[Bend-Lure]

Lookin' good! Keep the pics coming!

 

[Chesapeake Beach]

nice work! ..... and great job getting all the before / during / and eventually finished pics.

This past winter I spent a bunch of time cleaning up a 40+ year old SeaRay. (NOTHING like what you & tour Dad have accomplished) It actually turned out better than I would have imagined and now I'm kicking myself for not getting any good before photos.

Keep em coming!

 

[Tom Hughes]

Mike: You'll have a nice 'fishing machine' after the project is over. Keep up the good work.

 

[calpn trayt]

man, does that look GOOOOODDDD!!!! forgot to axe you about the project, but looks like you and mike sr have it more than well in hand..!

 

[wino]

Always admired people who could do work like that, all I could do was write checks.

 

[Shawn Kimbro]

If you aren't skydiving or biking 500 miles, and since we updated your thread, maybe you could update us on your project?

 

[thill]

Mike,
GREAT thread. I am in the middle of a floor replacement on an 18' Glassmaster center console. I've got the floor cut out, and the glass ready, but I'm held up while deciding on how to rig under the floor...

I had a question, but I went back and re-read, and got the answer. Thank you for all the details!

Would love to see where you currently are with your project. Thanks for sharing!

-TH

 

[skipperwork]

Mike is currently seeking qualified individuals to help complete his project. He is looking for experienced individuals who can sand and ingest dust in a hot garage. All those that would like to give up your beer drinking, fishing, and gallivanting time please apply.

 

[mrobertson]

Project 23 Seacraft - Updated 10-04-10

Restoring an old boat is something i've always wanted to do. I'm a boat person, i love boats. I've spent hours and hours on the computer looking at peoples projects. The finished product of a restored boat is something special. A feeling you cannot get from buying a new boat..................I found out quickly this weekend, all that goes away when you get to the stage of the game that we are at. I've just returned from a full weekend on the eastern shore. My hands are chewed up, i've got bumps and bruises all over, and i'm sore from head to toe. The next sequence of pictures does not describe the amount of work done over this weekend. We literally were on the boat, sun up to sun down both saturday and sunday. I'll let the pictures do the talking, some of the pictures might be of poor quality because i took them all on my cell phone.

Here we go starting off the day - pulling her out of the shop

Here is where things get ugly. The term "FAIRING" is basically a 4 step process, which i will try to show next. You take a hole on the boat that you want to fill in. First - the gelcoat (or paint) has to be ground back a few inches around the hole. You grind it down to bare fiberglass. Next - you mix up a filler made from epoxy and a thickening substance called cabosil. You use that filler to fill the hole. Once the filler hardens, you touch it up with a sander, then lay up a piece of fiberglass cloth over it. Once that hardens, you sand it down and use a fairing compound to smooth it out. "FAIRING" is basically like taping drywall, where your goal is to hide the seam and you use a mud to cover it....then you sand......re-mud.......sand.......you get the idea.

So here is an example. This hole has been ground out, filled, and then covered with cloth.

Next - once that dries it gets sanded then covered with fairing compound

Finally - the fairing compounds gets sanded smooth. You can get it right on the first try, but most require a second coat. Here is another hole that has been faired out and sanded smooth.

Fascinating stuff right? Sounds easy right? Well - it is..........however, close your eyes and imagine how many holes are in a 30 year old boat. This picture will give you a good idea. You can see here how many holes are just in the transom

So the real goal of this trip was to sand the hull sides and get them prepped for paint. Here's a shot where we are starting up the sides.

Skip through hours and hours and sanding and here you can see it's been sanded.

We started with an 80 grit paper on an orbital DA sander, to chew through the old paint. Followed up with a 180 to smooth it out. Finally - another shot with 180 on a long board sander to make sure everything is clean and level. All together, i think i sanded the hullsides 4-5 times.

At this point - i'm already sick of sanding and its really just starting. We needed a change of pace. Figured now is a good time to cut some holes in our new deck. My father lives buy the rules that if you buy something cheap, you get something cheap. Therefore - for access to our bilge, we wound up with this monster.

That is stainless steel, fully welded, and guaranteed to be 100% water tight. That's about a $500 investment. 2 x 250 pound men can jump up and down on it without any flex what-so-ever.....Trust me, it is quality and HEAVY DUTY.

I hated to sink a sawblade into our new deck. I let my dad make the cuts and here it is......a HUGE hole in our floor.

On the front side of the hole you can see our racor .10 micron filter. The black is a trashbag trying to keep dust out of the tank compartment....i'll pull that out later.

In case you were wondering - here is a side shot of the thickness of our deck. I measured it a full 1 1/8" thick. Top skin of fiberglass is 1/4" thick.

