Ail
Well-known member
Warning: Extremely long first post!
Well I guess it is about time to get my rebuild thread going. First the background stuff, the boring history of my boat. Please note that the first part of the rebuild was done at the end of last summer, and I started back up again around mid-July this year due to moving and some other life stuff.
After seeing a jon boat rebuild last summer with modified decking and storage, and a pretty nice paint job, I caught the bug and knew I wanted to pick up my own project boat. So after a month searching ads and driving around looking at boats for sale I finally came across a package with a 14' jon boat, trailer, 9.5hp Evinrud, two trolling motors and seats. So I drove two hours to get it from Lancaster, Pennsylvania despite the fact I had never even driven a vehicle two minutes with a trailer in tow. After some inspection and a last minute trip to the notary I finally had a project on my hands:
This barely legible ad is the most information I could find about this boat:
The company is now defunct and this is not the exact model of my boat, but it is close. The middle model, the 1415, is pretty much exactly the same configuration. The actual model number is the TR-14:
I stripped most of the stuff it came with off immediately:
Look at all those "goodies!" This thing had been sitting for a year unused, and it had no water in it when I picked it up, that said, everything on this was still rotted:
I was still in the process of stripping everything, and it had rained the night I picked it up after we went to bed. The make shift drain plug the previous owner had in was rusted in, so it collected a bit of water that I had to dump. You can see the transom is pretty worn, and it was made from pressure treated ply. Nice! #-o
It took us a hell of an effort to get that old transom out without taking anything off, and you can see on the left where the previous owners had cut a horrible notch in the gunwale caps to get that one in. Lots of corrosion as you would expect. There was also some damage where the handles were attached because someone decided to weld one of them on. :-k
Yikes. That is hard to look at. I did get all of that off eventually. Okay so with everything stripped and the boat rinsed out, this is what I was looking at:
Not too bad, and leak free as well. The fact it did not leak may have been the most pleasant surprise of the purchase. Originally I had big plans for this boat, decks, storage, mods all the good stuff. I soon came to realize however this boat was very narrow for a 14' boat, unusually narrow and not a great candidate for a bunch of decks and other flare. So I had to rethink what I wanted to do, but the first order of business was getting the seats open and checking out the foam:
I went with cutting the seats open rather than messing with rivets and possibly creating structural issues by removing the seats. I would have probably done it more carefully in hindsight, but they have wooden exterior ply seats going over them anyway sealed with epoxy resin, spar urethane, and oil-based paint. They were originally carpeted, but I removed the outdoor carpeting when I started working on the boat again this summer. Anyway next on the list was getting new foam in. Being the old foam was in such bad shape, filling the seats with closed cell polystyrene would add more flotation as well as give the bench seats a little more rigidity. I just cut it and fit it in as tightly as possible:
It took me a couple of hours to get all 3 seats filled. The next day I fabricated seats from the exterior ply I also used to make the first of two transoms. One of the seats:
Transom:
Being happy with the fit of the seats, I went ahead and had my first experience with epoxy resin. I coated the seats, motor scuff board, and transom twice:
I added some outdoor carpet to the seats since that was what I had available. I thought I had used stainless staples, but when I pulled the carpet off this year, they were all rusted already. Oops!
