My 14' Starcraft project

Howdy. I'm new to posting but have been lurking on the boards for a few months checking out all the projects and getting ideas about what I wanted for my first boat. Needless to say it's been an adventure. I started out with a 1432 Sears flat bottom then realized that a 32" bottom just wouldn't be wide enough to do what I wanted. So, I sold that off and ended up with a 14' Starcraft v hull that's about 65" wide at the top. My Dad and I spent the last month or so completely tearing apart and rebuilding the trailer that came with the flat bottom. I'll use that to carry around the Starcraft. This weekend I FINALLY get to start working on the boat. I already bought about 8 cans of Rustoleum self etching primer, some paint and Steelflex which should be delivered today.

Here's a picture of the boat and trailer I started with a couple of months ago and the boat I am actually going to be working on starting this weekend. I will post some before and after pics of the trailer this weekend. I am actually very impressed with how good it turned out but then my Dad has been doing welding all of his life so this was an easy job for him. Needless to say the trailer is now a LOT bigger (and heavier) than it was when I bought it and the boat is exactly what I was looking for in terms of a first boat project.

Looks like you got some fun times ahead.

Got the bottom and one side sanded down yesterday and today but then the rain rolled in so I had to stop working before I could sand down the other side. I should have it all sanded down tomorrow. Then I'll replace the transom wood and maybe go ahead and remove some of the paint on the inside. I won't be able to primer or put the Steelflex on until tomorrow afternoon or Sunday morning.

How are you sanding it? With what? Looks good! =D>

https://www.tinboats.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=15880

I started with a palm sander but said F that after a few minutes because I was afraid the vibration might loosen the rivets or something. So I drove to Wal Mart and bought five cans of paint stripper and am using that, a plastic paint scraper and an old wire brush to get most of the old paint and primer off. After the paint and primer are mostly gone from the area I'm working on, I go back over it with a medium grade wet sanding block to clean it up.

looks like shes coming along nicely.... good to see another FLORIDIAN on here!

Got the rest of the boat sanded down today and the transom wood removed (that was a chore). I really hate it when folks do a half a***d job assembling things. It looked like the last person who replaced the transom wood used any old screws and bolts he had laying around and didn't really care if it actually fit or made the transom look like crap. I say, if you're going to do it then do it right! Anyway, now that I got that off my chest. I hauled the boat into the garage tonight when the sun started going down so tomorrow morning we will fire up the heaters and go to town bright and early on the Steelflex.

Today we got the Steelflex put on the bottom. Our experience with the stuff was pretty much the same as everyone else has had. It took almost the full gallon and nine 4" foam rollers to do two coats on the bottom of the boat. Lowe's sells packs of 10 foam rollers for about $13. We should have used all 10 but my Dad decided he didn't need to replace the roller since "we were almost done applying the second coat". Needless to say I was picking little pieces of foam out of the steel flex in some spots near the front as he went back over it. What can I say, you just can't tell Dad's anything.

After using this stuff I agree with what others have said on here about it being a lot easier to do this if you have two people working on it. One person should mix the compounds while the other spreads it on. That worked very well for us. The first coat was a pain to put on. You had to apply a lot of pressure to spread it around. We waited about 3 hours for the first coat to get tacky then applied the second coat. I am not sure if others have had the same experience but we decided that the second coat was a LOT easier to apply than the first.

Now that it's all on, we're going to let the Steelflex cure in the garage this week and I'll come back to my dad's house next weekend to start working on the inside. First order of business will be to remove and work on the gunnel and put in the new interior and exterior transom wood.

First time I've come across your build. Nice rig you got there. I'll look forward to watching your progress.

We finally put the carpet on the bunks early Saturday morning and then put the boat up on the trailer. We decided to remove the gunnel, which proved to be a major pita, and will spend some time fixing that up in the coming weeks. My dad really wants to scrap the aluminum gunnel and craft one out of wood but I am kind of partial to the aluminum and rubber so we will see how it goes. Anyway, it took about 5 or 6 hours just to get the gunnel off. I didn't get anymore than that done though because my dog died on Saturday afternoon. I'm still kind of recovering from that so it may be another week or two before I can get back to doing anything with this boat.

