Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

[GT1000000]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

Sir,
It is with humility and absolute awe that I offer my sincerest thanks for having shared your projects, repairs and upgrades.
The ideas and workmanship are top notch!
I had not caught your thread in the couple of years I have been on the forum, why is beyond me...:facepalm:
I am so glad to have finally 'come aboard' and be absolutely blown away by the inspiration and knowledge you have shared.
Honestly, I would have felt like I had missed out on seeing the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls or any of over a dozen of the world's most amazing sights, if I had never read this thread.
I will eagerly look forward to any and all postings you make.
Thank you, a million times thank you...
I would also like to add my congratulations on what seemed to be an excellent splash.
A tip from a good friend of mine who owns a I/O...regarding the dreaded, messy oil filter change...
He uses a zip lock bag that is big enough to contain the oil filter when replacing it...first he slightly loosens it to free it enough to spin off by hand, places the baggie kind of like a glove on his hand, grabs the filter, spins it off and catches the majority of the mess in the baggie...he uses a shop rag under the oil filter mounting to catch the rest that drips out...
Best regards and very happy boating,
Gus
PS-I love the horn...

 

[Willyclay]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

so I spun them on the 100 year old lathe that I have and they cleaned up like new.

Seems appropriate. Am looking forward to your opinions on the Smart Tabs. Good luck!

 

[low277]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

Thanks for sharing Grandad! Please keep up the great work and giving us updates!

 

[Watermann]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

I will be interested in hearing the verdict on the tabs. I'v been tossing the tab idea around but the way they just bolt in through the transom skin below the wood concerns me a bit.

Told the admiral that I want a horn blaster ocean liner horn or train horn.

 

[Grandad]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

Boy do you do awesome work Grandad, the top and everything is 1st class. If you have an Acklands Granger in your area you can buy Rustoleum Pro from them at a better price than Tremclad. I have used both and there is a big difference between the two. They carry the large industrial size spray cans as well as Gallons, even if you are brushing or rolling thin with acetone and it will speed your dry time by at least 20%. Once again great job.

Thanks Glen. I appreciate the praise, in particular from the current SOTY winner (I voted for you by the way). I follow your threads and others every day, but I don't chatter much, so I haven't had much to say on your progress. You certainly do nice work on your boats.

Thanks also for the tip on the paint. We do have a local Acklands Granger, so I'll check out the Rustoleum rattlecan. They list a 12 oz can of Antique White which may approximate the right colour (Starcraft's Bermuda Cream/Tremclad's Recreation White). I'm pleased to see they say it's high gloss, dry time as 12 minutes and re-coat within 1 hour.

I don't want to pull the tower off for a finish top coat before the dwindling season ends and since I must spray outdoors, I'm watching the weather closely now. The trouble right now is variability. Yesterday, it was 35 degrees C (95 F, humidex 113 F) and the day after tomorrow, the predicted high is only 12 degrees (54 F, humidex/windchill 50 F) with a Georgian Bay marine forecast northerly wind of 25 knots (that'll be 4'-5' waves). That's the day we planned for an outing with my brother's family, including his mother-in-law, the original co-owner of this boat. Very disappointed. - Grandad

 

[Grandad]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

Sir,
It is with humility and absolute awe that I offer my sincerest thanks for having shared your projects, repairs and upgrades.
The ideas and workmanship are top notch!
I had not caught your thread in the couple of years I have been on the forum, why is beyond me...:facepalm:
I am so glad to have finally 'come aboard' and be absolutely blown away by the inspiration and knowledge you have shared.
Honestly, I would have felt like I had missed out on seeing the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls or any of over a dozen of the world's most amazing sights, if I had never read this thread.
I will eagerly look forward to any and all postings you make.
Thank you, a million times thank you...
I would also like to add my congratulations on what seemed to be an excellent splash.
A tip from a good friend of mine who owns a I/O...regarding the dreaded, messy oil filter change...
He uses a zip lock bag that is big enough to contain the oil filter when replacing it...first he slightly loosens it to free it enough to spin off by hand, places the baggie kind of like a glove on his hand, grabs the filter, spins it off and catches the majority of the mess in the baggie...he uses a shop rag under the oil filter mounting to catch the rest that drips out...
Best regards and very happy boating,
Gus
PS-I love the horn...

