1972 SS Inside Out Restoration (New Title)

[jbing81]

Hey guys and gals

With a lot of consideration I've decided sell my '59 Alumacraft QM and to defect to the "Dark Side"! This Sunday I will be picking up my first Starcraft and could not be more excited!!! It's a early 70's 18' SS with a similar year 125 hp Johnson with TnT. I've been out on her many, many times as she belongs to a good friend of mine. Everything runs and works as it should with only a very minor leak in the stern (spent the night on it once and it took on less than 1/8" of water in the bilge). Shes been garage kept since new and it really shows! A few years ago it received new coat topside paint but other than that everything else is factory. No real plans for her this season except for the few minor maintence issues, two new pedistal seats and maybe one of those really cool stern seats "86 Century" made =) Other than that she pretty cherry. I have a couple pics today but will def. post more come Sunday!!

 

[Beezerchris]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Congratulations. Loks really nice indeed, and that is a great looking dog in the bow too. My dog loves the bow seat.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Well I may be a bit biased but in my opinion you couldn't have picked a better boat Welcome to the Starmada!

 

[jasoutside]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Sweet rig JBing! Welcome to said "dark side". No going back now bro!

 

[jbing81]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Well I may be a bit biased but in my opinion you couldn't have picked a better boat Welcome to the Starmada!

I wish I could say I picked it, just happened by chance. My buddy has fallen on tough times and came to me last week asking if I'd be interested. We've gone back a few decades and I hate to see him scraping to make ends meat so I worked out a deal with him. To be honest I wasn't really sure h
ow I was going to justify another boat to my wife, so that night I put the QM up on CL. I thought it might take a week or two so I priced it to sell, turns out it only took 4 hours! Lol.

Its a good situation for my friend. He's able to pay a few bills and is also welcome out at any time.

 

[Pugetsound]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Thats what FRIENDS are for Good for you.

 

[King James]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Way to help a friend in hard times Great boat so far I love my SS do need to work out the seating in mine also. Being only a 16 tight back there for landing fish with the back2backs but as the gluvit is sitting on the shelf waiting for warmer weather and floor repair i have few days to figure what i want.

 

[heyyou325]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Welcome to the Starmada. A really good lookin boat and dog. If you feel about your old boat like I do my Crestliner selling it had to be hard. You did good for you friend and hopefully the economy is heading backup, slow enough not to bust again for a long time.

 

[Huron Angler]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Welcome to the Starcraft fleet jbing81, that's a nice SS ya got there

Always nice to be able to help somebody out, and in this case it seems like a great deal for both since he still gets to go fishing on the boat. Good for you both.

I bet she really moves and looks very well maintained. Do you fish for walleye? I hear they are gonna be running late this year thru the Detroit river. Probably still not enough time for me to get my boat ready

 

[jbing81]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

So I picked up the boat today and the condition is a little rougher than I remember lol. Non the less its mine now =). The floor is a bit soft near the bow and there is some wiggle in the transom also. With that said Ive decided to pull the floor and do the transom before the season starts. I have a firm grasp on both projects, pulled the carpet and the side panels today and made short work of it! However Im not sure of the thickness of the transom wood? Id like to laminate it for added strength and as it would probably save a couple of bucks as well. Could someone please provide me with the thickness of the ply? I plan to take a trip the the lumber yard tomorrow and grab everything I need before I start this weekend.

I will post some pictures as well, but Im warning everyone the camera phone has much to be desired lol.

 

[jbing81]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Like I said the camera phones sucks pretty bad! Turns out this is the only photo that came out, it was too dark in the garage at the time...

 

[ezmobee]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

The transom is two sheets of 3/4" laminated together.

 

[jbing81]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Picked up the ply for the deck and the transom this morning and forgot how expensive lumber has become over the last year or so! Both Lowes and HD had only BC ply in 1/2" and 3/4" and was all warped, so I made a third trip out to Johns lumber and was able to find some good AC.

As for the rivets, I've done some looking around at some other restos and it looks like everyone with 1/2" deck is using 1/4" w/ 1/2"-5/8" grab. Is this correct? And what is everyone using for the transom / splashwell and other trim pieces? With the use of a few coupons and a gift cert at Harbor Freight I can get around 500 rivets for next to nothing.

