FINISHED ! pre 1950 Alumacraft Model B

[ericman]

I sold my Osagian Missourian and needed to replace it with a small (less than 48" wide) square stern boat for duck hunting and fishing smaller lakes. A guy posted this as a 12 foot StarCraft. Turned out to have 2 Alumacraft tags on it but I had never seen a boat like this before. It measures 13' 6" long and is 46" wide at the widest and only 36" wide at the stern. All evidence on the interweb says it's an Alumacraft Model B. I couldn't find a serial number. . . yet and the only digitized Alumacraft catalogs I could find are 1950 and later and none of those have this boat pictured. I didn't find any evidence of this being rabidly sought after like the Ducker is, so I decided to bastardize the thing and make it a better boat. The tops of the benches were only 9 inches from the floor and the rear bench only had 12 inches of space between it and the transom. And 4 benches was just way too much. So here she is. The first 3 pictures are the before. I'll keep posting updates as the work progresses.

-Eric in Cleveland. . . Minnesota that is.

 

[ericman]

Transom was getting bad. Plus, I hate it when plywood is mounted to the outside of a boat. Motor clamps always dig into it and it just looks bad. So I replaced all the wood and instead of plywood on the back, I used 1/8" aluminum plate. I try to only use solid aluminum rivets when I can, even on the transom. I think it looks cleaner. I couldn't mushroom rivets over inside the transom-floor support so the bottom 4 are stainless machine screws with locknuts.

 

[ericman]

I wanted to re-use the 2 bigger benches but neither were quite wide enough to put up as high as I wanted, I plan on attaching 1/2" carpeted plywood to the tops of the benches anyway. A little more comfortable than bare aluminum. I haven't decided if I'm going to put in some seats or not. We'll see when we get there. Here's the front bench out and the supports for the 2 main benches going in.

 

[ericman]

I finished the supports for the front bench and the old front bench, with just a little trim, fit like a glove in the new rear position. So far, all the aluminum I've used is stuff I've had laying around, so basically no money spent yet. I left the old benches in place to provide support for the sides of the boat until the new ones went in. See how low the rear bench was and how close to the back of the boat it was.

 

[ericman]

All the old benches are out. All the holes are filled with rivets. I moved one set of oar-locks. I figured I'd cup-brush the paint and patina off the things. They look like they are cast out of bronze. That's kind of neat. I think I won't paint over them. The layout is done, now comes a lot of sanding, wire brushing, JB-Welding of some seams, just to be sure, and paint. Oh yeah, I think I'm going to make some sort of gunnel to floor support just to further stiffen everything up. The floor has ribs every six inches and that's like a tank, so that little bit of flex on the sides caused by my new 50 inch space between benches contradicts the rest of the boat.

 

[ericman]

Got some more work done over the past week, not much, but some. Just could not get those **** dents to stop that clunking in and out, no matter how many times I tried with a torch and a quench, so I patched it to stiffen it up. Gunnel supports are in and that really stiffened everything up. I put in one strut on the side that had the most damage, something must have fell on it some time ago. Also added rivets to the gunnel to get rid of the last of that annoying rattle. Everything is sanded on the inside and it will be washed and rinsed out and flipped over tonight to start sanding and painting the bottom and outside of the boat.

I'm tossing around the idea of having a spray-on bedliner put in instead of paint for the inside floor, mainly to deaden sound and maybe actually last awhile. Even factory paint goes to hell. Has anyone done a bedliner and then hunted and fished for several years and been extremely happy with the results?

 

[BCOWANWHEELS]

boy I,d sure liked to have that boat, it would be a perfect match for my ole 1941 evenrude sportwin 3.3 hp engine. where you located ?
bob

 

[thoma018]

like your boat and work. Gotta a question, I see solid ribs across the floor of the boat but can't id a drain plug in the "bottom up" photo. Do you have a drain plug?
Thanks

 

[ericman]

Well, made some more progress. Hard to find time to work on this thing. Here's the bottom painted. I had some stuff laying around, so I mixed 2 half pints of Rustoleum gloss smoke gray with 1 half pint of flat white. Still fairly glossy, but should be pretty durable. The whole idea is that when, not if, but when some of this paint rubs off or chips off, it will be bare aluminum showing through, so not quite as noticeable if it was dark green and then chipping showing that white metal. The floor on the inside will be Cabela's light gray tuff coat.

 

[ericman]

And here's the boat painted. The floor is Tuff Coat. The green is Hunter's Specialty OD Green mixed with Rustoleum Gloss Sand. The green is so overpowering that it barely changed with the addition of the Gloss Sand, but it did make it more of a matte finish. The gunnels, transom, corner plates, bow plate, and front of the keel are painted with Rustoleum textured nickel. I think it makes it look like new sandblasted aluminum. The bottom picture shows where I hole-sawed for a drain plug. Next on the list is to make some carpeted benches and some removable carpeted floor pieces. I already have my logo stencils and my number stencils so those should be painted on by next weekend.

 

[ericman]

Boat is finished. I'll make removable carpeted floor pieces for hunting when the time comes, but for now, it's done. Logos are painted on, numbers are painted on, license stickers are on. We did the maiden voyage last night. 3 horse Evinrude been sitting in my shed for 5 years and it started on the first pull. Boat's only 2 inches wider than the Osagian canoe that I replaced but it is way more stable and basically no flex. I love it and I plan on hunting out of it a lot.

 

[kylerprochaska]

I love it! Clean and simple!

 

[Ranchero50]

Wow, that turned out really well. The 'mods' look factory correct, good job.

 

[countryboy210]

Looks Great ! 8)

 

[BCOWANWHEELS]

YOU DID A GREAT JOB AND DID A ALUMACRAFT JUSTICE IMO
BOB

 

[Kismet]

Beautiful job! Fabrication and painting are top-notch.

How is stability with seats higher?

Be neat if you could find original promotional pieces to see what Alumacraft had in mind when it marketed that boat.

Be safe.

=D>

 

[ericman]

At 46 inches wide, I don't think stability was a primary concern when this boat was designed. Yes, it might be a bit more top heavy, but the original benches were only 9 inches from the bottom of the boat, 8.5 inches from the tops of the floor ribs. Who here likes subjecting their knees to that type of torture. For duck hunting, I'm going to make some removable carpeted floor pieces out of 3/4 inch plywood, which will add some stability, protect the roll-on bedliner, provide a safer, standing shooting position and darken the bottom of the boat so the ducks don't see that light gray from above.

And for hunting motorless lakes or small marshes, I had been hunting out of a square stern canoe, so, yeah, this will be better.

 

[Kismet]

Edit. Moved images and post to its own thread. 1955 Alumacraft Model A rescue.

 

[Kismet]

deleted...double post.

 

[Kismet]

Edit: moved to its own thread Model A.

(Besides, the comparison between the boat Eric built and the one I'm messing with will make me look bad. :lol: )