Thanks Gus. Sometimes that hole in the water into which I throw money has seemed a bit like the Grand Canyon. The admiral saw what you wrote and has a complaint; something like "He's been hard to live with already, him and his boat project. Now, he's gonna be even worse. Don't encourage him." That's OK, she's had 45 years to get used to me.

Thanks for the oil change tip. I check into your Bassassin project every so often and read what I've missed until I start getting itchy. Nice progress so far. I don't know how you glassers have the patience to keep at it.
- Grandad

 

[dozerII]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

Thanks Glen. I appreciate the praise, in particular from the current SOTY winner (I voted for you by the way). I follow your threads and others every day, but I don't chatter much, so I haven't had much to say on your progress. You certainly do nice work on your boats.

Thanks also for the tip on the paint. We do have a local Acklands Granger, so I'll check out the Rustoleum rattlecan. They list a 12 oz can of Antique White which may approximate the right colour (Starcraft's Bermuda Cream/Tremclad's Recreation White). I'm pleased to see they say it's high gloss, dry time as 12 minutes and re-coat within 1 hour.

I don't want to pull the tower off for a finish top coat before the dwindling season ends and since I must spray outdoors, I'm watching the weather closely now. The trouble right now is variability. Yesterday, it was 35 degrees C (95 F, humidex 113 F) and the day after tomorrow, the predicted high is only 12 degrees (54 F, humidex/windchill 50 F) with a Georgian Bay marine forecast northerly wind of 25 knots (that'll be 4'-5' waves). That's the day we planned for an outing with my brother's family, including his mother-in-law, the original co-owner of this boat. Very disappointed. - Grandad

Thanks Grandad, I know what you mean about the weather, late season in the Great White North can be real weird. We were planning on a weekend at the lake temps 25-27 but 50 to 70k winds, so I think it will be a weekend at home getting the 201 ready for the new owner.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

The top and the tower look amazing. I love how the top folds up into the tower. Very clever.

 

[classiccat]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

Belated congratulations on a successful splash Grandad!

Echoing the complements of the guys above, your workmanship is 2nd-to-none! :hail:

Superb planning and execution...inspiration for those of us knee-deep in saving our own tin heaps from the scrap yard :lol:

 

[jrs151]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

OK, winter's over, it's time to revive this thread. Next item: the anchor system. I've been disappointed by the 10 lb Danforth anchor I've been using. I've watched it refuse to set in a hard sand bottom in 3 ft of crystal clear Lake Huron water with a rode angle much lower than the recommended 7:1 scope. I also found the Danforth awkward to deploy and to store. I investigated a Bruce claw and thought it to be a good alternative until a marine supplier sold me on a Delta, mostly because of the self launch capability from a simple bow roller. I chose a 9 pounder, which is perhaps a little on the light side, but for our kind of boating, a lunch hook will do. I'll still carry the Danforth as a backup.

Just wanted to say a big THANK YOU, specifically on this anchor rig !
I can't tell you how many hours/days/weeks I've beating myself up trying to noodle a practical way to have a delta anchor setup on my Starcraft. I have to say this anchor type is darn near worth it's weight in gold down here in Florida where we have mostly sand and swift currents around the inner-coastal. These delta's bite really hard and retrieving is as easy as driving over them. Plus the break-away design lessens the likelihood of donating it to the abys.
Thus when I reach this stage in my reno, I might be dinging you on some questions here.

 

[Weep'n Willy]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

Beautiful work Grandad. You certainly had some creative thinking and execution on the project. Well done.

 

[sprintst]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

Spectacular work from to bottom. Time to enjoy the boat on the water...

Beautiful work Grandad. You certainly had some creative thinking and execution on the project. Well done.

 

[Grandad]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

Thanks guys. I do appreciate all the nice compliments. Just an update on the latest refinements. I rebuilt the horizontal support struts for the new bimini. The first design placed the struts between the bows and the tower. This made things very solid, but each time I folded the top, the tower got more paint scratches. So I relocated the struts inside the bows, so now there's 7/8" clearance between the bows and the paint. Then I took the tower off again and repainted it. Thanks dozer II for the tip on the Rustoleum Professional spray cans. The paint hardened much better than the Tremclad that I had previously brushed on.

We got her out again last weekend on calmer water at Big Chute in the Trent Canal system. I was planning to better examine the performance of the trim tabs and maybe do some fine tuning. Guess what? A spun prop. It's pretty hard to try a hole shot with a spun prop and a heavy passenger load. So, on Monday, I bought a rebuilt 15 1/2" x 19 prop and headed out onto Lake Couchiching yesterday with just the admiral.

