lowblazah
Well-known member
I've been looking for a SeaArk 1872 for a while. (not a very common boat around these parts) I finally found one 4 hours away from where I live. Got it pretty cheap as the owner was a duck hunter and his wife viewed it as a "military boat" and she wanted something more for sunning and water skiing with.
Long story short...I was looking for this hull to make myself a forward mounted Center Console for river running. for the most part this boat was ideal (minus the work I knew I would have in store for me converting it) On the next pic you'll notice my apprentice hard at work figuring how all this is going to take place.
First order of business was to get it off the trailer and on the ground so I could get in and out of it easily to tear it apart. So made a cradle for it out of 4x4s and installed some casters on it.
Tore out all the carpet, floor and the console.
Saving top half of side console to possibly mount to a cabinet for my center console. Cut the welds and removed from the livewell.
Removed and stripped YEARS of carpet glue...this was pretty easy once I found out that Epoxy Stripper is the best way to do this!
Mocked up where and how high I want my console so i can work on the cabinet while I have it flipped over to fix some leaky welds.
Flipped it over this weekend to get access to these leaky "welds".
The welds actually turned out to be burn through from a previous attempt at fixing cracked rib welds.
Turns out these were not my culprit...but I did find a few cracks by the tunnel.
Crack by the tunnel.
Next step is to get it to my buddy's shop who has a tig welder and have him patch this up. But that wont likely be until after Thanksgiving.
Some of the items this boat is going to get are Hyd Steering, Hyd JackPlate, 6 new tempress hatches (as this boat doesnt have much for storage. Plus I need to add a livewell in the rear bench.) AntiSkid Vinyl flooring, bimini top and some HID Lights for running the river at night. And last but certainly not least....a new motor...
Stay Tuned....My goal is to have this done by spring.
Updated pics without having to scroll through all 6+ pages.
[youtube]UqjTNbHi63k[/youtube]
Long story short...I was looking for this hull to make myself a forward mounted Center Console for river running. for the most part this boat was ideal (minus the work I knew I would have in store for me converting it) On the next pic you'll notice my apprentice hard at work figuring how all this is going to take place.
First order of business was to get it off the trailer and on the ground so I could get in and out of it easily to tear it apart. So made a cradle for it out of 4x4s and installed some casters on it.
Tore out all the carpet, floor and the console.
Saving top half of side console to possibly mount to a cabinet for my center console. Cut the welds and removed from the livewell.
Removed and stripped YEARS of carpet glue...this was pretty easy once I found out that Epoxy Stripper is the best way to do this!
Mocked up where and how high I want my console so i can work on the cabinet while I have it flipped over to fix some leaky welds.
Flipped it over this weekend to get access to these leaky "welds".
The welds actually turned out to be burn through from a previous attempt at fixing cracked rib welds.
Turns out these were not my culprit...but I did find a few cracks by the tunnel.
Crack by the tunnel.
Next step is to get it to my buddy's shop who has a tig welder and have him patch this up. But that wont likely be until after Thanksgiving.
Some of the items this boat is going to get are Hyd Steering, Hyd JackPlate, 6 new tempress hatches (as this boat doesnt have much for storage. Plus I need to add a livewell in the rear bench.) AntiSkid Vinyl flooring, bimini top and some HID Lights for running the river at night. And last but certainly not least....a new motor...
Stay Tuned....My goal is to have this done by spring.
Updated pics without having to scroll through all 6+ pages.
[youtube]UqjTNbHi63k[/youtube]