The well traveled 1979 Starcraft 18' V5 SS

[Tnstratofam]

She's looking real sharp H2O! Very impressive! :encouragement:

 

[laurentide]

Wow, it looks great. Like, new boat with vintage power great. Congrats, you must be close!

 

[MNhunter1]

Looking good WM! I love the way the T&T unit gives the motor that set back.

I'm right with you on the plywood sealing. Just flipped everything over and finished with round 4 of the Spar. I switched from the brush to a roller and it sure speeds up the process.

 

[No-AH]

Wow look at her shine!!! Nicely done Wm. I'm still heating in the hangar btw!

 

[Marvelous5891]

Looking good WM. Won't be long and she'll be ready to splash

 

[Watermann]

Thanks for all the support and encouragement guys, I really do appreciate it.

When I did the compression check on the Merc I saw a mix of Champions and NGK spark plugs in it. So I changed out the plugs and I think they have to be the coolest looking and easiest to gap :lol:

 

[MNhunter1]

Not too much going on in my hangar this weekend, put on the rubrail and inside trim that I had painted black back during painting weather. I do have a RR attachment alternative to share with those guys who tear everything down to it's bare essentials. Pics oh yeah not too much to be excited about but I like looking at the boat and spend more time doing that than working on it. :lol:

I don't know but every little thing that goes on makes her look more like a boat.

So the RR re-attachment. I have a huge inventory of blind rivets and some of the long (1" grip) large flange for the upper deck I'll be putting on that's 3/4" ply. The flange is too large to fit into the channel so I modify them with my angle grinder, takes a few seconds is all and you have this.

With the air rivet gun, it sucks the rail in tight and you can add more if you feel the need. The end result looks like this.

Was just out making motor boating sounds and pondering next steps last night when I realized what a pain it was going to be to try to get the RR back on after my bow cap is installed. Had an aha moment and remembered you had posted something on this. Thanks!

 

[crankbait cowboy]

That power on the back looks great on er waterman, excellent work

 

[Watermann]

Looking good WM! I love the way the T&T unit gives the motor that set back.

I'm right with you on the plywood sealing. Just flipped everything over and finished with round 4 of the Spar. I switched from the brush to a roller and it sure speeds up the process.

After 2 coats of spar on the flat the ply is sealed up well and that makes 4 coats on the edges. I've found that all you're doing is building layers on top which is likely just using up more product especially if your covering the ply with vinyl deck covering.

 

[Patfromny]

I agree with you on the sealing but I didn't want to do it in the near future so I didn4 coats. I also bought too much epoxy so I felt I might as well use as much as I could. You definitely need 2 coats and maybe three depending on how much you use during each coat. If you have every polyurethaned you will see how the wood absorbs it at different rates and you will not have an even sheen until coat number two. Although most don't do three coats of polyurethane, if you do, it comes out near flawless. Subsequent coats improve the final product which to me says that you are getting close to a uniform coverage. Something I truly wanted.

 

[pckeen]

Love the boat - looking forward to spring. We are still in the deep freeze up here.

 

[Watermann]

So this weekend I made some headway with installing the new steering arm on the motor. About time I got the Murphy thing out of the way too... Set up the new bimini and installed all the hardware on the gunnels with nice AL backers and SS machine screws with nylocs. Put the poles in backwards and had to pull the bimini apart, Chinese instructions, yeah I'll go with that. Vinyl wrapped my sealed side panels and all went well but I haven't put them on yet as I wanted to do something in front of them up under the consoles and out to the bow. I had planned on gluing carpet thinking that would be easiest. Uh no it wasn't in fact it was the worst experience so far in my many hours of boat work.

I don't know how Budski does it with his wooley buggers, really I don't. Outdoor carpet check, new razor in knife check, Roberts 6700 outdoor carpet glue check. Applied as directed so I wouldn't get bleed through, carpet fell off, trowel was stuck to my hand, changed gloves, washed trowel handle, trowel still stuck to my hand. Says half hour open time, okay no biggie I got all the glue on in 15 min so I added just a bit more since the carpet is the only thing that won't stick to the glue. Yeah it oozed through, yeah I'm upset now and the carpet ozzing with glue slumps off the side of the boat. I ripped that garbage out of my boat and threw it out in the lawn.:facepalm:

2 hours later I have wiped all of the glue off the hull and the glue left exposed in the coffee can was still the same as when I glopped it out of the gallon can. Picked up a paper towel that had glue on it without a glove and it stuck to my hand and dried almost instantly, took 5 minutes to wash the glue off. NEVER again will I attempt to glue a piece of carpet to anything, period!

Hope you guys had a good Sunday.

 

[budski]

Sorry to hear that, what no pics!!!!!!!!!

 

[Watermann]

Sorry to hear that, what no pics!!!!!!!!!

Sorry no pics, didn't want the camera to stick to my hand while trying to get a pic of gooey carpet in the lawn. :lol:

 

[budski]

For got to say that stuff is almost impossible to get off your hands and everywhere you don;t want it, almost peeled the skin off my hands a few times.

 

[Pusher]

I used outdoor carpet glue from HD and let it cure overnight. It holds OKAY, but certainly not great. Good luck!

 

[No-AH]

ooooh I have a neighbor that has in/out carpeting for a lawn up here.....NO mowing will be great this summer Wm ...:lol:
I used a high tack glue and cured and worked nicely... dunno, thinking maybe the winter isn't the right time for adhesives.

 

[Watermann]

Yeah I have a distinct hatred now for carpet glue but I like my lawn mower :lol: My garage is heated and the IR gun said boat hull was a nice comfortable 67 degrees. I don't think I'll be trying it again with 40 a gal pressure sensitive glue, I'll figure something out for that area.

 

[Watermann]

I decided to stick with what I know and that's paint. I sanded, SE primed, regular primer and 2 coats of paint in the bow section. Got the front console panels attached. Installed a 2 bank 20 amp onboard battery charger under the nav console side, 8 ga primary wire for the TM and 2 gp27 deep cycles in the hole.

I wondered about hooking up 12v battery chargers to series batteries but found a battery tender pdf that shows you hook them up just as you would if they weren't in series. Had a tough wrapping my head around that until I noticed that each lead is on it's own battery. Got some serious work to do yet but things are coming together.

The Noco Genuis battery charger has some cool options, like the charger port you just plug the extension cord into. Just need to get the cables all tidied up and sheathed now.

 

[crankbait cowboy]

looking great waterman as always and nice progress