Buckethead's 1974 Duracraft 1720

[Buckethead]

Hello! I recently traded a tractor for a 1974 Duracraft 1720 flat bottom mod V. The 1720 model number may be a bit deceiving because it is actually a 1748. It's been sitting in a shed for the last 30 years or so with little or no usage. I know this since I got it from my uncle who bought it new. I am planning on keeping it the original color, adding things like live wells, maybe bait wells, battery boxes, lights, maybe even relocating or removing bench seats, everything a guy and his sons need to have a successfull fishing trip. All repairs or additions will be done with aluminum. There will be no wood in this boat including the transom. My buddy with the wire feed welder is key to the whole thing.

After I get the trailer put back together, I plan on starting on the outside with new paint and decals which I found on the internet. The rivets in the gunwales are in excellent condition as there is no sign of being loose and no flaked paint on them. The keel has almost all of it's paint still on it so other than the transom needing a little attention it's fishable now.

I don't have pictures to post since I am out of town with work but I'll post them when I get back home. My oldest daughter is headed to college next month so that will keep my money a little funny but I'll get through it.

So any help I can get about old Duracrafts would be great since the internet has very little at best, and not just paint but any accessories that may have attached to the groove in the top of the benches, kinda looks like a removable seat that went the width of the boat maybe went there, not sure really.

That's about it for now, thank you all in advance for advice, help, info etc. and hopefully me and my youngest son will be filling it full of crappie next spring.

Buckethead.

 

[earl60446]

Inquiring minds need pictures of the boat and tractor.

 

[Buckethead]

I won't be home until Aug 3 so its going to be about 2 more weeks so as soon as I get home I'll get boat pictures posted that weekend, as far as the tractor goes I'll get them when I can. It's an old Case tractor, a 30 series if I remember right, utility front end, gas engine, its sitting at our property near Stanton Mo, not sure when I'll be back there.

Don't mean to keep you hangin' but I'm 2 weeks and 600 miles from home, be patient with me my friend.

 

[Buckethead]

Here you go, I hope I did this right. The pictures were too big the first time I tried to upload, this should work. Obviously I'll be starting with the trailer since I'll need a place to set the boat during the project. I noticed the front seat in the bow has probably half of the rivets popped out of place, I'm thinking that may be coming out and replaced with something able to support the bow and better suited for a trolling motor. I only have the tongue and the hubs off the trailer here so I can re-work them, I'll post pictures of the rest of the trailer when I get it home.

Let me know what you think.

 

[Buckethead]

Last night I took out the bow seat since I'm going to have to re-shape the nose and the continuous flow of styrofoam has me fearing the obvious, I found what I knew I would but didn't want to see. Quite a mixed bag of spiders and bugs had found their way into the styrofoam and were tunneling in. They've done quite a job. I'm sure the other two seats are in similar condition so I'm going to clean them out too. I know if I don't it will be a never ending flow of styrofoam in the boat so better to do it now then later.

Here's a couple pics from last night.

 

[badboymonk]

Wow ! I have the same year boat except mine is 16 foot.

 

[DaveInGA]

You've got a nice boat with a lot of potential. I think you made a good trade. Good idea to get the styrofoam out, but do replace it with some closed cell foam. It's extra work, but worth it if you happen to get swamped (does happen). Looking forward to watching your build.

 

[Buckethead]

Badboymonk, I have scoured the Internet for some trying to find another like mine but like yours a 16' is all I could find. Even Duracraft info is non existent.

Dave I've been cruising around this site for some time looking at all the projects I could find that are similar to mine, definitely closed cell foam without exception. I only want to do this once. I'm thinking of doing the transom replacement with square aluminum and a high tensile strength foam. I found the link to it on here actually, I wonder if anyone on here has ever tried this. There is a guy in my town that rebuilds fiberglass boats, he's right next door to the guy doing my trailer hubs so I'm going to talk to him and see what he thinks. I'm not ripping on the guys on here who use wood because they've put a lot of work in their boats but I just can't do it. I'm headed for training again for 3 weeks in Sept so if there's a break in the action you'll know why.

Buckethead

 

[KRS62]

I also have a 16 footer. While I would certainly love an 18 or 20 footer, I love my boat. I bought it in pretty good shape, so I haven't had to do any major upgrades. There is not much foam left in the boat to speak of. Just a little in the floor.

No, there is not much info on the internet at all. I think they died before the internet age. Apparently, one of the owners/sons is now at War Eagle.

FYI - you can make your own bolts to fit in the gunwale rails. Take a carriage bolt and grind down half of it. Just thought that might be nice info to have while you are rebuilding in case you want a Bimini top.

KRS

 

[Buckethead]

I was kinda entertaining the idea of a bimini top, we had one on a deck boat we rented on Bull Shoals and it was really nice, especially after being in the sun most of the day. As far as the rails I could definately see a carriage bolt working very well, I may play around with that this weekend. I think this weekend may be dedicated to working on the trailer, which depends on if my hubs are ready, if not I'll mess with the boat more.

Buckethead

 

[Buckethead]

Today I got the transom out and went through and straightened out rivet holes. I was looking at the dent on the port side and wondering what I should do about it. I was thinking when I start framing the rod locker on this side I could use heavier gauge aluminum and just draw it back into place. My Uncle thinks I should drill all the rivets out and straighten the gunwales and top rail separately, that seems like a lot of work. I got a few pictures of the transom and the port side gunwale, any advice here would be great.