 

[fshngho]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Welcome JB. As EZ said, two pieces of 3/4" ply laminated together. I used the epoxy to glue them together and then epoxied the whole thing again 3 times. Its your choice, but some of use pre drilled the holes a little larger and filled with epoxy too, then drilled out the holes to the correct size. The rivets are 3/16" diameter with a grip range of 5/8" - 3/4". Make sure to get all aluminum rivets (mandrel too). Most of everything else.. I used 1/8" rivets, 1/2" grip range.

 

[jbing81]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Welcome JB. As EZ said, two pieces of 3/4" ply laminated together. I used the epoxy to glue them together and then epoxied the whole thing again 3 times. Its your choice, but some of use pre drilled the holes a little larger and filled with epoxy too, then drilled out the holes to the correct size. The rivets are 3/16" diameter with a grip range of 5/8" - 3/4". Make sure to get all aluminum rivets (mandrel too). Most of everything else.. I used 1/8" rivets, 1/2" grip range.

Just so I have this straight, 3/16 for the transom and 1/8 for the floor and other misc. trim pieces? Ive done quite a few tear-outs in the past however I used bolts and screws on those projects. The Starcraft is the first boat Ive done that requires rivets. Thanks for the help =)

 

[fshngho]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

I didn't use any rivets for the transom, except the corner trim. The 3/16" is used on the floor, brackets/braces, rub rail, etc. The 1/8" rivets were used on the gunnel trim and anything in its grip range. Basically, I used them in comparison to what I removed.

 

[jbing81]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Great! Thanks for the help guys! That makes plenty of sense now that I had a chance to go out this morning and have a closer look at the boat. Just wanted to make sure I was getting enough of the correct size and for the correct application. HD is too expensive for the rivets and HF is too far of a drive to keep running there and back. Has anyone out there used the pneumatic rivet gun HF sells? Wondering if its worth the $35 or if its a pile? I've read the reviews and it seems like a great tool but one can never really know when it comes to their stuff. All I know is doing all the rivets by hand will really be a test of endurance =).

The plan for today is to finish removing the floor, consoles and bow seats. Judging from everyone else's progress it shouldn't take more than a few hours.

Along with all the lumber I bought yesterday I also snagged a sheet of FRP for the side pieces. Someone else on here had said they were using it and it sounds like a great idea! That stuff is easy to cut, install and is a lot less expensive than recovering with vinyl.

I will defiantly bring the digital camera tonight and leave the camera phone in my pocket! Its really amazing what phones can do now a days with all their bells and whistles, but they sure do lack in the photo dept. Sometimes I think I could draw better pics than this thing takes lol.

Any how, wish me luck tonight!

 

[jbing81]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Well it went really well progress wise this evening. I was able gut the entire interior with the exception of the dash and I was able to cut the aft two floor boards. As for the dash, I've removed a lot of steering wheels in the past, but there must be a ton of corrosion on this one! No matter what I did I wasn't able to get the darn thing off. I might just cut plastic and replace it with a nice SS one anyway. Other than that things went smooth. I do have quite a few rivets to replace on the stringers as over half were broken which leads me to another question. Near the bow are the stringers supposed to have a curve to them? Or is it a result from the floor being shot? They almost looks like someone stood on them and bent them a bit, however the pair seem to be symmetrical which leads me to believe its a compensation for the rise at the bow. None the less I'm pleased with the progesss tonight. Tomorrow I plan to finish cutting the last two floor boards, the wood for the console and the bow seats. If my better half agrees Thursday is a good clean/ wire wheel/ power washing day. =).

Btw, forgot the digi camera again... So a few more garbage cell phone pics will have to do...

 

[Pugetsound]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

I have done two boats with manual rivit installer and it was a pain in the a-- constantly jaming up. We just had a H F open 30 miles away and i picked up a riviter as well as a small small spray gun for motors or even a whole boat . I do not like the way the roll and brush turned out on miy 16 SS. That however was just me and I prob. screwed it up. Looks ok but not to great. It will be fun and a real learning experience. Pugetsund

 

[ezmobee]

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

Re: New to me 18 ft SC SS

My stringers curved a bit in the bow also I believe. I have used one of those HF riveters and it worked well.