From the bank to the water.

I found this board toward the end of my project and decided to wait until I was about finished to tell the story.

I started out with a 12' Monarch jon boat that had been on our family farm for around 20 years. It was just going to waste and I decided to revive the old beast. My goal was to restore it primarily as a fishing boat for me and my 10 year son, but possibly a hunting boat as well.

Since I only had the boat to start with, I had to first find a trailer. I picked up a sweet deal on a boat/trailer/trolling motor/outboard package for $600 from one of my neighbors. I've already sold the second boat (don't feel like a second project right now), plan on selling the trolling motor. More on the trailer and outboard later.

Next step was to refurb the trailer. I installed new carpeted bunks, sanded and repainted the trailer, completely rewired it with new LED tail-lights I picked up from Lowe's about 4 years on clearance for $1.99 a piece (originally sold for $30/each). I knew I would use those dang things one day. I also installed a new front boat stop and winch.

Next step: Decking

I wrestled with this for a couple weeks. My first attempt was pressure treated plywood. 5/8 for the floors and 3/4 for the trolling motor deck. After I had all the pieces cut and dry fitted, I just couldn't get a good feeling about how to finish it out. I didn't want to use carpet due to not being able to clean it after a muddy day of duck hunting. Not too mention that plywood quality these days seems to be a thing of the past. Even after trying to pick out a couple of good sheets to work with, it still had a little bow to it, not to mention the knot holes that would need to be filled.

While I was pondering the material for the decking, I decided to go ahead and roll the interior of the boat with the Duraliner truck bed coating for a little texture. I used about 1 1/2 gallons to really give it a good thick coat.

Finally made a decision.

I decided to do it right and bought a couple 4 x 8 x 1/8" aluminum sheets. Along with a couple 25 foot sticks of 1 1/2" angle aluminum for bracing. I decided it would be much easier to finish out the aluminum compared to the wood. Initially I thought the aluminum would be a lot lighter, but to my surprise, that's not the case. It's only about 5 pounds lighter than the plywood decks I had already cut.

The good thing was that I already had my deck templates cut, so cutting the aluminum went really smooth.

Next up: Paint

Before I attached the aluminum to the boat, I roughed it up with rough grit sandpaper and a hand sander. After that all the aluminum got it's first coat of truck bed liner like the rest of the boat. Then the entire boat got covered it several coats of Krylon OD green paint. After doing this first hand seeing how many cans of paint I used, I would definitely recommend trying to find paint in can to roll or brush on. Krylon stopped making their camo paint in the quart cans, but other companies still do. It may seem expensive at first, but I can promise you it won't be more expensive than the spray paint in the end.

Ok, now here comes the fun stuff! Camo

I purchased the Mossy Oak Shadow Grass stencil kit from Styx River. This kit is awesome. I'm not a real big painter, just ask my wife. But man, with this kit, the boat turned out great.

Lookin good Man! Welcome to the site. Any questions you have can more than likely be answered by someone here. One thing though, keep an eye on your plywood, as a lot of us recommend against pressure treated wood in a tin boat due to "galvanic corrosion". There have probably been 500 conversations about it, so look around for a minute or 2 and you're bound to see one. That camo is AWESOME! Keep posting pics!

After the paint job was complete, now it's time to add the fun stuff. I mounted the Minn Kota I-Pilot trolling motor, installed all the lid pulls, sockets for the front and rear navigation lights, seats, small on board battery charger and a few other small items.

Oh Yeah! Remember the outboard?

Originally, I planned on replacing several parts on the engine to make it more reliable. After a little digging online, I found a complete replacement engine for it for only $130. Now, she runs like a top. It was the easiest engine swap ever, remove 3 bolts, unhook a couple connections and drop the new one right in place.

After replacing the engine and couple layers of paint, the old motor looks right at home.

****, thats what I get for jumping the gun! Maybe I should wait til you're done posting pics before I post Aluminum is the way to go! Looks great

Thanks for the good words. I originally posted this in the wrong section and was copying it over when you first commented.

Great build - the boat looks really nice. Very professional.

I really like the truck bedliner idea.

Do you have any pics of your deck supports?

SVOMike86 said:

That camo is AWESOME!

Click to expand...

X2, fantastic build. One of the best 12' I've seen! =D> =D> =D>

BaitCaster,

Thanks for comments. I'll take a few pics of the supports soon. It may be hard to see the details, since they all have truck liner on them now. Basically, I ran four pieces from the front seat to the middle seat. On the end of the angle aluminum, I cut one side of about 1 1/2 inches so the other side of the angle would overlap the bench seat. This gave me plenty of metal to rivet into. The four long pieces provide all the support I need. I thought I would need a couple vertical pieces for extra support, but that's not the case. I'm around 195 and I feel no sag in the deck when I walk around. Also, I added a small piece on each end that got rivetted directly to the bench seat, this was strickly for extra support for the deck lids. In the back, I used two braces, one about 33" long that was rivetted directly to the back of the back bench seat and the other was attached to the transom that is used as a stop for the rear deck lid. Pics to follow.

Looking good! I really like the aluminum build much better.

That looks real nice!! Love the camo job. Wish there were more pictures.

Great job! =D>

Baitcaster,

Here are a couple pics of the supports.

Took her out for the maiden voyage this evening.