Dropped the hatch into place along with the 2 pie plates over the tank. Hatch came out nice and clean, i like it alot.

At this stage - the boat needed to come back off the trailer and onto stands so we can get ready for primer. I didn't get any action shots, because it's a little hairy taking a boat off a trailer. But anyway - here she is :

If you remember last time - we had cut wood blocks to set the hull on. We found a cheap set of stands and it made the job of getting it off the trailer a little easier

Transom shot on stands - you can see ALOT of holes that were filled and faired

We wanted to test the primer out on the bottom, so that's where we started. It came out pretty well.

Once we had a feel for it - we went ahead and got a coat of primer on the whole outside of the boat.

Here's a shot after the primer had dried for about 2-3 hours

And here's how we left her

Again - these pictures do not show how much work we put in this weekend. I'm still exhausted. At this point - we need to sand the primer, and fill any imperfections we find. Then we will prime it again, sand once more. Finally - it will get a 3rd coat of primer and sanded with a high grit paper before getting topcoat.

If anyone wants to know - the primer is a 2 part epoxy high build primer made by PETIT. We are painting the hull with SIGNATURE FINISH http://www.signaturefinish.com/. We decided that the hull sides are going to be seafoam green, the bottom is going to be white, and we are going to run a single black bootstripe down each side of the boat.

We have another work weekend planned in October. We will have the boat fully primed and ready for topcoat. After that, my dad will setup a poor mans paint booth around the boat to keep the dust out. I anticipate that we are going to shoot the hull with color over the thanksgiving holiday.

Stay tuned for more updates and thanks for the support.

-Mike

 

[swartj]

Keep the reports coming. I love watching the progress. You had to feel pleased once you got the first coat of primer on and all the patchwork is covered over. I am envious of your garage/workshop.

 

[donp]

looking great. Can't wait to see the finished product.

 

[Old Hat]

Enjoyable read. I am sure the time you and your father spend on this project will provide great memories for years to come. Good luck on your goal of splashing her for the CBBT striper season. What is the power going to be?

 

[mrobertson]

Power for the boat has not been decided yet. She's rated for 400HP and is a 30" transom. The hull is very efficient with a big single. I've talked to other 23 owners that tell me she'll run close to 50mph with a single 250 on the back. I really like the SUZUKI's, my old man likes YAMAHA. We are both indifferent on E-TEC's. Chances are, it'll be a 250 4 stroke, however if the price is right on a 300 that's what we'll go with.

Fuel capacity is 120 gallons and with a single the range should never be an issue.

 

[Wild Bill]

Power for the boat has not been decided yet. She's rated for 400HP and is a 30" transom. The hull is very efficient with a big single. I've talked to other 23 owners that tell me she'll run close to 50mph with a single 250 on the back. I really like the SUZUKI's, my old man likes YAMAHA. We are both indifferent on E-TEC's. Chances are, it'll be a 250 4 stroke, however if the price is right on a 300 that's what we'll go with.

Fuel capacity is 120 gallons and with a single the range should never be an issue.

I fished a number of years on Simon's 23' Seacraft and all last winter on a another bud's 23 SC. One had a 250 Ficht and the other a new 250 Yam FS. I too have heard the 50 MPH claims. With two guys on board and lots of fishing gear but no fish box and no live well, 40 MPH was about it. That hull seems to crave power. If you can swing one of the new 300's, it certainly is not too much power for that hull. I would not care for it at all with twins.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
Nice work.

I bet the finished boat will be a dandy.<o></o>

 

[capt.george]

Dad and I are still chugging along on the project. We did some fishing this weekend, but with the wind we decided to give up sunday for a day to work on the seacraft. When we first got the boat and took it apart, we pulled the cap off the top of the transom to get a look at the plywood. We did some glasswork and closed up the transom for good. A couple of layers of 1708 for strength.

Here is what the transom looks like after the cloth was wetted out

The next series of pictures make it look easy, but i was sweating bullets through the whole process. For christmas we bought a custom NEXTRAIL aluminum i-beam trailer. It's a tandem axle, 7000 lb capacity, with stainless kodiak disk brakes on 2 of the wheels. Now, this trailer was shipped to our door from Florida. The salesman told us on the phone that he knew the 23 Seacraft well and could set the trailer up close so we wouldn't have to do any adjusting. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Here's the trailer coming into the shop. I think my dad's doors are 12 feet wide....not much margin of error for sure.