What came next was the opposite of what I had expected. I figured the seats would need adjusting due to the trapezoidal shapes, and I was sure my transom was a sure fit. However it was quite the opposite. I found myself having trouble getting the transom in behind the brace and side brackets in one piece. Unfortunately I had pre-drilled all of my holes and epoxied the wood. I know that seems brazen but, I didn't make sure the transom fit before preparing it to install permanently because I didn't want to bend the top lip up more than I had to. Well when I did finally get it in, the entire top row of holes did not line up. They were too close however to re-drill. Lesson learned, always make sure everything fits before you go wasting epoxy! At this point I was anxious to get the boat out on the water. So I secured the new seats, and bolted as many spots on the transom that lined up and took her out for a re-splash:
So ends the project for last season as I then spent the rest of the fall on the water. It should be noted I did do some sanding to the outside, but only one side of the hull. Fast forward to July this year when I finally got back to it. Getting the boat prepped for primer and paint was the main focus as well as fabricating a new transom using the old one as a template. Using one of these and a corded power drill I stripped the hull of any residue and rust:
https://www.amazon.com/Dico-541-774-21-Nyalox-Brush-2-Inch/dp/B00004YYD0/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1408410837&sr=8-4&keywords=nyalox+brush
This thing was my savior. Prior to finding it I was using an orbital sander and 120 grit sandpaper. That was fine, but the wheel took the grime off faster and scratched the surface very well for applying zinc chromate primer. I know most people would say something equivalent to 80 grit is too harsh to use on aluminum boats, but I didn't find it to be overly harsh when applying proper pressure. The hardest part of using this wheel was holding the power drill button in. After about a week of wheeling after work for a few hours I had finally cleaned the entire hull:
Lookin' nice! Meanwhile in between wheeling breaks I got the new transom in, used a very hairy make-shift peanut butter (thickened resin) to fill the gaps, and installed my drain pipe:
I decided to leave the outside end unflared due to a lack of flaring tool, and because I kind of liked how it sticks out a little. If it becomes an issue somehow I will cut it and flare the end. The last thing I needed to do before getting it ready for primer was replace a few rusted steel rivets the previous owners must have put it to brace the original oar lock:
Before.
After. I dipped them in 5200 for insurance. Now that all the dirty work was done, it was time to prep the bare metal to get primed. Here is the arsenal of products I used to get it ready for priming:
On the far right is POR15 Metal Prep, which was my phosphoric acid etch:
https://www.amazon.com/POR-15-40201-Metal-Prep-Gallon/dp/B00J594B52/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1408412740&sr=8-2&keywords=por+15+metal+prep
I used Dawn and mineral spirits to degrease the boat first. I went through several rags getting as much residue from wheeling off the boat as possible. After that I rinsed thoroughly with water. I then applied the POR15 with one of the spray bottles and let it soak for 15 minutes before rinsing thoroughly again. After wiping dry it was time for the zinc chromate:
Safety first! This stuff is nasty.
Not bad. I used three cans and got a fairly good cover on the entire hull. The tips of the spray cans were small and my gloves often caused the spray pattern to be interrupted leaving a droplet spray on the boat. This was annoying but eventually I found a method with my thumb that worked better. Well this is where the smooth sailing ended. I let the sit overnight with the zinc chromate drying. It is normally a fast dry but I fully submit that the working conditions were borderline. Let anyone reading this be aware that if you should paint or primer in non-optimal working conditions that this in itself is fine, but be patient and give the coat more time to dry! The next day I came back about 16 hours later and attempted to paint which led me to a headache and this mess:
My problem was three part, first as previously stated the working conditions were borderline by the can instructions and I should have let it dry longer. Second I am not sure if my boat was completely dry after wiping it down with rags post rinse from the acid etch. It was a cooler day so I did not have the hot sun to aid in drying the hull. Lastly I had left outside over night which did cause some condensation to form on part of the hull and run down each side. A simple, but dumb mistake. All in all these can be attributed to the same issue which was my own impatience. I have been fighting the weather for two weeks now and just wanted to get the boat painted ASAP. Well when you put as much time in to something as this, rushing through anything to get it done is never a good idea. Take it from my mistakes.
Now the good news is I only lost a day of work. Saturday I cleaned up the mess, scraped and sanded all the loose paint, and gave the whole thing a good sanding to ensure anything cracked or loose primer was removed. That night was an impromptu trip to Lowes which had me buying two cans of Rustoleum self-etching primer. I had already spent $50 on three cans of zinc chromate and could not afford to buy more, or wait for my source to open Monday. I also picked up some new lumber for my trailer bunks that was NOT treated. The previous owner was completely oblivious to concept of keeping treated lumber away from aluminum. My plan is to fabricate flat top bunks using 2x4s, and 1x6s. I will then attach 1x6 PVC board to the top of the 1x6 planks rather than carpet the bunks.
Sunday morning was re-prepping any bare aluminum. I degreased again, and rinsed the boat off. I had the hot sun on my side this time, however I needed to run to the local hardware store so I let the boat sit out to dry while I ran errands. I decided I wanted to add a base coat non-etch primer for the paint. The local hardware store didn't have a latex exterior primer that suited my needs, so I ended up with a gallon of this:
https://www.rustoleum.com/product-catalog/consumer-brands/zinsser/primer-sealers/cover-stain-oil-base-primer/
I asked the guy at the hardware store to tint it for me, but he said it was too full so instead he gave me an entire can of green tint for free. I've never tinted before, but was hoping for the best. When I got home the boat was bone dry. I was ready to use the metal prep again but this time before the acid etch I took isopropyl alcohol soaked rags and wiped down the entire boat. This pulled even more of the primer off that did not get a good adhesion. To be honest I think it was still drying over 24 hours later. With the boat now clean again I applied the two cans of self etching Rustoleum primer as a spot prime. It had seemed to dry much quicker than the chromate since the working conditions were far better, and the boat was 100% dry. I wasn't taking any risks however so I coated the bunk lumber in spar urethane and put the boat in the garage for the evening:
As you can see it was quite the full house. I also decided to re-coat the seats with epoxy resin, 3 coats of spar urethane and then painted them with one of the Duralux paints I had purchased to do camo. Since I bought seats this year I didn't see a need to carpet them as much as seal them well.
Yesterday I flew home from work to check on the drying of the primer. Everything seemed to adhere well and I decided to do a quick sand before mixing up the Zinsser primer. The sanding went much better as the primer stuck almost everywhere very well. I degreased it again and wiped it clean, and then mixed up the primer. This stuff is thick! Also because of it being white, adding green pigment made the primer a horrible teal color, but I still figured a shade of green was better than white for a dark green topcoat. A half-a-gallon of primer and two coats later, this was the result:
It may not look like much, but the coat is thick, and it hardened quickly. Today after work it will be time to try the Duralux paint again, hopefully this time with more success.
Well I guess it is about time to get my rebuild thread going. First the background stuff, the boring history of my boat. Please note that the first part of the rebuild was done at the end of last summer, and I started back up again around mid-July this year due to moving and some other life stuff.
After seeing a jon boat rebuild last summer with modified decking and storage, and a pretty nice paint job, I caught the bug and knew I wanted to pick up my own project boat. So after a month searching ads and driving around looking at boats for sale I finally came across a package with a 14' jon boat, trailer, 9.5hp Evinrud, two trolling motors and seats. So I drove two hours to get it from Lancaster, Pennsylvania despite the fact I had never even driven a vehicle two minutes with a trailer in tow. After some inspection and a last minute trip to the notary I finally had a project on my hands:
This barely legible ad is the most information I could find about this boat:
The company is now defunct and this is not the exact model of my boat, but it is close. The middle model, the 1415, is pretty much exactly the same configuration. The actual model number is the TR-14:
I stripped most of the stuff it came with off immediately:
Look at all those "goodies!" This thing had been sitting for a year unused, and it had no water in it when I picked it up, that said, everything on this was still rotted:
I was still in the process of stripping everything, and it had rained the night I picked it up after we went to bed. The make shift drain plug the previous owner had in was rusted in, so it collected a bit of water that I had to dump. You can see the transom is pretty worn, and it was made from pressure treated ply. Nice! #-o
It took us a hell of an effort to get that old transom out without taking anything off, and you can see on the left where the previous owners had cut a horrible notch in the gunwale caps to get that one in. Lots of corrosion as you would expect. There was also some damage where the handles were attached because someone decided to weld one of them on. :-k
Yikes. That is hard to look at. I did get all of that off eventually. Okay so with everything stripped and the boat rinsed out, this is what I was looking at:
Not too bad, and leak free as well. The fact it did not leak may have been the most pleasant surprise of the purchase. Originally I had big plans for this boat, decks, storage, mods all the good stuff. I soon came to realize however this boat was very narrow for a 14' boat, unusually narrow and not a great candidate for a bunch of decks and other flare. So I had to rethink what I wanted to do, but the first order of business was getting the seats open and checking out the foam:
I went with cutting the seats open rather than messing with rivets and possibly creating structural issues by removing the seats. I would have probably done it more carefully in hindsight, but they have wooden exterior ply seats going over them anyway sealed with epoxy resin, spar urethane, and oil-based paint. They were originally carpeted, but I removed the outdoor carpeting when I started working on the boat again this summer. Anyway next on the list was getting new foam in. Being the old foam was in such bad shape, filling the seats with closed cell polystyrene would add more flotation as well as give the bench seats a little more rigidity. I just cut it and fit it in as tightly as possible:
It took me a couple of hours to get all 3 seats filled. The next day I fabricated seats from the exterior ply I also used to make the first of two transoms. One of the seats:
Transom:
Being happy with the fit of the seats, I went ahead and had my first experience with epoxy resin. I coated the seats, motor scuff board, and transom twice:
I added some outdoor carpet to the seats since that was what I had available. I thought I had used stainless staples, but when I pulled the carpet off this year, they were all rusted already. Oops!
