1962 Elgin 14ft First Time Build

[Chaser0721]

I've had ideas and have been wanting to buy a boat to mod for five years now at least, but couldn't make it happen with the new kid that was on the way.
This is my very first boat, and I'm finally making it happen, so I went out and bought this 1962 Elgin (Sears?) 14ft riveted aluminum boat with a 5.5 hp Evinrude fisherman motor. Motor runs great, it's such a trip how these old motors are still kickin. Also picked up a 43lb thrust motorguide trolling motor w/ foot pedal, some fish finders and other random accessories. The guy threw in a MinnKota deckhand anchor winch for free.



I plan on putting in a front casting deck with seat mount, and a small back deck with a chair for my wife to fish off the back, with a low floor in the middle.

 

[Chaser0721]

Flipped the boat over on some saw horses I made, and it turned out to be a real big job. Seeing as though I'm a first timer I thought I'd fly through this whole thing in a month or so, but now that I'm already a ways in I'm coming to grips with reality.
I stripped the boat with Jasco, and more Jasco, and more Jasco, and some sand paper. Once I got all the paint off, my business offered to give me a bunch of Aluminum-oxide media they accidentally ordered and didn't need, so I decided to give the whole outside of the boat a light blast.
I bucked and sealed any leaky rivets, and dropped out the center bench seat and sealed those rivet holes and any other holes needing to be sealed using #10-24 truss head screws with washers and lock nuts and some marine JB weld.
Primed the outside of the boat with a Rustoleum self etching primer.


And then 3 coats of white marine paint on the bottom, and 3 coats of Navy marine paint on the sides.

 

[Chaser0721]

Was just going to do a quick job on the trailer, turned out to be a few weeks and a total rebuild.
I replaced all of the hardware with stainless steel hardware, removed all of the rollers, winch, hitch receiver, and anything else I could easily remove, and blasted primed and painted with a protective coating.
I then sanded any heavy rust off the main trailer and pulled all the rotten wood off. Coated the trailer with a rust preventing primer and white paint, then duplicated the wood pieces with new wood coated with 3 coats of spar urethane and 2 coats of white paint. I also had a buddy of mine powdercoat the fenders which came out nice.
Finally, I mounted the license plate and trailer lights which the trailer didn't have before, and wired it all up.

Before:


After:



Now I'm getting ready to finally flip the boat back over on the trailer and start work on the inside.

 

[enginerd]

Nice looking project and it looks like you're well on your way. Yes, Elgin was sold by Sears, Roebuck, and Company, but they, like the other department store boats were actually built by other boat manufacturers. My uncle had a nice little 14-ft Elgin runabout, but it was fiberglass. I think I'm almost at the same stage you're at; maybe that's wishful thinking, since I'm still stripping paint off the hull of my Lone Star.

Good luck and I look forward to seeing more pictures.

 

[Chaser0721]

After a long busy summer I finally have time to get back into working on the boat.

I finished painting the top lip and inside of the boat, and then I used some West Marine boat epoxy that my friend gave me from one of his projects to seal the inside of the rivets and seams. There are no leaks but I did it just to be safe. I cut some holes in the front and rear benches in in order to access the storage areas underneath, I will need to reinforce the benches with wood struts for them to keep their structural integrity.



Was super stoked to finally start on the wood work. I framed the center floor area using 1x2's and floored it with 5/8 plywood. I built the floor so it sits above the ribs on the boat, and sits in the small lip around the sides of the inside wall. I'm wondering if maybe this makes the center floor too high from the bottom of the boat?


I also used a template to cut the wood for the bow mount where the trolling motor and anchor winch are going to mount.

 

[manley09]

Looks good! Keep it going!

I built the floor so it sits above the ribs on the boat, and sits in the small lip around the sides of the inside wall. I'm wondering if maybe this makes the center floor too high from the bottom of the boat?

If it feels solid when you walk on it, it should be ok. If not you can add some wood to brace it.

 

[Chaser0721]

Finished all of the framing for the front/back decks, as well as the center floor using 1x2's, and cut the 5/8 plywood decks using cardboard templates. It came together pretty nice and tight. I water proofed all of the wood with the old timers recipe, and finished it off with a few coats of spar urethane. I'm pretty happy with the wood all came together.

 

[Chaser0721]

I ran water tight conduit throughout the boat frame where the wiring is going to be and held the conduit in place with plastic conduit clasps. I ended up using a lot more SS screws on this project than I thought I would...
I secured the battery box for the deep cycle battery under the front compartment area, and I ended up buying a U1 battery for the fish finder and bilge pump and a separate small battery box for that.

 

[Chaser0721]

So I didn't have much time to post pictures I've been working on the project non-stop every day, so Im just gonna be posting everything at once. Not the best way to do it I know. I got so many good ideas from reading other peoples posts/advice I felt like I was ready to do it all.

The carpet took a lot longer than I initially thought it would, but then again every else did too (I thought I was going to finish the project in a month)...

I used carpet adhesive and outdoor carpet from Lowes and SS staples from Amazon to adhere the carpet onto the wood. Like I said it was time consuming and actually got me to break a sweat. And I bought SS piano hinges from Amazon for like 7 bucks which I had to cut to size and drill holes but they were cheap as hell.

 

[Chaser0721]

Next step was to run all the wiring, solder all the connections and shrink tube. I got all of my electrical supplies from tinnedmarinewire.com for about $50. They made everything really easy for me. Everything worked great and connected nicely to the battery. Installed a 5A inline fuse on the bilge pump, a 2A inline fuse on the fish finder, and a 50A circuit breaker on the trolling motor. I also installed a Minn Kota anchor winch that some guy threw in for free basically which is pretty cool and it has a built in circuit breaker. I wire the bilge pump to a float switch, and also a toggle switch which works great!

 

[Chaser0721]

Finished!

After changing the impeller on my little 1962 Evinrude 5.5 fisherman it spits water and runs like a beast. Splurged on some seats and took it on a test run. Must be my lucky boat cause I stuck a 5lber first time out!

If there was anything I would change it would be to buy a wider boat lol. It rocks a bit when walking around but isn't dangerously unstable at all. Thanks for looking and thanks tinboats.net guys for all the inspiration and help!

Got the skunk off the new boat!

 

[JC2133]

Great build

 

[pbw]

Looks awesome and that Mr. large mouth bass! :mrgreen:

 

[sixgun86]

Turned out awesome! Nice work

 

[enginerd]

That's a very impressive transformation...and fish.