Lowe 1648MV makeover (near complete)

[bamabill]

Nearing completion except for electrical.

 

[bguzik86]

Very nice! =D>

 

[tiny68]

I have a very similar Lowes Jon boat, if not the same model, but mine is tiller steer. Can you give me a ball park of how many feet of the 1 1/2 angle you used to do the floor and deck. I really like your design. Thanks, Tim

 

[bamabill]

Tim,
I bought three 25' sticks to start with. I made one or two bad cuts and had to go back and get another one although I only needed about 5'. So I essentially used about 80
feet. I don't know what type fishing you'll be doing, but I think a setup
like mine would be more for bass fishing. Since I want to learn crappie
fishing I now wish I'd done mine different. I would have made the front deck lower and shorter, only extending back to the second rib from the middle seat. The. I could mount my front seat on the floor and used a shorter pedestal or none at the rear so that person could put their feet on the floor. As it is right now I may have to add a short
extension to the rear bench for added footroom. Good luck with
whatever you decide. Use a lot of rivets if you don't weld. I read where riveted frames have some flexibility whereas welded is more rigid and prone to
cracking.

 

[tiny68]

Bill,

Thanks for the feedback. In my design I have sketched out, I am dropping the main deck height to that of the seats to try and keep a lower center of gravity. I had planed to run the main deck from the bow platform all the way to the back of the first bench.

I considering know just doing the floors with places for pedestal mounts. It would be a raised floor in the front to be level.

We will do bass, crappie, and bowfishing (minor). Maybe a little more research.

Tim

 

[bamabill]

I think you're on the right track Tim. Hope to see some pics soon.

 

[tiny68]

What size rivets did you use to 1) attach 2 pieces of 1/8" together and 2) to attach to 1/8" to the ribs? I have only minimal experiences with rivets. Did you use aluminum rivets? Tim

 

[bamabill]

Tim I used 3/16" throughout. Just make sure you get the proper grip range for the material you'll be joining. Don't know if you can see in the pics, but I only put two rivets on top at each end where the angle contacted the rib. I also added two screws thru the angle into the side of the ribs.

 

[Gators5220]

Very clean work man, i dig it

 

[bamabill]

my rat's nest

 

[bamabill]

more goodies

 

[Skiffing]

Get that baby in the water already!

I'm just waiting for the tide to change then we're going out on some flats for Striper. Schoolies and a few big boys are around. After dark some live sand eels should put one in the cooler. Hum.

 

[bamabill]

I guess I could get on the water, but I've had a broken leaf spring on my truck that I'm just now getting around to fixing. To make a long story short I can't recommend SD truck springs. gotta get new registration sticker and I'll be ready. Hey I thought stripers were fresh water?

 

[Skiffing]

=P~

 

[Silverad04]

nice looking build!

 

[bamabill]

Had to disassemble the dash to get a hole cut for switch panel.

 

[restornator]

Should have fished out of it first. That way you could have leaned out the process by making modifications that actually serve a purpose. May find out that you're actually losing space by adding compartments.

 

[bamabill]

rest,
Well, I had to have some storage and I've still got my floor space, so I think I'm ahead. Still need to mount bow lite when it comes in and get a TM battery, but this just about wraps it up.

 

[Jake11]

Awesome work. I've bookmarked this thread so when I finally find a bigger boat in my price range I can steal all your designs! =D> I wish there was a metal supply around here. I would have used all aluminum for the small decks I just put in my 14 footer but I'm not paying Lowes prices for those short sticks so I went with wood.

 

[bamabill]

Thanks Jake. As I said before, I couldn't have done all this without help from this site. Good luck on your next build.