What came next was the opposite of what I had expected. I figured the seats would need adjusting due to the trapezoidal shapes, and I was sure my transom was a sure fit. However it was quite the opposite. I found myself having trouble getting the transom in behind the brace and side brackets in one piece. Unfortunately I had pre-drilled all of my holes and epoxied the wood. I know that seems brazen but, I didn't make sure the transom fit before preparing it to install permanently because I didn't want to bend the top lip up more than I had to. Well when I did finally get it in, the entire top row of holes did not line up. They were too close however to re-drill. Lesson learned, always make sure everything fits before you go wasting epoxy! At this point I was anxious to get the boat out on the water. So I secured the new seats, and bolted as many spots on the transom that lined up and took her out for a re-splash:
So ends the project for last season as I then spent the rest of the fall on the water. It should be noted I did do some sanding to the outside, but only one side of the hull. Fast forward to July this year when I finally got back to it. Getting the boat prepped for primer and paint was the main focus as well as fabricating a new transom using the old one as a template. Using one of these and a corded power drill I stripped the hull of any residue and rust:
https://www.amazon.com/Dico-541-774-21-Nyalox-Brush-2-Inch/dp/B00004YYD0/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1408410837&sr=8-4&keywords=nyalox+brush
This thing was my savior. Prior to finding it I was using an orbital sander and 120 grit sandpaper. That was fine, but the wheel took the grime off faster and scratched the surface very well for applying zinc chromate primer. I know most people would say something equivalent to 80 grit is too harsh to use on aluminum boats, but I didn't find it to be overly harsh when applying proper pressure. The hardest part of using this wheel was holding the power drill button in. After about a week of wheeling after work for a few hours I had finally cleaned the entire hull:
Lookin' nice! Meanwhile in between wheeling breaks I got the new transom in, used a very hairy make-shift peanut butter (thickened resin) to fill the gaps, and installed my drain pipe:
I decided to leave the outside end unflared due to a lack of flaring tool, and because I kind of liked how it sticks out a little. If it becomes an issue somehow I will cut it and flare the end. The last thing I needed to do before getting it ready for primer was replace a few rusted steel rivets the previous owners must have put it to brace the original oar lock:
Before.
After. I dipped them in 5200 for insurance. Now that all the dirty work was done, it was time to prep the bare metal to get primed. Here is the arsenal of products I used to get it ready for priming:
On the far right is POR15 Metal Prep, which was my phosphoric acid etch:
https://www.amazon.com/POR-15-40201-Metal-Prep-Gallon/dp/B00J594B52/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1408412740&sr=8-2&keywords=por+15+metal+prep
I used Dawn and mineral spirits to degrease the boat first. I went through several rags getting as much residue from wheeling off the boat as possible. After that I rinsed thoroughly with water. I then applied the POR15 with one of the spray bottles and let it soak for 15 minutes before rinsing thoroughly again. After wiping dry it was time for the zinc chromate:
Safety first! This stuff is nasty.
Not bad. I used three cans and got a fairly good cover on the entire hull. The tips of the spray cans were small and my gloves often caused the spray pattern to be interrupted leaving a droplet spray on the boat. This was annoying but eventually I found a method with my thumb that worked better. Well this is where the smooth sailing ended. I let the sit overnight with the zinc chromate drying. It is normally a fast dry but I fully submit that the working conditions were borderline. Let anyone reading this be aware that if you should paint or primer in non-optimal working conditions that this in itself is fine, but be patient and give the coat more time to dry! The next day I came back about 16 hours later and attempted to paint which led me to a headache and this mess:
My problem was three part, first as previously stated the working conditions were borderline by the can instructions and I should have let it dry longer. Second I am not sure if my boat was completely dry after wiping it down with rags post rinse from the acid etch. It was a cooler day so I did not have the hot sun to aid in drying the hull. Lastly I had left outside over night which did cause some condensation to form on part of the hull and run down each side. A simple, but dumb mistake. All in all these can be attributed to the same issue which was my own impatience. I have been fighting the weather for two weeks now and just wanted to get the boat painted ASAP. Well when you put as much time in to something as this, rushing through anything to get it done is never a good idea. Take it from my mistakes.
Now the good news is I only lost a day of work. Saturday I cleaned up the mess, scraped and sanded all the loose paint, and gave the whole thing a good sanding to ensure anything cracked or loose primer was removed. That night was an impromptu trip to Lowes which had me buying two cans of Rustoleum self-etching primer. I had already spent $50 on three cans of zinc chromate and could not afford to buy more, or wait for my source to open Monday. I also picked up some new lumber for my trailer bunks that was NOT treated. The previous owner was completely oblivious to concept of keeping treated lumber away from aluminum. My plan is to fabricate flat top bunks using 2x4s, and 1x6s. I will then attach 1x6 PVC board to the top of the 1x6 planks rather than carpet the bunks.
Sunday morning was re-prepping any bare aluminum. I degreased again, and rinsed the boat off. I had the hot sun on my side this time, however I needed to run to the local hardware store so I let the boat sit out to dry while I ran errands. I decided I wanted to add a base coat non-etch primer for the paint. The local hardware store didn't have a latex exterior primer that suited my needs, so I ended up with a gallon of this:
https://www.rustoleum.com/product-catalog/consumer-brands/zinsser/primer-sealers/cover-stain-oil-base-primer/
I asked the guy at the hardware store to tint it for me, but he said it was too full so instead he gave me an entire can of green tint for free. I've never tinted before, but was hoping for the best. When I got home the boat was bone dry. I was ready to use the metal prep again but this time before the acid etch I took isopropyl alcohol soaked rags and wiped down the entire boat. This pulled even more of the primer off that did not get a good adhesion. To be honest I think it was still drying over 24 hours later. With the boat now clean again I applied the two cans of self etching Rustoleum primer as a spot prime. It had seemed to dry much quicker than the chromate since the working conditions were far better, and the boat was 100% dry. I wasn't taking any risks however so I coated the bunk lumber in spar urethane and put the boat in the garage for the evening:
As you can see it was quite the full house. I also decided to re-coat the seats with epoxy resin, 3 coats of spar urethane and then painted them with one of the Duralux paints I had purchased to do camo. Since I bought seats this year I didn't see a need to carpet them as much as seal them well.
Yesterday I flew home from work to check on the drying of the primer. Everything seemed to adhere well and I decided to do a quick sand before mixing up the Zinsser primer. The sanding went much better as the primer stuck almost everywhere very well. I degreased it again and wiped it clean, and then mixed up the primer. This stuff is thick! Also because of it being white, adding green pigment made the primer a horrible teal color, but I still figured a shade of green was better than white for a dark green topcoat. A half-a-gallon of primer and two coats later, this was the result:
It may not look like much, but the coat is thick, and it hardened quickly. Today after work it will be time to try the Duralux paint again, hopefully this time with more success.
