paint shows a few patch jobs on the keel, but nothing big and the repairs look old. The last owner said he never got around to painting it, but gave me 2 quarts of blue and a gallon and a half of white Sherwin Williams automotive paint and hardener with the boat. He also gave me a blue/gray color paint he intended to use on the deck.
The boat has its original cable steering, which is intact and in good shape, I'll probably leave it since I sort of liked the slower ratio it gives vs. a Teleflex cable.
I also got a complete extra set of trim, a new rub rail, and set of new cleats with the boat.
The existing rub rail is rough, its broke and cracked in a few spots and is cut short at the rear. The spare one however is painted black with thick paint. I have to find a way to strip off the black paint and polish up the metal before mounting it.
My big question is what size motor to look for? I don't care about how fast it goes, but I do want to be able to get on plane. I have a 25hp Mercury but its a long shaft. The only short shaft motor I have for remote control is an older 20hp Mercury.
I was thinking about making a riser panel, one that fills the whole width of the splashwell opening, to both raise the transom so I can use a 20" motor, and one that will deflect water a bit but just putting a 5" riser won't have enough strength,so the next thing would be to make an adapter bracket off the back and set the motor back a bit and up a few inches. What he should have done was to build the whole transom up to 20" but I guess since he had the short 33hp, he just left it 15".
I'd love to find a good four stroke for this but I doubt I'd find an affordable used short shaft remote type four stroke motor for sale.
Its a 15' Starcraft, the title says 1960, it measures just a bit over 15', its 6' wide at the windshield, and has a 15" transom.
It was originally for sale on CL with a manual start 33hp, it was for sale for a long time with no takers at $1300 with a running motor ready to use. The seller finally sold the motor separate and offered the boat for $500 cash with no motor, no trailer.
The boat has a new transom, and new deck. The deck is 1/2" plywood with a layer or two of glass mat and resin on both sides, glassed in place.
The transom now is the odd part, the guy who owned this worked for a fiberglass shop that did a lot of heavy truck work and some older Corvette restoration work. My guess is that the transom failed, so he fixed it the only way he knew how, with fiberglass he had on hand. What he did was to cut away the damaged area, basically the immediate area around the motor, he then dug out the old wood core, then he laid up a new transom using both glass mat, and premade fiberglass panels meant for trailer repairs on semi trailers. I think the result was about 7 layers of both glass and heavily sanded fiberglass panels cut to fit snugly in the transom cavity. He then glassed up and closed up the torn out section of the outer transom skin. This was all done several years ago and the boat has been in use with a 33hp Evinrude for some time now.
He had pics of the whole process, and the fact that its lasted this long pretty much eased my mind on the method.
It no doubt added weight but certainly no more weight than a wet wood transom would ad, and at that, I doubt it could have added more than maybe 20 or so lbs over the original plywood core.
The only part I wish he did was to make it a 20" transom.
I now need to find a motor suitable for this boat, the 33hp was pretty fast, it moved the boat in the 30 mph range but that's going by the GPS in my phone.
I drove it when he first listed it but wasn't too fond of the manual start motor, or the short transom but after he sold the motor, and I found a trailer elsewhere we made a trade and money exchanged hands. I had a tractor for sale for the same amount, and what it boils down to is that I'd have taken $200 for the tractor but had it listed high. I'm sure he felt the same way about the boat. Guessing by the sale sign in front of his house and a for sale sign on every car in the yard, he either needed cash or was moving. Either way, I now own a 1960 Starcraft.
The boat looks to have had two bench seats, they're gone and the new deck has two steel pedestals and two padded fold down seats. They work but attached to the 1/2" floor with my 300lbs on them will no doubt make them flex a bit more than I like. The last owner did put a backing plate on the bottom side of the new deck, but my guess is that its only 3/16" aluminum plate attached to the underside. The seat posts have stainless studs sticking up and nylock nuts and washers holding the seat posts down. The seats actually felt better on the water than sitting on the trailer for some reason.
I thought about maybe putting in a set of back to back seats so I have a reverse fishing seat as well. The boat also came with a matching Bimini top.
Repairs are mainly going to be paint, the whole boat was at one point repainted, both the top blue, and lower white paint are peeling, apparently it wasn't sanded at all. The bottom paint blasts right off with a pressure washer. Removing the paint shows a few patch jobs on the keel, but nothing big and the repairs look old. The last owner said he never got around to painting it, but gave me 2 quarts of blue and a gallon and a half of white Sherwin Williams automotive paint and hardener with the boat. He also gave me a blue/gray color paint he intended to use on the deck.
The boat has its original cable steering, which is intact and in good shape, I'll probably leave it since I sort of liked the slower ratio it gives vs. a Teleflex cable.
I also got a complete extra set of trim, a new rub rail, and set of new cleats with the boat.
The existing rub rail is rough, its broke and cracked in a few spots and is cut short at the rear. The spare one however is painted black with thick paint. I have to find a way to strip off the black paint and polish up the metal before mounting it.
My big question is what size motor to look for? I don't care about how fast it goes, but I do want to be able to get on plane. I have a 25hp Mercury but its a long shaft. The only short shaft motor I have for remote control is an older 20hp Mercury.
I was thinking about making a riser panel, one that fills the whole width of the splashwell opening, to both raise the transom so I can use a 20" motor, and one that will deflect water a bit but just putting a 5" riser won't have enough strength,so the next thing would be to make an adapter bracket off the back and set the motor back a bit and up a few inches. What he should have done was to build the whole transom up to 20" but I guess since he had the short 33hp, he just left it 15".
I'd love to find a good four stroke for this but I doubt I'd find an affordable used short shaft remote type four stroke motor for sale.