you guys have opened me up a new can of worms. thanks

i am the owner of a free 1652 monarch flat bottom that i got from my uncle after he knocked the lower unit off of the motor that was on it. i purchased a 1974 50hp merc tiller off of craigslist for 300 dollars with only a few wires i replace and i cleaned out the carbs and made sure it was running like a top i then turned around and sold it for 550. i bought a 1987 force 50hp which in my opinion is not my motor of choice but i got to test run it on the pontoon it came off of and it really ran great and it had all the cables and everything i needed to put my sonsole back in. it had a deck in the rear and a huge deck in the front that were completely waterlogged ans saturated so much they were rotted. i looked on this site and was inspired so i have completely stripped down my whole boat to bare hull the way she came from the factory and i am going to do a whole project on putting in a deck in and floor. i want to go lightweight because the boat the way it sits now absolutely handles great and fly's down the river. the way it was before just sitting floating down the river looked to me like a "full barge" i figured one good wave and i would be swamped. now it sits on top of the water because i have nothing in the boat and i love it. i want to go as light weight on the decks as possible. put some battery storage in the front for my trolling motor batteries and put a thin flooring over the stringers in the mid section of the boat. any ideas would be greatly appreciated and i am going to upload a bunch of pics to show my progress as i go along. :beer:

i have scince taken out the front deck too and all the wood except the transom is gone. this is a console model so there is no center bench so i have a huge floor to work with. what would be the strongest lightweight bracing to use. i thought of taking aluminum angle iron and bending the ends over and welding it. then drill a hole i can rivet into my stringer. then nut and flathead bolt all my plywood on there with stainless hardware. i have about 150 bucks to spend on it for wood so that will get me going. pretty much i have gotten paid 150 dollars to take this off of someones hands. so i'm all up for ideas on how to make this into a good fishing machine. i am a tool maker by trade but 2,000,000 heads teamed up will build a better example of what i want for myself then i could do on my own. thank you guys for takin a look.

Nice rig. Make sure to check out the mods link to get some framing ideas. There are a few Monarchs that have been rebuilt as well as all the others which may help with your design. What part of the world do you live in? If you can weld aluminum, you're in high demand around here...

thanks buddy. i will keep you guys posted with pics. as for now i'm gonna go dip it in the water and scoot it around for a while. ITS FATHERS DAY! hahaa :beer:

Nice looking boat....
I thought I seen in another post that you "might " have used pressure treated wood for your transom repair.
If you didn't all is well...if it is pressure treated you may get corrosion and pin holes.
I bet she does fly with that 50hp.

so much for the boat ride!! i got all the way to the filling station and realized that someone liked my gas tank a lot better then i did! :evil: . so off to farm and fleet i went and bought a new fuel line and my friend had 5 tanks laying around so i'm all squared away again. it is a marine plywood i used. scince it was called "marine grade" i was just assuming that it was treated. i used some thompsons waterseal for waterproofing. and i have a toolbox that i'm going to sacrifice for the corner pieces to rivet back in and i was thinking about doing a splash well and a console similar to the 16" flattracker thread.was going to use that king starboard stuff but my friend made covers for a few hatches out of it and i thought it was really heavy. and i figured when it got hot and with the force from the motor it would flex. ?

i will post more pics tomarrow. finished gutting everything. i can now start prepping it for paint. i'm not sure if i'm gonna go with the green or tan yet. kind of leaning toward the tan. anyone have a recomendation for a cheap paint that will last for a couple years? my friend usede a oil based primer that he applied with a sprayer and oilbase black. it has been holding up pretty good so far. just wanted to get some ideas on oilbase? or urethane?

The Parker oil based duckboat paint (about $40/gallon) has worked well for me and my friends on several boats with good results. All of our boats are used mostly for duck hunting so they hit plenty of stumps and sand bars and the paint holds on very well. I am currently painting my 16' Tracker with the Parkers Hunter Green.


As with any paint job, the quality of the end result is based mostly on the prep and doing things the right way.

I took my boat down to bare metal, wiped it with wax and grease remover, rolled Coat-It epoxy on the bottom and up to the spray rail. We sanded all sags and runs, wiped it again with the degreaser and primed all bare metal with SEM self etching primer. Wiped the entire boat again with degreaser and sprayed it wiping it down between coats 3 and 4 as it sat 24 hours in a heated shop between those coats to help it cure.

It currently has 4 coats of the Parkers reduced 10% and sprayed on relatively thin with a $20 Harbor Freight spray gun.

Im not paint expert but it looks just like any factory new jon boat to my eyes.

coat 3:

coat 4:


Here is the link to the whole thread if you want to see what the steps i took looked like from start to current with the paint:

https://www.tinboats.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=14168

that paint looks really nice. you hit that nail on the head. i'm gettin that spraygun from harbor freight too. figured it would do the job. i will check out your thread. my boat will be used for fishing/duck hunting. so the deck i'm putting in is going to be removable and small like the one i took out. that is a good idea on the epoxy base coat. i bet it made that oil base paint flow and level out real nice. thanks man. and i will keep you guys updated as i make some progress. i'm moving it into the garage because i cant seem to get one day off where it doesnt poor down rain all day. :mrgreen: