Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

[laurentide]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

Your new steering wheel is sweet!

Thanks, it wasn't that expensive, either...I think $55? It was an amazon prime free shipping item (best pay service ever, IMHO).

Chem - I would get some of the Marine-Clean. It's solvent that breaks down sludge and de-greases, very important. The Prep & Ready is equivalent to self etching primer for the tank. It gives the tooth for the sealer to stick to.

Marine clean can be bought from POR for $23/gal. You might find it cheaper searching with Google.

How big is you tank? The mind is failing. :faint2:

I'll trade you my free advice for that awesome wheel. Deal?

Sorry, I can't put a price on your invaluable free advice

The tank is 18 gallons, so I'll just get a gallon. You're right, it's about $25 with shipping: POR-15 Marine Clean Gallon

Thanks gents.

EDIT: I can get this stuff at the Lowes a mile down the road from me tonight: http://www.lowes.com/pd_369895-531-ZUCIT128_0__?productId=3621280#BVRRWidgetID It's also an aqueous solvent, and gets high marks on some of the auto restoration forums I just checked out. I'll give it a shot and report my findings.

 

[dozerII]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

Gotta love when the mail man brings good things for boat building.

 

[laurentide]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

Gotta love when the mail man brings good things for boat building.

Yeah, 'cause by then you've already forgotten the beating your wallet (or major CC) took a few days ago

But for real, it's like christmas for grown ups (a term I use loosely for myself).

 

[GA_Boater]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

No more free advice for you, buddy. :lol: Since Zep is an "aqueous solvent" it sounds boaty to me. Zep is a good product - one of the old timey cleaners. Heck yeah, give it a shot. That will be a nickle, no high techery involved.

 

[jigngrub]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

Don't neglect to do the outside of that tank too.

Aluminum primer, primer, and maybe a nice flame paint job

 

[laurentide]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

No more free advice for you, buddy. :lol: Since Zep is an "aqueous solvent" it sounds boaty to me. Zep is a good product - one of the old timey cleaners. Heck yeah, give it a shot. That will be a nickle, no high techery involved.

So, no bit coin then? As if I even knew how to get those....

Don't neglect to do the outside of that tank too.

Aluminum primer, primer, and maybe a nice flame paint job

:lol: Yeah, I'll wet sand it down and do just that.

It took a LOT of sanding, and I ended up just going back to the sanding sponge to be more aggressive, but I'm pretty happy with the primer surface right now. I still need to mist a couple of spots with more SE where I went a little too far, but I'm ready for top coat on the hull tomorrow. Not sure if I'll have time to finish coat the topside tomorrow....the daylight hours really just fly by when you're doing this stuff.

 

[jigngrub]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

It took a LOT of sanding, and I ended up just going back to the sanding sponge to be more aggressive, but I'm pretty happy with the primer surface right now. I still need to mist a couple of spots with more SE where I went a little too far, but I'm ready for top coat on the hull tomorrow. Not sure if I'll have time to finish coat the topside tomorrow....the daylight hours really just fly by when you're doing this stuff.

I was talking about the fuel tank and not the hull... and what're you doing futzing around painting the hull anyway??? I thought we were going to let the rough end drag on that and wait 'til winter to paint the hull so we could work on the inside and get this jewel on the water quicker!

If you don't hurry up the toxic blue-green algae of summer is going to take over lake Champlain and the won't be any fish left to catch except Bowfin!:laugh:

 

[laurentide]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

Yeah jig, I got a little carried away on the exterior work, and then spring kept letting winter back in. I am at least at the putting it back together part. I would have been waiting to epoxy all this time, anyway :couch2:

No joke about the algae, man. We don't get it as bad as Erie here, but it's a problem every year.

 

[jigngrub]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

I was just giving you a hard time (in a friendly way) about the paint because I am anxious to see the insides start.

 

[laurentide]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

Well, kind of a bummer here. I totally dropped the ball on the hull paint today. I started with the roll-roll method until I realized just how lacking my prep work was, and, knowing that a quality gloss finish was gonna be impossible, I just continued with a couple of foam brushes. I'll give myself a D grade here, but only because I may be able to fix it later. I don't think I'll have any adhesion issues in other words.