The trailer looks great. Good luck with the boat and sorry to hear about your dog. People that don't have one will never know how much joy they can bring into your life. Todd

Sorry about your loss man. You are doing a great job on the boat so far.

Why did you remove the gunnels and bow cap?

LonLB said:

Why did you remove the gunnels and bow cap?

Click to expand...

I was wondering the same thing.

I removed them because they looked terrible up close and really need some work to make them look good. I tried cleaning it up while it was on the boat but since it's in multiple pieces, I decided that the easiest way to fix it back up would be to pop all the rivets holding it together, take it off and clean up each piece individually. At this point I am not even sure if I even want to put it back on though.

Anyway, I spent last week in Arizona and this week I spent with the family for the holiday so all I managed to get done was to strip the old paint/primer and then pressure wash the inside. I also got the floor boards cut and sealed and the new transom board sealed and poly'd. When I come back up to my Dad's in two weeks I'll go ahead and install the new transom wood, paint the inside and then start working on the decks and so forth. Now that all of the clean up is done, the real fun can begin.

Of course it's your call but I would put them back on. If nothing else you can carpet them. Some boats come that way factory, and it's an easy way to hide some dings and gouges.

Not only will you have a nice place to mount a bow mount trolling motor, but rod holder, bow and stern lights, anchor mates (or some other anchor release/retrieve device), manual down riggers etc.

And you can add rod storage on the sides under them.

I'm also going to guess they provide some structural support for the boat as well.
Did your boat have a splash well?


Nice looking project, and good progress. I was going to buy a very similar boat not long ago.

I am not totally opposed to putting them back on but, trust me, they had to come off to really get the inside of this thing cleaned. When we finally got it all off we found a wasps nest buried up near the front of the of bow and the wood framing holding the front bow cap up was all rotted out. There was no way to get the wood out without removing it all because of the way it was put together. Like I said in an earlier post, it was a lot worse than it looked in the pics so I had no choice but to take it all off and start from scratch. I cleaned some of it up a couple of weeks ago and may include it in the final build. I finally got the point across to my Dad that a wood gunnel on the inside would look kind of silly since I am keeping the rubber bumper strip on the outside. Dunno why but I really liked the rubber bumper.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback. This is my first boat build ever so I really am trying to do it right.

Just starting out on my build and was wondering how much it cost for the steelflex?

I think I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $80 but I had it delivered next day so I would have it to use over Thanksgiving weekend. I'll look around for the receipt though and post exact figures if and when I find it.

As an update, I went home a couple of weeks ago to patch up the rivet holes from the old broken Starcraft plates and so forth. It took a lot longer to do that than I had planned so I didn't get a chance to paint anything. I am heading back up to my Dad's the first weekend in February and should be able to get started with the painting then.

EDITED: i decided to go with a metallic aluminum finish on the inside and may do a white or metallic blue finish on the outside.

I got the inside of the boat painted last weekend. I really liked the shiny look the boat had after I got it all cleaned up so I decided to go with a metallic finish on the inside. I used about 4 cans of self etching primer and 4 cans of silver silver/aluminum metallic paint. Overall I think it turned out pretty good other than a spot near the bottom that got nicked when I pulled the back floor board out. I'm going back home in a couple of weeks to finish the floor and start building up the storage compartments and decks. I still have to order a new rub rail insert, carpeting and grab some closed cell foam to place under the floor. I am going to create some support bracers for the floor out of 2x4's and use 3/4" plywood to cut the floors for the front and back decks. The deck and storage compartment frames will be built out of 1" and 1.5" aluminum angle and all sidewalls will be carpeted over 1/4" plywood.

On another note, a couple of months ago I picked up a brand new 46# foot controlled trolling motor for $200 that was still in its factory sealed box. I got home and opened the box to find out that it didn't come with the bow mount so, after some time searching, I finally found a brand new, in the original package, mount on EBay for $125. I priced similar trolling motors at Wal Mart that had everything in the box and I still think I got a pretty good deal.