Re: 1976 14ft Starcraft Falcon restoration
When I said stripped, I meant the interior not the paint......
InMotion has a great resto w/ a CHEAP & EASY way to take the paint off the hull & down to bare aluminum if that's the route you want to take:
Interestingly, I stumbled across a really cheap, environmentally friendly and fast way to strip the bottom of the boat! A few posts ago I said that the cheap stripper I was using didn't work... well I thought I would try an experiment this morning. I literally poured the stuff onto the hull and then using a paint brush, smeared it leaving big globs of the stuff everywhere. I left the electric oil heater on medium for the day and tonight around 8:45pm snuck outside and tried to strip the paint off using a metal 2" wide drywall tool... low and behold the paint literally fell off the boat!! In less than 40 minutes 80+ % of the hull is completely stripped! Cost: less than $4.00! Time: less than 40 minutes of labor! Environmental impact: Virtually nill... this stuff worked terrific with no toxic chemicals!
Just thought I would share that... getting the paint off is a normally a big pain and I'll tell you, I will have the boat stripped for less than $15 and way, way quicker than before with way, way less effort! I ran out tonight... but I am going to pick some more up tomorrow and pour it on Wed morning... I'll report back with the results to see that they can be duplicated.
Up next to his user name there where I've quoted him should be a little 'square' w/ 2
'' in it. Click that symbol & it'll open the thread at his post. Read thru from there. Should be details of how & what he used to go 'bare' bottom
If you have a few days to kill, and don't mind getting so many good ideas that you can't keep them sorted out, spend some time going thru the Starcraft restos & projects in the link AJ posted above. Good stuff in there. Lots of good ideas of what to do to & how to work on tin boats.
You are doing this on a budget, so you need to weigh the value of a 'good' enough resto or a great resto. Obviously, great will be more expensive & more involved. Depending on the care it's gotten since your Falcon was new, there may or may not be waterlogged styrofoam below decks. If there is, the deck (floor) should come out & be replaced after you decide what & how you want to treat flotation foam (the styro is 1 of the worst choices. If the foam is wet now, eventually the deck will develop soft spots (rot) and need to be replaced.
The good news is it's a tin boat, so if you want to polish it up a bit & rehab it to serviceable & useable condition, you can do so much easier then a glasser like your El-Rea. The transom replacement, if at all suspect, should be priority 1. It supports your motor & is a major structural component of the boat. It does not have to be in contact w/ the deck & flotation foam, so they may not have to be addressed now if they are sound. If you really want to do this once, and only once, on this boat, you'll want to pull the deck, remove & replace the foam w/ another alternative & reinstall a deck. If sound, & you take it up w/ care, you may even be able to re-lay the existing plywood. If not, try to be careful enough to use the pieces as templates for the new decking.
What is your Falcon rated for @HP? A Jet is 15'+/- and rated for a 50hp. If your Falcon is rated below a 40hp, you'll be fairly over powered. 15hp isn't too much over if it's rated for a 40hp, perhaps it's rated for a 45hp... Some states (& the USCG can) monitor HP's over the posted max of your boat.
1st reason to go thru the SC threads: DO NOT USE PRESSURE TREATED PLYWOOD for your resto. It is expensive, heavy and when exposed to water, caustic to aluminum.
2nd reason: Flotation foam, there are several options.
3rd: Tons of good info
4th: Yeah, we just like looking at pix & talking about tin boats
Open a photobucket acct, its free, and under/beside each pix you add, there will be an IMG code in a small text box. Copy that IMG code, it'll look something like this:
IMG]http://i1246.photobucket.com/albums/gg61/KGrHqFksFB1KqMNDpBQoSkoTWqg48_20_zpsdf2d610b.jpg[/IMG
And the pix shows up nice & big IN your post, that way we don't have to click & open an attachment. Makes it easier to scroll back & forth & look at pix, compare 1 to the next, and make comments about the content of the pix:
IMG]http://i1246.photobucket.com/albums/gg618/jbcurt00/other%20people%20boats%20or%20pix%20info/KGrHqFksFB1KqMNDpBQoSkoTWqg48_20_zpsdf2d610b.jpg[/IMG]
Specifically for the pix of your boat I posted, I opened the attachment, right clicked the mouse on the pix, copied the image, and pasted it IN my reply:
El-Rae you say, in the weeds, free I presume, with that 55hp Rude still on it?? Score.
That is an ideal 'donor' boat. You will find that reference a bunch in the tin restos....