This time, the water was a little too rough, so I guess the fine tuning is gonna be the first order of business next season. What I can say is that there's very little bow rise, even with the drive trimmed out/up a bit, which I was never able to do in the past. I think that the minimum RPM on plane was about 2900, but with rough water, it's a little hard to tell. So far, I'm glad I installed the tabs. My gut feel is that there may be too much lift right now, so I'm glad I bought the 60 lb actuators, rather than the 80 lb.



I also got our old aft bimini cut down a bit and re-mounted. There's about a foot between the forward and aft biminis that will need some form of transition canvas piece, perhaps next year. We're generally fair weather boaters so having the entire cockpit except for 1 foot covered may be adequate.

I put some grip strips on the cockpit ladder, since the marine spar varnish was just a little too slippery when wet. I also added top caps to the exposed tops of the extruded aluminum legs. I machined mushroom shaped pieces out of black nylon (or UHMW?). I found that after smoothing the plastic as much as possible with file and sandpaper, holding the pieces about an inch from a red hot electric stove element finish melted the surface as smooth as any injection moulding process.



I refinished the teak inserts in the swim platform and finished a new 3' teak flag staff. Because the all around light that was on the stern has been replaced by a light on the tower, I was able to install a recessed stainless flag socket in the old location. Since I wasn't sure how people keep these flags from popping out of the socket, I added the round head of a ss 1/4"-20 bolt inside the socket and then routed a "thread" into the 1 1/4" teak base. It won't come out now unless you purposely unscrew the wooden thread from the bolt head. - Grandad

 

[Willyclay]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

... so I guess the fine tuning is gonna be the first order of business next season.

Glad you could give it one more try before winter. Too bad about the prop hub but they will sneak up on you. Thanks for all the pix and descriptions of your projects. It's been a great ride for me. Surely, you can keep us entertained with a few projects between now and next Spring. Stay warm and dry!

 

[dozerII]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

Your attention to detail is second to none Grandad. I think our season ended here this morning, it -5 at the moment so by sun up we should be -7.

 

[classiccat]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

The amount of innovation that continues to pour into project is most impressive!

Thank you for sharing it with us!

 

[waterdragon15]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

Howdy Neighbor
I would like to compliment you on your work, all the really good compliments have be given so I will just say very nice work and thank you for sharing. I have a 1976 22' SuperSport that will be my ongoing project for as long as I am seaworthy :joyous: . I will no doubt be borrowing a few of your innovations, I hope you don't mind. I am constantly cruising this forum to help me with my boat and yours really stood out. Thank you again for taking the time to share. I hope your getting to enjoy some of this extended summer weather we are having.
Safe Boating

 

[Grandad]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

Howdy Neighbor
I would like to compliment you on your work, all the really good compliments have be given so I will just say very nice work and thank you for sharing. I have a 1976 22' SuperSport that will be my ongoing project for as long as I am seaworthy :joyous: . I will no doubt be borrowing a few of your innovations, I hope you don't mind. I am constantly cruising this forum to help me with my boat and yours really stood out. Thank you again for taking the time to share. I hope your getting to enjoy some of this extended summer weather we are having. Safe Boating

Hi Neighbour. I don't mind anyone copying what I did/do. They say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Just don't blame me if it doesn't work. - Grandad

 

[budski]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

THAT is one SUPER job Grandad, that tower is awesome, verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry nice.

 

[Grandad]

Re: Starcraft Holiday Reno and Hull Repair

Hi guys. Not much new to report, but I thought I should bump this thread back to life since the dreaded 90 day red banner has now appeared. She's back in her outdoor canvas shelter for the winter. I left the two 27H batteries in it connected to the onboard CTEK maintainer. I rotate the charge with my battery selector switch whenever I'm out there keeping the snowload off the shelter, which has been all too often lately. I didn't get the snow off soon enough one year and the whole thing collapsed under the weight. The 2" tubing folded at the joints and actually came to rest on the windshield frame. No damage whatsoever, but it could have been bad. I had to stand inside the boat on top of slippery plastic canvas while trying to very carefully shovel out a 3 or 4 foot depth of snow that funnelled into it from the now reversed roof slope. Stay warm guys. - Grandad