The boat sitting on blocks

Lining her up

We used a floor jack under the keep in the bow to lift up the front

We backed the trailer up until the bunks touched the boat

We used the floor jack and some blocks to jack up the stern of the boat

We hooked up the winch strap and started cranking her on

What ended up happening is the floor jack has wheels, so as we were cranking the floor jack just rolled with the boat along the concrete floor

Now we've got it mostly on the trailer, all is well

We adjusted the winch stand and got it all lined up and tight

On it's new wheels

This is the first we've ever taken a boat (other than a jon boat) on/off a trailer. The boat needs to come back off for paint, but i think we are going to try to find a set of jack stands. I can't believe that the trailer place could set the trailer up exact without even seeing the boat. Literally, we didn't have to adjust anything on the trailer.

This week - the boat is going to the soda blaster. All the bottom paint will be removed and then we will beging sanding/fairing the hull for paint. I think we are going to go with some color, possibly a seafoam green or maybe an ice blue. The heat is going to catch up with us so im not sure when we will be painting. I am still hoping that the boat gets splashed for the 2010 CBBT season.

All the while i have been selling off my bay trolling arsenal and moving to light duty offshore gear. Next summer for sure, i'll be heading offshore with my old man in our restored potter built 23 seacraft, can't wait!!

Enjoy the pics...................now the real work starts

Tight Lines

-Mike

---Mike , Supervise the Soda Blasting Saw a Operator once that Blasted through a 28' Bertram Hull , by not paying attention & He held it Stationary in one Place & it blasted Through --geo.--Adj. those Bilge Pump clamps for full Emerg. Access--tip i learned the hard way

 

[drewzim]

Man, that's looking good!!! Guess you have taking it off and putting it back on the trailer down to a science now. So which boat is going to Myrtle Beach next year? The 20' or the 23'?

 

[mrobertson]

Man, that's looking good!!! Guess you have taking it off and putting it back on the trailer down to a science now. So which boat is going to Myrtle Beach next year? The 20' or the 23'?

Getting it off the bunk trailer was definitely more challenging than the roller trailer. The stands make it a bit easier though. I really think the hull will be painted around thanksgiving, then it's balls to the wall to get the inside done. Really want to hang an engine on it this winter when we have a shot at getting a deal.

 

[MIKE]

Nice work, Your garage is awsome.I am also in the middle of a rebuild(20' grady 1977) alot of work but like you say the finished product will be worth every minute of the process.I wish I would have taken pics to post as you did they are great.Was this your first rebuild, it was mine and I hope it works.

 

[mrobertson]

Was this your first rebuild, it was mine and I hope it works.

This is our first rodeo on a major rebuild like this. Thus far - everything has gone well.....however we have spared no expense on anything.

 

[mrobertson]

Project 23 Seacraft - Updated 11-29-10

Well guys - i'm excited to say we've turned a major corner with this one.

I'll kick it off with this one - here is how i spent most of my thanksgiving holiday, take if from me.....paint fumes will ruin you

Painting/prep work is just like drywalling. You sand, you fill, you sand, you fill, you sand. So, after last time, the primer needed to be sanded smooth. We sanded down to a 300 grit paper and now you see all our patchwork again.

This time around we did all our work with a spray gun. For the epoxy primer we used an HVLP gun with a 1.8mm tip, because the primer is really thick. Here's my old man covering it up again, you can see the gun in the picture.

Shooting the hull sides with primer

All primed....again

The primer shows all your flaws (like this one), that need to be sanded.....and filled....and sanded....and filled

We had a few places that needed attention

I'll skip through a long series of sanding and priming. Short of it, after the first coat of primer we sanded it down, fixed some dings, then re-primed. Then, we repeated the process again. So - the boat has 3 coats of epoxy high build primer on it.

Once the last coat of primer cured, we gave it a good rub down with these

From there - wiped her down with some thinner and used this to remove any dust particles from the surface

After she's all cleaned up, nice and smooth primer finish

We did alot of bickering about this and just about the only color we could both agree with...........SEAFOAM. The paint we used is Signature finish, http://www.signaturefinish.com/. I will report more on the paint at the end.

We used a different gun to spray the topcoat. A differenet HVLP gun with a 1.2 mm tip, as the paint is very thin.

Here's my dad laying it on, and you can see the gun in the picture

Transom with a coat of paint on it

I don't have alot of action shots because we were kind of busy but here's a shot of the hullsides

The next installment, alot of people will probably not agree with. The bottom of the boat was primed along with the rest of the hull. However, to paint the bottom, we used PETIT VIVID antifouling paint in white. We did so for a couple of reasons. The main reason is, i believe that the boat has been bottom painted it's whole life. It has it's fair share of bumps and dings on the bottom. To fix them all and make the bottom look good in paint, it would take months and months of work. It's just not worth it to me. Second reason - someday i might actually keep the boat in a slip. Third reason, it's cheap and easy to repair.

So without further adieu -

After 2 coats of white on the bottom

Standby for a quick review of the paint we used

-Mike