Starcraft hull damaged

[slowleak]

I picked up a 16' Starcraft, closed bow hull, today. A local scrap guy was making his rounds and had asked how he could go about picking up a boat that was on the ground, or if he could borrow a trailer. I loaned the guy a trailer provided he brought the boat to me not the scrap yard first.
Its 16' and a few inches long, and about 5 1/2' wide. The transom and deck pretty much look like coffee grounds but there's a deep gouge along one side just below the water line, as if it got dragged across a sharp nail. The gouge is about 2" long, and the last 4" or so are through leaving just enough of a gap to see daylight through. The gouge ends at a rib, right on a decapitated rivet. There's silicone residue all over the area, and some very messy aluminum welds, so someone knew it was there and made some attempt at a poor repair. My guess is that the last owner didn't deem it worth fixing.
At this point I have only a few bags of empty beer cans in trade for it invested, and best of all its even got a title.

I was thinking of just cleaning and welding the area but my concern is that when it cools its most likely going to crack.
Am I right in thinking that the correct repair may be to use epoxy?
The area is just below the port side spray rail where the bottom of the boat just begins to curve under. Its more on the side than on the bottom, but either way its below the water line.

I'm thinking that maybe just tapping the dent or tear closed and filling it over with JB weld or similar may be the best repair, plus replacing the one bad rivet. Most of the open tear is under a rib from the inside, so access inside is limited, unless I remove a rib, but that to me would be just making the whole problem worse.

There area also about 30 or so abandoned holes in the lower transom that are filled with various sealers and screws that will also need to be fixed. I thought about using Alumaweld sticks but both locations are just too close to either the side seam or the transom seam rivets, which appear to have some sort of sealer in between.

Any suggestions? (Sorry no pics yet, I tried to get a few but its sitting on the trailer and the bunk covers the gouge on the side nearly perfectly. I'll get a few pics but that will have to wait till the weekend until I can lift the boat off the trailer enough to see the whole area better in daylight).

 

[GA_Boater]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

So you traded beer cans for a 16" Starcraft? With a title no less! Amazing!. Get some pics of the damage. It's hard to give advice in the dark, if you know what I mean. There might be an easy way ti fix the tear. Same on the transom, pics will go a long way. Welcome to the drydock, slowleak. We'[ll try to help you a little drier!

 

[magnumdeke]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

YA pics for sure, maybe possible to drill out the ends of the rip to prevent it from spreading and then have it tig welded and then maybe a mechanical patch with a piece of aluminum and rivets for insurance???

 

[jasoutside]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

Yup, I'm with these doods ^^^^.

We'll need some photos and mag has given you some great repair advice.

I am pumped that you were able to save this from the scrapper, really cool!

 

[slowleak]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

No pics yet, been raining all afternoon.
I did take it to a local welder and he didn't seem to want to mess with it. He's concerned about how close it is to the double rivet seam on the side. The best way to describe the damage is that it looks like a deep key scratch that went through at the very end. I could probably inflict the same damage with an ice pick or nail by hand. Its not deep, but the bad weld is an issue. Someone tried to weld along the opening and it cracked at the edge of the rib across the weld.

If it weren't behind a rib, I'd say a patch would be fine but the patch would encompass a rivet that goes through the rib. I don't think a patch is needed. I'm leaning towards just grinding the bad weld smooth, tapping the slight crease out, which should close up the gap, and then using JB Weld on the outside, sanding it smooth, and also backing it up on the inside with the same. I'd suspect that Gluvit alone would stop the leak but I want something more substantial below the water line. I don't suppose the boat would ever be in any danger of sinking with such a small hole, it would take a day or more to take on enough water through a hole that size to sink it or even become an issue with even the smallest bilge pump, but of course I want it fixed, and I want it fixed in a way that don't show.

My junk guy just wanted something he felt was of equal value for the hull, he didn't care what it was and he felt cans were worth more than a hull that needed to be cleaned of all wood and non aluminum first.

 

[Lyle29464]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

Make "2 V shaped runners. One to cover that and one to match on the other side.

 

[slowleak]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

Make "2 V shaped runners. One to cover that and one to match on the other side.

It would be easier to epoxy the area and cover it with marine filler and repaint. I'll most likely repaint the hull anyhow if I keep it.

I won't get too involved in it though unless I see I can fix the damage reliably. If it weren't for the already failed attempt at welding, I'd have less concern about it. I think they just made it look worse than it was in the first place.
The dozen or more holes drilled in the transom skin is more of a safety issue than the gouge in the side. Many of the drilled holes are very close to the bottom of the transom. Most are filled in with RTV sealer or what appears to be 5200 sealer.

Its got about 6" of water sitting in the bottom now from the rain, plus there's still some slop in the hull from the rotted floor, but I see no obvious drips underneath. The gouge only produces the occasional drip. No more than if you put a pin hole in a paper cup. I think between the fact that the open area being at a rib, plus the fact that someone has worked in sealer before, it don't leak much. Its not a direct opening to the interior. If the cut were on open sheet metal it would most likely leak more.
If I were to try welding it, I'd prefer to weld on the inside and cosmetically fix the outside with filler, but again, its very close to the double rivet seam.

 

[lmuss53]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

The guy who fixed mine says he taps holes, dings, whatever down to below surface grade and fills them with a fiberglass product called "tiger hair". It is a product in a tube that gets some hardener and spreads on looking like bondo with fiberglass strands all through it. After it hardens he sands smooth and paints. All of the unused transom holes on my Sea Nymph were filled in using that product.

The tiger hair is the pink product.

 

[slowleak]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

My concern with tiger hair would be adhesion. If you paint aluminum you need to use a self etching primer, won't the same effect that lifts paint on bare aluminum without the right primer also cause tiger hair or other filler to eventually lift?

 

[lmuss53]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

I can't say slowleak, I can only say the guy does collision repairs on big trucks for a living and has done 2 Starcrafts before helping me with my Sea Nymph. The Starcrafts held up fine and the Sea Nymph has for a busy Summer, although it will all get painted again over the coming Winter.

He was a little put off by the fact that the transom was back in before he got the boat. He said he would have preferred to put a little on the inside too. He pushed it down into the holes real hard to push some inside to keep the "plug" from falling out. If you use it you could push a bit through the crack so you know it would take a hold inside.

 

[slowleak]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

I was more thinking of taking a sharp box cutter and scoring up the metal around the hole, cleaning it well, then filling the hole with JB Weld versus body filler. I know JB Weld works well on aluminum, I've used it to repair cylinder heads on cars before, it holds well to aluminum under the worst circumstances. I'd only use filler to make the repair invisible.

The way I see it, if I fill it with epoxy, then Gluvit the inside, the chances of it ever leaking there are pretty slim, at least for a long time.
I also intend to paint the inside after the Gluvit.

The transom holes will be the bigger challenge to hide since most are visible from the inside and outside. All are below the wood transom panel.
Someone suggested bucking in a few rivets to fill the holes, on a few that may be an option, but a few are very close to the bottom edge.

I do know that regular body filler don't work on bare aluminum, I tried to fill in a few small dents another boat a while back but the filler peeled up around the edges after only a year of use. I ended up stripping the area bare, using self etching primer and filling the dent with marine filler. I've never used the Tiger hair filler, but have used something similar by another brand called Gorilla Hair, which is listed as a self etching long fiber filler. Its dark green in color.

 

[lmuss53]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

Your JB Weld fix sounds fine to me. There's more than one way to skin most cats.

 

[Grandad]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

Slowleak, I'd be more concerned about the gouge than the transom holes in regard to flexing. Everything mentioned above will probably be adequate to fill the transom holes. I'd consider bolts slathered in 5200 as an alternate to rivets. Without yet seeing the gouge in the hull, I'm concerned that any structural flexing could cause delamination of anything rigid such as JB Weld or FG filler. Don't be afraid of removing the rivets at the end of the rib to place an aluminum patch. I did it on mine and that was much worse than what yours sounds like. See picture below and the full story in the link in my signature. - Grandad

 

[slowleak]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

The damage on mine is no where near that bad. At a quick glance it appears no worse than a key type scratch with some indenting, but the very end goes through ever so slightly. The end of the gouge isn't even completely through, just so thin it has perforations along the last inch or two of the scratch. The hull is thin, I could do this sort of damage with a screwdriver or nail. Yours looks more like a stress crack.
On mine the ribs curve upward, the damage is not at the end of the rib, its at the bend about 8" from the top edge of the rib. The worst part is that the damage transverses a ridge in the hull, the lower strake just below the spray rail about mid ship. It looks like they thought there was a crack in the hull, welded it, then the weld cracked, then they found the nail gouge and puttied it up with silicone.
The more I look at it the more I think this thing is better served as future beer cans.

