LightningRose
Recruit
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2003
- Messages
- 4
I am so glad I found this place!<br />What a huge amount of info is here, and such friendly folks.<br /><br />I bought my first boat a 10 days ago, and have been working diligently on it.<br /><br />It is a 1972 16' Mirrocraft aluminum V-hull, with a 1954 Evinrude Bigtwin 25 hp motor.<br />Motor has been rebuilt completely a year ago, and just had carbs rebuilt and impeller replaced a month back.<br /><br />It has been somewhat of a grade B horror movie to clean up though, and I will tell you it's tale of woe.<br />The last owner was a degenerate slob.<br />He had gone catfish baiting with horse food pellets, huge cubes of compressed whatever-it-is that horses eat.<br />Well, the bag broke in the bottom of the boat, and rather than cleaning it out, he just let it sit. The boat was, of course, uncovered, and got rained in, making a nice delicious wet mass for the flies to find.<br />The flies took advantage of the wonderful food source, and laid many many eggs, hatching into about 5 pounds of maggots.<br />He swore he would clean it out before we bought it, but he merely took it to the car wash and attempted to rinse it a bit. He delivered it at night, (what a surprise).<br />Well, the creepy crawlies had retreated under the badly dry rotted and disintegrating carpet, and when we pulled that out, it looked like a scene from the Exorcist.<br />Many washings later, and after removal of the cruddy carpet, we were sans critters, but then were faced with the remnants of the old carpet glue and backing glued to everything.<br />I found that straight lacquer thinner and 3 days of scraping and brushing removed the glue, and we were down to a nice shiny boat again.<br />We painted the inside of the boat and the wood a clean white, and added the special grit sand to the paint for traction.<br />It is still about a week from completion, and I am sure more questions will arise after launch.<br /><br />We have moved from Denver, CO to Marshall, East TX last summer to buy a giant old mansion and run it as a B&B, and part of the wonders down here are the fabulous lakes.<br />Caddo Lake looks prehistoric, with gorgeous cypress trees draped in Spanish moss, and alligators to boot!<br />I don't know much about fishing yet, but plan on mostly sight seeing with the new boat at first, and trying not to get lost.<br />I moved from Baltimore MD to CO about 40 years ago, at age 10, and have always had a "thing" for water and boats. I will finally get to indulge that yearning again, and am very excited.<br />I am naming the boat "Molly Brown", as in "The Unsinkable", as she was from a small town in CO that I lived in for 7 years, Leadville.<br />I hope it brings the little boat some luck! <br />Nice to meet y'all 
