1963 Duratech 1236 - In Progress

[SoFlaBassAddict]

So, I've been lurking around on here for a while browsing around. What an incredible wealth of knowledge one can find here. To start things off, I've been looking for a small boat to use on my lake (private community) for a while now. I finally found something that fit the bill. An old 1963 Duratech 1236. My father and I looked at it and basically said thats the boat we've been looking for. Obviously I wanted to find something that was wider and basically done and finished, but that wasn't happening. There were a ton of boats down here but 95% of them were either pure junk, or 30/32 inch bottoms. He's done a lot of metal work in his history. So we had no issues popping some rivets off to remove some junk alum on the bow. Popping out small dents and dings was no issue either. I've been bothering him for years to get rid of some of his old metal working tools, guess it's a good thing he's a packrat. Now we're down to just a hull. Three or four slowly leaking rivets. No big deal. Some 5200 sealant should handle that. If not a few new rivets is an easy thing to do. I cut out the wood for the flooring. Tell him to let me get my good jigsaw from my shop. He cuts out the spaces for the ribs anyway with his jigsaw that was made sometime in the late 50's/60's. Needless to say the cuts weren't the best. But he's happy and it works. So fine. Lets just say that I own a carpentry shop, I had no problem doing it, he's a stubborn old man. :lol:
Tomorrow, my daughters and I are going over to my shop to cut and attach the carpeting to the floorboards. I know I shouldn't do a full deck on a 36" bottom. I'm not. Two six year olds and a tipsy boat are a recipe for disaster. Just the floors a small platform at the bow for storage and a trolling motor mount. I may box in a small area at the transom as well to cover the battery and have some rear storage. I'm planning on having everything easily removable if I need to clean the boat for some reason as well as eventually strip and repaint the hull. Hopefully I'll get some pictures up before I really start mangling the boat up. (end long post)




(or not)

I've gotta say, it's been a while since I've had a project outside of work that I've really enjoyed working on. Great time to spend with my old man. Plus my daughters get to help as well. Pretty cool stuff. (ok..really the end)

 

[SoFlaBassAddict]

So, on with the pictures. Next step is to figure out how I want to build the bow platform for storage and the trolling motor..

 

[Froggy]

Welcome, good luck!

 

[SoFlaBassAddict]

Few hours spent today doing some work on the bow...

 

[cubanredneck]

Did you buy that boat from a guy named rob in couper city? Also would you be interested in putting together a jon boat club in your area. I live in Davie and looking for people to put a club together.

 

[SoFlaBassAddict]

Did you buy that boat from a guy named rob in couper city? Also would you be interested in putting together a jon boat club in your area. I live in Davie and looking for people to put a club together.

Yeah I did get it from him. I would have liked something in a little better shape, but this worked just fine. As far as putting a club together....maybe. I'm fairly busy most of the time, but every once in a while I can sneak out.

 

[SoFlaBassAddict]

Front decking and hatch nearly finished. Leaving the hatch in to make certain the glue sets on the carpet on the lip before I cut the hatch down a little to make room for the carpeting.

 

[SoFlaBassAddict]

If anybody can think of a good way to cover up the ugly portion on the bow next to the decking, please let me know. I may end up doing it out of some wood and carpeting it. It's just that some of the curves are a major PIA to cut accurately.

 

[SoFlaBassAddict]

A little more work yesterday afternoon...

 

[dyeguy1212]

Very nice =D>

 

[Troutman3000]

looking good

 

[SoFlaBassAddict]

Getting close to "finished"

Trolling motor off of Craigslist for 70 bucks. Guy tossed me a free Tempress seat as well that I may or may not mount.

My only concerns right now are the seat height. Thats and easy fix. Chop a few inches off the bottoms and move the bracing down. The other concern...is if this thing is going to float. I really doubt I'll have an issue there. I've only added about 100 pounds of stuff. 100 may be a bit generous also. Going to toss it in the water tomorrow to see what happens. I still need to put some 5200 sealant on each rib and underneath the angles on the ribs. A couple of small holes need to be filled where somebody had mounted some stuff at the top of the stern. I also need to put a hinge on the hatch at the bow. Need a handle for that as well. I'll probably just use a small strap for that. I may build a small angled piece of wood for the trolling motor pedal, that depends on how motivated I get. Gotta mount the transducer onto the trolling motor once I get it a little closer to the lake. It's a bit heavy to carry by myself with everything in it. Somewhere down the road I probably should paint this thing.

 

[Nevillizer]

Good job so far. =D>

 

[SoFlaBassAddict]

So, the boat floats. I've got a minor leak somewhere that I need to find and seal. Thats not really a major problem. It's a very slow leak. Need to install the bilge pump I picked up earlier today. I definitely need to brace the bow platform. The torque from the TM causes it to lurch almost to the point of lifting off the boat if it's on high speed. I won't be using it on high speed all that often, but having the piece of mind is nice. I just need to pick up or fab some L brackets to put under the seats for a little strength, and possibly one or two at the bow as well. Other than that I'm fairly happy. I can stand in the bow with little problems. It gets a little fun when I hit the throttle on the TM. I may put a small removable leaning post on the bow seat for when I'm fishing alone to make it a little more stable. We'll have to see.

 

[SoFlaBassAddict]

Boy, it's been a while since I've posted here. Got the itch to change things up a little bit. I never posted finished pictures of the boat when I originally got it done. Since then, I've added a second battery, few rod holders and other odds and ends. So here they are:

 

[SoFlaBassAddict]

Now, on to whats bugging me. I really want to eliminate that bench at the bow where the seat is mounted. It really makes it a PIA to move to the stern if I need to. Thinking of just getting rid of it, and raising the floor up a few inches, maybe halfway to the height of the current bench. I've still got plenty of leftover carpet, and I believe enough plywood to do a flooring. I'm just curious how stable that will be to fish out of standing up if it moves up another few inches higher than the bottom flooring.

Also keep in mind that this boat is not trailered...ever. I'll occasionally toss it into the back of the truck. Today I also built a dolly to move it across a small street and into another part of my developments lake.