Encouraged by the success others have chronicled on this sight, I am embarking on my first tin boat rebuild. Others have rescued boats that had been neglected by former owners - in my case, I am guilty of allowing this boat to deteriorate under my watch and now hope to atone for this by restoring it this summer.
We have a long growing season in South Carolina, and as you can see, something has been thriving on the warm, humid conditions under a failed boat cover.
Carpet on the floor came up easily as the plywood was either wet and spongy or had already morphed into wood chips. Carpet on rod locker, bait well and up to the gunnels required a bit more effort to remove.
Inspection of the flotation foam revealed that a good bit of this appears to have been submerged to the point of taking on additional weight. Foam under forward live well is discolored on the bottom - perhaps some type of sealant the manufacturer applied being spraying foam?
Leaning towards replacing all of the flotation foam with Dow blue board. Am in the process of building a hot wire foam cutter to shape these to the contour of the hull between the ribs (10" oc). I'd like to modify the interior layout and convert this from a tiller steer to a side console. More on that later. For now, I'm hoping to learn:
1) What type of rivet tool do I need? I'm guessing the Arrow pop rivet tool (resembles a pair of pliers) isn't going to cut it. Do I go for an accordion type manual tool or is a pneumatic gun the better option?
2) When replacing flooring, is there any reason not to use the existing holes in the ribs were the original floor was fastened?
3) The trim piece running along on top of the gunnels was easy to loosen but the piece on the bow (maybe cast aluminum) has me stymied as I have removed 4 machine screws from the underside of this piece yet still haven't figured out what is keeping it (and those 2 trim pieces) from being removable. Pictures of that with next post.
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We have a long growing season in South Carolina, and as you can see, something has been thriving on the warm, humid conditions under a failed boat cover.
Carpet on the floor came up easily as the plywood was either wet and spongy or had already morphed into wood chips. Carpet on rod locker, bait well and up to the gunnels required a bit more effort to remove.
Inspection of the flotation foam revealed that a good bit of this appears to have been submerged to the point of taking on additional weight. Foam under forward live well is discolored on the bottom - perhaps some type of sealant the manufacturer applied being spraying foam?
Leaning towards replacing all of the flotation foam with Dow blue board. Am in the process of building a hot wire foam cutter to shape these to the contour of the hull between the ribs (10" oc). I'd like to modify the interior layout and convert this from a tiller steer to a side console. More on that later. For now, I'm hoping to learn:
1) What type of rivet tool do I need? I'm guessing the Arrow pop rivet tool (resembles a pair of pliers) isn't going to cut it. Do I go for an accordion type manual tool or is a pneumatic gun the better option?
2) When replacing flooring, is there any reason not to use the existing holes in the ribs were the original floor was fastened?
3) The trim piece running along on top of the gunnels was easy to loosen but the piece on the bow (maybe cast aluminum) has me stymied as I have removed 4 machine screws from the underside of this piece yet still haven't figured out what is keeping it (and those 2 trim pieces) from being removable. Pictures of that with next post.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk