1977 Starcraft Holiday Build

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VegaGT

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Mar 16, 2012
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Hello all,

Joined a while ago and have lurked ever since. I am about 30-50% of the way through a build and thought I would share and join in on the fun on this forum. My plan is to repaint the entire boat, redo the interior, convert to open bow, added fishing platforms front and rear, and plenty more.

I picked this up late summer last year with the intention of having it completed by now... That never works for me, sometime I will post a picture of my "6 Month" 84 Mustang GT build I started 3 years ago. This boat needs to be back on the water next month. So, even if it is not 100% where I want it by then, I want it to at a minimum be usable.

Here it is the day I drug it home. Complete with Dodge Stratus seats!!

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The interior did not last long, neither did the original deck. They had put a second layer over the original and then carpeted over that.

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Got the Evinrude 50 off.

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I have plenty more to post, will do that tonight.
 
Thanks perchjerker, these little boats are my favorite tinnies. I like other boats, but I really like older StarCraft's.

Ha! I always forget some small detail, this one is a fifteen footer.

It is going to pain me a bit to cut the bow open, but there is a reason almost all boats are open bow these days. I've got some ideas on how to do it and have it look like it was always that way.
 
It's your boat if you want to give it a bowectomy but I hate to see these old small runabouts get molested.
Maybe you can locate a StarCraft 16' SS or Mariner.
 
Here I have started pulling the boat apart for replacing the transom.

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At this point the transom is out. I had previously cut the floor parts and dry fit them and at this point I cut new transom pieces and glued them together and fit them to the boat.

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Flipping day has come! Didn't really need my buddies tractor for the job, but he brought it over just in case.

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The bottom was painted half halfheartedly with the ugly blue.

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Here is round one of stripper. The paint on the sides came off with ease, the bottom has had several coats of who knows what put on.

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This revealed an ugly truth about how the previous "restorer" stripped the sides and transom! I am guessing 80 grit or harsher on a grinder or rotary sander of some sort.

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Here she is as of the other day. Bottom side is all bare and ready for etch primer. My plan is to etch prime, seal and paint the bottom as soon as I can. Next will be etch then filler primer for the sides and transom. I am really hoping that this will only take one round if filler primer to hide the nasty scratches left in the aluminum. I have buried similar stuff on cars before, and have also spent a considerable amount of time sanding the aluminum to help with this.

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lckstckn2smknbrls said:
It's your boat if you want to give it a bowectomy but I hate to see these old small runabouts get molested.
Maybe you can locate a StarCraft 16' SS or Mariner.

I appreciate the sentiment, I know it is not a popular choice, but it is easily reversed with less effort than I will spend changing it, it is just a chunk of 5052 aluminum sheet at the end of the day.

I've changed my mind three times or more so far. This is partially the reason it is upside down right now instead of having the "bowectomy" done. I've made up my mind this time, for "good" ish.
 
Cool boat, I really like the way the splash well is formed. My '58 16 foot richline came with a partially cut out bow cap, they moved it forward about 8 or 10 inches and built a bulkhead out of plywood and capped the cut edges with wood to give strength and protection (all of which was rotten and had to be rebuilt). I kept the layout because I fish with my 8 year old and feel safer with the high sides and front bulkhead, gave a place to mount trolling motor, and it comes in handy to have a small storage locker. You have a lot of options with that boat. Will be following!
 
Thanks OutragGIS I dig these things too!!

After a day of work she is finally getting somewhere. Picture below is in primer.

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Phase one is complete below. I have the bottom and transom painted white. The next phase will be filler primer and a GM blue I picked out for the sides. it was supposed to just be a stripe on the sides and painting the top side the same blue, but some idiot underestimated the amount of white it would take...

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Like I said, I need to filler primer the sides, should be able to knock that out this week. I am really hoping to be sanding primer next Saturday. If not, I was thinking about flipping it and painting the sides and top all at once. I will see how that plays out .
later.

Not a huge fan of the newish Camaro, but the color I bought for the boat was taken from this.

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I have temporarily stalled out... Between family obligations ans other things, I had to stop the progress on this boat and focus on one I will be able to take fishing this coming weekend. I have managed to get all parts of the trailer painted except for the tongue. These are the only pictures I have for that progress.

Hanging before being sanded/painted.

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After I finished sanding/grinding here is the frame and spring brackets all painted up.

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I stopped the progress on the Starcraft and trailer since I knew I could knock it this boat out quickly (1636 Jon of unknown origin). I basically just had to build a trolling motor mount and replace the transom wood (both coated with spar varnish). Since this boat came out decently, I may be building a trailer for it soon.... For now I will throw it on my utility trailer. I may also cut, coat, and carpet some plywood for the deck.

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I decided since I started a thread here, I may as well come back and bring it current as it may help someone else down the road. I am not the worlds best forum user... I lurk a lot more than I post...

First step in the bowectomy, Make a cut. I laid my I-Pilot on the bow and figured out how much to leave on the bow, then I traced a line at 6" in from the rub rail trim around the sides and used a gallon paint can for the radius cuts at the bow end and connected the dots with a straight edge. The opening came out small, I expected that, but I wanted to sneak up on the final size rather than cut too much off the bat.

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Then I removed the rub rail and drilled all the rivets out to get the bow aluminum to lay flat and trimmed off the excess at the rear of the bow piece which ended up being about an inch and an eighth per side at the back end and of course tapered toward the bow.

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I was still not sure how much of the bow aluminum I was going to be able to keep, but I will used it as a template for the 3/4" ply I used for the support.

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Knowing that using the bow piece was not an exact size, I decided it would be much easier to just trim the pieces later rather than trying to measure or trace cardboard, etc. I had to do some trimming at the point of the bow and just laid the two pieces on top of each other marked a line and cut, I could have cut both and centered it, but it doesn't really matter to me if they are even. I will be joining them underneath with another cut piece of ply and glue anyway. For the rear of the pieces I just marked the forward end of the gunwales and trimmed them to sit flush at the top.

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Here it is with the bow aluminum laid back on getting ready final opening marking/cutting. I knew the ply would be bigger than needed, but I figured the jig saw would be running a bunch more by the time I was done.

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At this point I have cut it back as far as I plan to. I moved the windshield to where I thought it made sense and marked it out as shown (if you can see the black marker lines).

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Here it is all cut out. It now has a little over three feet from the bow to the windshield.

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Here it is mocked up with my "shop" seat and the I-Pilot trolling motor.

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Here's the bow joined together, I used PL Premium and screws to secure the scabbed piece of ply underneath.

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At this point it is time to join the new bow wood to the gunnels. I took some 5052 AL I had laying around and cut/bent what I needed and riveted them in. The result was a very secure and stable joint.

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Here is the mock up of the bow platform framing. The third picture is after I had everything figured out and pre-cut and started coating everything with Spar varnish.

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At this point I had coated all of the wood, cut the hatch opening, and painted all of the inside metal with Rustoleum.

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Next up, I started making the side panels. I was lucky to have nice original panels to use as templates but I extended them down towards the deck an inch and a half. All of the attachment points on the gunnels, side box, and the new bottom angles were done with rivet nuts. This makes it sooo much easier to remove them in the future.

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The attachment points for the splashwell were broken so I used some of the angle left from the side panel bottoms as replacements pieces.

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