1984 Sylvan Supper Snapper Rebuild

I have an old Sylvan Supper Snapper 16" deep V, that was my starter boat, that I've owned for 10 years now. I was always planning on buying a new boat when the time was right, but the price of new boats have gone thru the roof. Financing a $60k Lund isn't the best decision right now, so I'm keeping my overhead to a minimum just in case. So my plan is to redo the boat and outfit it with the features of a new boat and some electronics. I had a mouse get into the boat 2 years ago and chew a bunch of wires in the outboard and main electrical. This caused problems with the outboard that I had trouble fixing, and basically ended slowly replacing everything so the outboard should be good for a couple years (1993 25 hp Mariner 2 stroke). The flooring is original to the boat and needs to be replaced. Also the batteries are weak and are dead by the end of a long day on the water. When I bought the boat, it was in bad shape and I just kept doing small projects and repairs to make the boat better, now is the perfect time for the full rebuild, with a more multi-species layout. The plan is to add a rod locker, small windshield for the side console, extend the front casting deck and upgrade the bilge and live-well.
You can see the before pictures, It was a solid setup, 55lb thrust Terrova with I-pilot link, and a helix 9 HB. All I have to do is put a new floor in right how hard could that be?

I started tearing the boat apart in late August, figuring I had all winter to work on the boat. This entire seemed to be put together with rivets. I had to chisel the heads off about 100 buck rivets to get all the storage boxes and seats out. Now my boat has a lot of holes in the hull that hopefully I will be able to put in watertight rivets. All the sub floors that were not exposed to sunlight were rotted.I pulled the carpet and drilled out the rivets and pried up the floor. The boat has always been stored in a garage as far as I know. The pour foam looked to be in good condition so I was very tempted to keep the foam, but I made the correct choice to remove the foam. Once I got all the foam out there was some corrosion and pitting on the hull. I've hit it with a wire wheel brush and on a drill to remove the corrosion and last of the foam.

How do I neutralize this rust to stop it and do I need to paint it with some primer? I have done a little searching and think Alumahawk paint might work.

I just read in another thread about using zinc chromate primer to prevent future corrosion. That is after any existing issues are addressed of course. Don't know any more about it that what I read.

Here is a link to the thread: https://www.tinboats.net/threads/co...-boat-restoration-build-or-scrap-metal.51424/

Its been awhile since I've posted, So I will have to catch up on the progress. Its been slow but I'm happy with the results. So I ended up scrubbing the hull with a water vinegar solution to clean up the corrosion, and I also replaced the cast aluminum bow eye with a SS U bolt. then I filled the boat with water and checked for leaks. By some miracle no leaks!

Now I started the prep the boat for some paint. I didn't sand the boat down to bare metal or bother with that paint stripper sludge that looks like hell to deal with. I just roughed it up real good and tried to sand out any scratches. I fish a pretty stumpy reservoir for a week every year that is hard on the boat. So I bought the low friction epoxy paint for the bottom, to hopefully prevent leaks down the road or maybe even help power load when trailering. So with a little help from a friend and a 4 wheel dolly, we pulled the boat off the trailer and flipped it into the grass. We put the dolly under the transom and we grab a side of the bow and dragged it back into the garage. I ended up going with the gator glide for the bottom paint. I followed the directions for the bottom prep work. Sanded it down pretty good, I took my time because I never want to have to flip this boat again.

Don't give up. It will look great when you're done. A restored boat is beautiful.

Stand Up said:

Don't give up. It will look great when you're done. A restored boat is beautiful.

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thanks, I'm pot committed at this point

I ended up buying the 2 stage 2 gallon kit from gator glide in charcoal color. I did 5 thin coats for the gator base, and repeated 5 coats with the gator glide. It was easy to do but was several hours for both. The first coat of gator base is nerve racking because the paint "fish eyed" real bad but after some youtube research that seems to be normal. But after 10 coats in total, it looks pretty uniform. The gator glide seems to work pretty good, because I thought I was going to have to drag the boat onto the trailer. It wasn't hard to slide her onto the trailer once the bow was up on the bunks.

Next up was a new transom, the old one was still solid, but bowed out in the middle. I ended up making the transom out of BCX plywood. I had to use 3 sheets of plywood and plane it down to get the same thickness. I then cut it to size and filled any gaps with filler and sealed the edges with waterproof glue and painted it with 3 coats of outdoor primer paint. The sheet metal had some hole from previous motors bolted thru the transom. I cut a small patch of 22 gauge aluminum and filled the holes with some GB water weld. It might not be the best way to fix this, but once its painted should be ok.

clc442 said:

Next up was a new transom, the old one was still solid, but bowed out in the middle. I ended up making the transom out of BCX plywood. I had to use 3 sheets of plywood and plane it down to get the same thickness. I then cut it to size and filled any gaps with filler and sealed the edges with waterproof glue and painted it with 3 coats of outdoor primer paint. The sheet metal had some hole from previous motors bolted thru the transom. I cut a small patch of 22 gauge aluminum and filled the holes with some GB water weld. It might not be the best way to fix this, but once its painted should be ok.

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You win the clamp collection competition, impressive...

Clamps are kind of like bacon. Can never have too much.

Next up is to paint the rest of the boat. I went with a 2 color scheme of jon boat tan and black to kinda replicate the old paint scheme. But the Alumahawk paint didn't really come out as a tan. I hated it at first but its starting to grow on me. This paint is really thick and does not look good when brushed, but its ok when rolled. The fumes from the paint are pretty bad, I did get sick painting the inside of the boat by leaning over the gunnels.

It looks good. I like the paint job and colors you picked. Makes the boat look new.

X2 -- colors look good. I like the stripe.

clc442 said:

Next up is to paint the rest of the boat. I went with a 2 color scheme of jon boat tan and black to kinda replicate the old paint scheme. But the Alumahawk paint didn't really come out as a tan. I hated it at first but its starting to grow on me. This paint is really thick and does not look good when brushed, but its ok when rolled. The fumes from the paint are pretty bad, I did get sick painting the inside of the boat by leaning over the gunnels.

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supper or super

alask83 said:

supper or super

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Super, Supper when I'm perch fishing. Typing on a phone isn't always easy

Next up was floation foam and sub-floor. I've was not thrilled with any of the options for this. I had corrosion from pour foam not draining so I didn't go that route. I'm using 1/2" MDO for the sub-floor because the previous floor was 1/2", but I believe the pour foam added rigidity. So I used the Home depot pink foam because it seems stiffer than the pool noodles everyone uses. But I dipped the pink foam in gas so I used the pool noodles in the last 32" of the boat. I've only got a 6 gallon gas tank so gas leak shouldn't go that far up the boat. I went with vinyl from defender and carpet glue. The glue is a nightmare so this stuff better hold up long term. I also used SS staples to hold the vinyl down too. Got the subfloor in and attached it with SS screws and finishing washers. I did use rivets in a couple of spots, but didn't like the look. When I put the casting decks in you shouldn't see any rivets

man boat is looking awesome, you're gonna have a frickin ton of room to move around in that thing now