Alumacraft 1236 Makeover- livewell pg 11 - update front deck

[minicuda]

you have done a great job on your boat. excellent use of space looks like a super fishy set up!

 

[Basshole]

Thanks for all of the comments on the paint, clarkster and I will be starting the boat in the next two weeks...and the trailer and demo will start first. So if you can get the pics up of the winch you designed that would be awesome. I had no idea you could take out the foam and it would not affect flotation of the craft...very interesting. Really like the forward storage area you built too. Great posts and thanks for all of the answers too.

Shawn P
Baltimore Angler and Connoisseur or Fine American Women

 

[russ010]

no prob man... it's almost like I live on this site so if you ever have any questions shoot them to me.. I can generally respond pretty quickly - except for weekends where I spend my time on the water!

I'll take pics of the bow stop that I made up and get part of it posted tonight

 

[BloodStone]

I know this really isn't relevant to your project but, I gotta say, that is one beautiful German Shepard you have there!
P.S. The boat looks great too.

 

[russ010]

I know this really isn't relevant to your project but, I gotta say, that is one beautiful German Shepard you have there!
P.S. The boat looks great too.

Thanks for the kudos on Kodiak... I need to take some more pics of him too... he's put on a little more weight and is one fierce looking GSD now.. He's still a little scaredy cat sometimes though, hope he grows out of that as he gets older. Maybe Hoist-N-Hawgs could chime in on how to help that... When I pull the lawnmower out, he hits the trail running.

This New Years I lit a fire cracker to see what he would do... my big yellow lab tried to eat it as the fuse was burning, and once it popped, Kodiak turned the corner of the house and I have no idea where he went. I ran to see him running off, and he was long gone..

 

[clarker2000]

Thats too funny. I have a 200 lb great dane that looks and sounds intimidating but he a sissy as well. If you had the kahunnas to actually break in from hearing his bark and seeing him, you would be home free. He might even help you carry out the loot. Dogs are funny, he may grow out of it but it just may be his personality. Great looking dog though.

 

[russ010]

ok... so I'm going even further with mods...

This time I've added a 3-way outdoor speaker and a radio that will play off an Sandisk card or a thumb drive... luckily for me one of my cheap mp3 players is like a thumb drive, so I can just plug and play... I don't like where I have the radio mounted, but it is really the only place out of the way.. the next boat will have it in the rear, or in the rear bench. I've got a remote that can control it from all over the boat as long as I can point at it. I checked how much voltage it pulled off of just one battery... it went from 13.62 to 13.57... while on the water it will have 2 batteries in parallel going to it - but also running off of those batteries is the front 40# TM, cig lighter which runs the livewell, and the fish finder. I'm more than likely going to add another battery if I get another boat to run all of the electronics off of.

I also got a new seat. It says Duracraft on it, so I don't really know who it is made by. I thought it was used since there were no tags on it (it was on the shelf).. when I asked the guy about it, he said it wasn't used, but that they didn't sell Duracraft boats anymore and it was leftover. He told me he would cut me a deal... so the actual price on it was $100, and he sold it to me for $45. I couldn't pass that up. I sat on it, and it will take some getting used to. It's not as wide as the cheap Wise seats I have, so I'm going to have to be careful not to fall out. There's been a lot of discussion as to how much I like the offset pedestal.. well, hopefully these pics will show that you don't sit at a 90* angle.. it actually sets you back pretty good and I sat in it for about 45min playing with the radio and I have to say I was very impressed.

Now I'm taking this picture from the side of the boat, and if it were on a straight pedestal, it would be more upright

 

[clarker2000]

Hey Russ
Any chance you could post pics of your trailer set up? Not rushing you, just curious so I can get started on my friends boat.

 

[Waterwings]

Cool radio! I'm still thinking about those Attwood Centrix seats we talked about in another thread. The wants/needs I have are far greater than the tax return amount we're getting back, lol.

 

[poolie]

Thats too funny. I have a 200 lb great dane that looks and sounds intimidating but he a sissy as well. If you had the kahunnas to actually break in from hearing his bark and seeing him, you would be home free. He might even help you carry out the loot. Dogs are funny, he may grow out of it but it just may be his personality. Great looking dog though.

I've got three retired racing greyhounds and neighbors think they are big mean dogs which is great from a security standpoint because nothing could be further from the truth. Two of them are brindle colored and sometimes people think they are pit bulls. The only thing they would fight you for in the house is the treat jar.

 

[russ010]

Nice job man that looks great. I have a cd player to put in my boat too but couldnt figuare out a way to mount it but that mount you have there would work great im gonna look into that.
Joe

This is what I got... and where I got it from. You might be able to find it cheaper, but I got the radio, speakers and this housing unit all off of Amazon - mainly because I got the free shipping.. I should have shopped over the net, but I figured I made out pretty good - one guy at the ramp asked me if it was some kind of new graph.. you can't see the radio because the housing is blacked out. It's a pretty good unit too... even if it is a Pyle (something I would never buy for my autos... I only use Alpine for that if it's aftermarket).