If it was a crack, then its due to stress, the weld on top of that only makes it worse. The crack alone and missing rivet is no big deal but the more I look at the weld the less I like it.
I'll try to get a few pics if I can get the hull laid over enough on the trailer and clear of the bunks.

 

[jasoutside]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

Before you do any business with the local scrapper, please shoot us some photos eh!

 

[Jeep Man]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

Call out the National Guard. There's a newby considering sending a Starcraft to the scrapper. Waiting and wondering how the Starcraft gang handle it.

 

[slowleak]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

Here's a pic of the crack where someone welded it, this is on the last strake below the side seam.
Most all of the extra transom holes are on the right rear, I counted 16 small holes, four missing rivets filled with sealer, and 9 misc. holes up higher that had plastic cable clamps held on with rusty screws.
The scratch or gouge extends about 9" beyond the pic to the left. The indent to the left of the weld is a missing and welded in rivet hole, the other rivets were buried in Gluvit, plus some sort of black epoxy, then covered with white silicone or urethane.
The four immediate rivets near the weld are steel and it appears they heated them in order to compress them.

The more I look the worse it appears to be.
I took the boat to several local shops, all of which do aluminum trailer and boat repair, none would touch it saying that old used aluminum like that is nearly impossible to weld successfully. One offered to try but said no guarantees that it wouldn't warp or crack. They wanted $80 for the attempt.
The area in the pic is in the middle of a rib. When they filled in that rivet hole they also welded the rib to the skin by plug welding that hole, so lifting the rib like shown above would mean cutting it free of the hull and hopefully not breaking open the cracked weld even worse in the process.

I still think that the amount of water leaking in now would be sealed with Gluvit but the steel rivets have to go, and I'd want to make the outside look better as well.

 

[jigngrub]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

Patch it!
http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=536250&highlight=efdog

Patches aren't pretty, but can be made to be barely noticable. Sounds like that boat has already been through the grinder and just about anything you do to it will be an improvement.

I'd flip 'er and strip 'er and then remove and replace all suspect rivets and patch the gouges and cracks.

It wouldn't be that hard to save that boat's life and she could last a few more decades.

 

[jasoutside]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

I'm really glad grub posted up that link, perfect!

She can live again man!!!

 

[slowleak]

Re: Starcraft hull damaged

A patch wouldn't be easy on this since the crack is on a strake, the weld is along the edge of a ridge in the hull. Its cracked across the weld.
I assume that it had a crack or damage along the bend in the aluminum and someone tried to weld it.

The worse part about this hull is that it appears to be a freshwater only boat, there's zero corrosion, what isn't damaged or jury rigged is minty clean. The lower paint don't have so much as a scratch elsewhere, its just full of drill holes and bad fixes.
Its also got 72 snaps riveted to the hull both on the upper deck and all around the hull just below the rub rail. The idiot that put the snaps on it, most likely for a mooring cover, put one snap right through the step plate rubber on top of the gunwale, another is so close to the bow eye they ground down part of the snap to get it in place.

The boat came from McKeesport, PA, at least that's what the title says. The title was issued in 2007.
I have no clue how it got here, but someone else gave up on it and gave it to a junkman here. If I hadn't grabbed it, it would have already hit the shredder at the scrap yard. They don't bring much these days, aluminum is way down. A buddy scrapped a similar boat which had a tree fall on it and walked away with only a few hundred bucks. In my opinion, even as a patched up old boat just good for fishing or crabbing with a valid title is worth $600 or better. You sure can't buy a new one for anything close to that, if you could even find something similar these days.

I thought about a patch, even for a few other holes but I'm still concerned about the sealer sticking or staying sealed on the aluminum. I know paint will lift on bare aluminum with time, should the area be primed first before sealing with a patch?