Buckethead

 

[Buckethead]

Well, I haven't made much progress on the boat other than it's all stripped out. I've got a plan to make an all aluminum transom so I can stay away from wood. I talked to the fiberglass boat guy in town and he said it should work very well. In the mean time I've been trying to get the trailer done so I can put the boat on it, hurts my back bending over to work on the boat.

Here's a picture or two of the trailer. As you can see I need to get it lowered down about 10" or so. Going from 8" to 14" wheels is not going to be easy. If it proves impossible I may have to reconsider the 14" wheels, but not quite yet.

Buckethead

 

[Buckethead]

I know it's been a while since my last update and I'm not going to bore everyone with that info but I have been picking up materials and parts here and there. I've mainly been trying to get the trailer put together so I have a place to put the boat. I've taken quite a few photos of what I've been doing, though a little at a time. You all will remember how insistent I've been about not having any wood in this build, I'm sticking to that for the framing and decks but I've given in to the advice of a man who's been building and racing cars and boats all of his life. Taking his advice I had a friend contact someone he knows who works at a sawmill and I now have a 8' x 16" solid oak transom laying on the floor of my garage for the low cost of FREE! I looked into composite decking, aluminum tube and even a polyethylene plastic sheet installed in similar fashion to plywood. $365.00 for a 5 x 10 sheet was a bit of a turn off, oak will be fine. Anyway I'll put some pics up and after this winter storm tomorrow melts away I should be in a position to start making regular progress. I talked to a local recycling center today, he recently took in 2 huge pieces of an aluminum framed awning from a building front that has more than enough structural material for my build. The owner said a local church is considering buying the two pieces to attach to their building and will let him know on Friday this week if they're going to buy it, if not it's mine. Guess I'll wait and see.

Some of the things I've picked up off of craigslist have been a brand new winch, jack, switch and fuse panel, and my best find yet has been the 4' x 4' road signs for $10 each. I was talking to the man I bought the signs from and he asked if I had an outboard yet, to which I said no, he began to tell me about a 1974 Mercury 25hp tiller he bought brand new, used regularly, maintained regularly as you're supposed to and stopped using it because arthritis kept him from being able to pull start the motor. He replaced it with an electric start motor he still uses today. He's hanging on to it for me until I get the cash together for it. Funny how you stumble on to things sometimes.

Enough of that, here's some pics.

Buckethead

 

[Buckethead]

I was able to take advantage of nice weather and a lot of time this weekend, finally got the trailer finished other than another roller or two, me and my son put the boat on the trailer tonight, its good to be this far along. I know there's a lot of work left to do but I'm so glad to be at this point. It rained like a SOB this afternoon so I was unable to do a leak check. I'm going to get into that next weekend if its dry. Here's a couple pictures from my progress this weekend.

I also finally figured out what kind of trailer I have, it's a Magnolia Craft made by Moody Mfg. of Maben, MS. Lots of M's. I took a couple screen shots of the old brochure I found on a thread on another site. I'm still going to register it as a homemade trailer. I'd be interested to know if anyone knows where parts could be found at, I haven't really pursued it very hard yet.

Buckethead

 

[Buckethead]

I almost forgot, with all the years of styrofoam, dirt and misc. nuts that have accumulated inside the cross braces, I was wondering if anyone knew of an easy way to get all that out from inside the braces, I was thinking a piece of wire with a piece of cloth pulled through. I know I'm not the first to run into this.

Buckethead

 

[Buckethead]

Well I've got great news, I did my leak test in the driveway last night and the only leak I had was from the plug I didn't tighten enough, needless to say I'm very excited about that. I'm going to try to get my last two rollers installed and guides finished and the trailer will be finished.

Buckethead

 

[Buckethead]

I'm thinking this weekend may be transom replacement weekend. I have a few options available and am throwing them out here for comment. I'm leaning toward removing the knee braces so I can install the transom without cutting the corners off then reinstalling the braces with SS hardware and 5200. Cutting the corner braces then welding them back in place is another option, my third is to only make the transom as wide as the width between the corner braces. I think there is a picture of the transom from an earlier post.

 

[bigwave]

I say if you choose to cut the corner brackets off, go ahead and have someone fab up a new all aluminum transom out of square tube. You will then never have to worry about the transom for the life of the boat.

 

[Buckethead]

Yea I thought of and considered that, there's a guy in the area that does that very thing, you take him your boat and in a couple days you've got a nifty new custom built transom. Given my financial limitations at this point my free oak board is looking better and better. It may be something I'll have to do at some point anyway, I was measuring this afternoon since I'm going to try to get the transom done tomorrow, and noticed a half dozen or so places where the aluminum is pitted pretty deep behind where the old transom was. It almost looks like treated plywood may have been used. I'm pretty sure it wasn't in 1974 but who knows. We're supposed to get more snow and sleet at some point over the weekend, looks like I'll be moving the wife's suburban out and putting the boat in its place. Should make some decent progress this weekend.

 

[Buckethead]

Well, between Friday and part of Saturday I managed to get the transom in. I was going to start on the floor but old man winter had other plans for us. I'll get transom pictures in a day or two when the snow melts. Here's a couple of pictures I took from the garage a little bit ago.