That booger is a biatch to hookup. You hook up all of the internal wires to the radio wires. Me and my smart self decided to just start hooking up the colors like I used to do in my cars since there were no written instructions. Well.. I get to looking and some things just didn't seem write. I finally flipped the case over and they had the wires coming out of the back of the housing labeled. I had to start all over. The only wires coming out of the back are power, ground (which is a yellow/green wire :doh, speaker outputs and an rca jack. You can plug the antenna straight into the back. I'm not going to put an antenna on it... just pop in SD cards and thumbdrives since I can then listen to whatever I want.



Clarker2000 -- sorry man, but this is all I've got since the other piece is over 5 hours from my house. This is the basic concept of it though. That piece where the winch (dog bowl) is, should probably be about 4" shorter. The best thing to do would be to weld the bow stop part on, then measure how far back it needs to be with the winch kind of set in place.. I didn't have any of that stuff with me, nor the boat, when I was building this in my head. I'm probably going to have to cut it down because my tongue is not that long...

The pieces will be attached with U-Bolts... that will allow me to slide the bow stop up and down the mounting bracket, as well as slide the mounting bracket to and fro on the tongue...

In the last picture, the bottom 2x4 represents the tongue of the trailer.. the other 2x4 is the mounting bracket. It will have one of those smaller pieces welded to it as well, with little notches drilled out the on edges for the U-Bolts to fit into so that they don't slide around.

 

[Big Buck]

Russ,

If you don't mind me asking, what did you use to mount your seat pedastol, and what is it mounted to. Did you just use 6 lag bolts, screws, etc and do you just have 1/2 or 3/4 plywood that they are screwed into. I am putting one like that on my bench seat and I am not sure how to mount them so they will be real sturdy.

Thanks

Buck

 

[russ010]

which pedestal are you talking about? well... I'll just reference all of them.

Rear Bench - 3/4" plywood which is fastened to the aluminum bench with 3" SS self tapping bolts (I can get sizes when I get home for you). The pedestal was put down with 4 of the same bolts.

Front - I've had 2 seperate pedestals up there.. .the most current one (which I think you're referring to) is the pin pedestal which I can take out at anytime. I don't remember the exact dimensions of the wood, but I do have it doubled up in that spot where the pedestal is. I've got 1/2" for the whole floor, then there is another 1/2" sheet of ply that is about 15"x15" underneath. What is in there right now is just 3" wood screws.. I would have used SS machine bolts with large washers and nuts on the bottom, but I have my front deck kind of screwed into place, and I didn't want to take them back up.

Let me know if that helps you out... I'll check this again when I get home and respond again if needed - i'm just now about to leave work

 

[Big Buck]

No I think that pretty much answers what I needed. Thanks for getting back to me.

 

[Hanr3]

Hey Big Buck,

i have been watching your remodel project. =D>
I am real close to starting my, and I too have an old Alumacraft shallow V boat, in fact it looks almost identical to yours.

When are you going to post up some more progress?


And now we switch back to your regular program. Thanks for the interuption. :mrgreen:

 

[clarker2000]

Hey Russ
Just wanted throw a big thanks your way for your assistance with some of our boat/trailer mods. I am co-building the sea nymph with basshole. Its almost complete and looks great. We are hoping to get the trailer this week. Its been in for major welding and overhaul. Overall the boat looks awesome. Thanks again!!!!

 

[CowboyHokie]

Awesome rig. Question - I have the 14" Alumacraft and will begin my mods this weekend. Back on page 5, I see your rear seat mount and was wondering what hardware and method you used. I assume your rear is just thin alum and the inside is foam like mine. I will have a 1/2 plywood with carpet over the rear and will attempt to use screws through into the alum, but I'm not sure if this will be solid enough......

 

[russ010]

I actually used 3/4" plywood on top of the benches... I felt that I needed more umph to attach the seats to because the last thing I wanted was to rear back with a fish and the seat keep on going back.

I used 3" stainless steel self tapping lag screws. I can't remember what size they are, but I think they are about 1/4" thick.

I carpeted the ply, then used those screws to connect it to the bench. I did the same for the seat base - 3" screws everywhere.

You could also use toggle bolts to attach the wood to the bench.. just drill a big enough hole to get the toggle down into the bench, then tighten it up. That should have been how I did it, but I didn't want to because I knew that I was going to make a storage section or something out of that bench later on down the road.

 

[wdmccall]

Russ, what kind of saw did you use to cut out the bench seat? By the way, great looking boat..

Wd

 

[dyeguy1212]

I did the same thing with the bench and I used a sawzall. If you dont have one, tin snips can get the job done