All I can do now is let it cure and figure out how I'm going to fix it. One nice thing about the bare metal bottom is that I can do this later in the summer while it's on the trailer.

The disappointing results (it was really hard to capture the true crappitude of my work due to the sun being behind most of it):

It doesn't look awful from a distance:

But here's one of the really bad spots...this is the worst of it:

Bottom line, I can live with it for now, but it's gonna bug me every time I look at it. I have enough of the paint I mixed left over to do another couple of coats, so I'm probably going to wet sand and buff to see what I can salvage.

Let's see if I can manage to not mess up the topside paint this bad. I couldn't do it today 'cause I just had to walk away at a certain point

Cheers.

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

Whelp, from WV I can't see anything that'll drive ya crazy when you look at it, you are probably a harsher critic then we'll be. But this is 1 reason many paint the bottom side 1st... You won't be able see it from the helm And also why most use more then 1 coat after primer, practice practice practice. Good news is it's 'only' paint, and clearly ya know how to remove that

Like you said though, at least w/ a bare bottom, it'll be much easier fix working on the trailer, mask off below the chine & get after it...

Wet sanding will hopefully get all but the absolute worst problems. Did you decide yes or no @hardener? If no, it may be a few days (maybe longer) before you can wet sand.

Again looks good from WV

For rough & ready it looks great....

 

[GA_Boater]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

Looks even better from GA, Chem. Wet sanding with really fine wet/dry paper can make a big difference. Wait a while to make sure its good and cured, also lots and lots of water with a light touch.

 

[laurentide]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

Thanks guys, that makes me feel a bit better. And, after all my blabber-mouth antics about the hardener....I used it Respo, gloves, no ill effects.

I like the comment about not being able to see it from the helm!

Yeah, I'll get after it with some super fine paper when it's hard.

 

[laurentide]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

Couple of gear questions: any reason to not use a very old vhf antenna? It's an 8'er, I believe, which would be more than adequate on this lake.

Also, has anyone used one of these? Amazon.com: Uniden UM380 Class D Full - Feature Fixed Mount VHF Marine Radio, White: GPS & Navigation Decent for the money?

Thanks.

 

[jasoutside]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

Also, has anyone used one of these? http://www.amazon.com/Uniden-UM380-Class-Full-Feature/dp/B004LF76MA

I just about pulled the trigger on that when I was shopping, the price was sure right. I heard some mixed reviews so I passed.

You may want to take a gander at this, you might find something useful in there...
[url]http://forums.iboats.com/electrical-electronics-audio-trolling-motors/vhf-antenna-recommendations-590446.html

 

[laurentide]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

Good info there, thanks jas.

EDIT: the post-warranty service on the Standard Horizons is pretty amazing. Think I'll be throwing my money toward one of those.

 

[jigngrub]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

... back to the paint.

This is one of the reasons I like a bare aluminum hull, you'll worry with the paint and spend tons of time and money on it... the a week or two after you're on the water you'll bump or rub up against a dock and booger it up, then flames will shoot out of your butt-hole with anger!

I don't know what you're expecting from a roller and a foam brush, but if you want a professional looking job you need professional tools... this means a sprayer.

I say do what you can with the tools you have to straighten it out then throw a big skull and crossbones on each side and call it a rat boat.

 

[laurentide]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

... back to the paint.

This is one of the reasons I like a bare aluminum hull, you'll worry with the paint and spend tons of time and money on it... the a week or two after you're on the water you'll bump or rub up against a dock and booger it up, then flames will shoot out of your butt-hole with anger!

I don't know what you're expecting from a roller and a foam brush, but if you want a professional looking job you need professional tools... this means a sprayer.

I say do what you can with the tools you have to straighten it out then throw a big skull and crossbones on each side and call it a rat boat.

:lol: ...and I was so close to just stripping it all :facepalm:

I'm gonna run what I brung for now. I've still got plenty of that good stripper stuff for late fall.

 

[jasoutside]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

:lol: ...and I was so close to just stripping it all :facepalm:

Do it man:rockon:

 

[dozerII]

Re: Rough and ready '74 Starcraft Chieftan 18' rebuild

I tried the roll and roll, roll and tip methods for about 5 minutes and knew I wasn't going to be happy with the results. And lets face if were not happy with it, it's going to eat at ya..