captglasshole

Looks good man. Did you coat both sides of the wood with epoxy before you put the original fiberglass skin back down?

silverbullet87

Yessir - sealed everything up.

1976K204x4

Love these threads!
Nice work so far!
What are you going for non skid?

cmangiafico

Was all the foam dry? Seems like every boat in that vintage had soaked foam.

silverbullet87

I used a product called "soft sand rubber" and i'm pretty happy with it. (again, thanks to boatworkstoday on youtube) I'll have those images up eventually.

Most of it was dry oddly. There were 2-3 sections that were soaked, and others that had standing water on top of foam but it never soaked through.

silverbullet87

Next I tackled the low transom drains. My solution was to raise them up about 6 inches, and at the same time make a splash well that would keep the water contained.



Started by cutting this section out.


No turning back now.


Looks like a good fit.


Time to start grinding some material away then glassing.


The garage was cold - so I was running this heater anytime I was doing fiberglass work.


Starting to tie it in.


First round of glass





Starting to fair


This took forever.


A little geal coat to speed it up and make it feel like i'm getting somewhere haha.




End result after a little paint. (I jumped ahead in time a little to show these 2 finished pictures)

silverbullet87

Out of the garage and off to the paint booth. (aka my parents house with more outside space)



You can see where I filled in the old drain holes, I'll drill new holes after paint.


Everything went pretty smooth. I used Jamestown Distributors 1 part white for the topsides.




remember non slip will go on the gunnels, so there isn't a heavy coat of paint on them.




I started painting a few other pieces too.


For the hull I went with Awlcraft Ice Blue. I had some trouble spraying it with a 1.4 nozzle but it turned out decent in the end.


It changes shades quite a bit depending on the light.


This boat will have bottom paint again - so I didn't paint below the waterline too much.

catch232

Looks great. I really like that blue.
Thing is, I think you'll lose some self-bailing capacity. Originally the floor was flush with the motor well, right? So, some water could escape out of those troublesome motor well scuppers, along with the corner drains, (at least while up on plane). Would it be worth putting in larger corner drains?

silverbullet87

Yes potentially, but it wouldn't be any different if I enclosed the transom and switched to a bracket. Those corner drains will do just fine. If i ever have that much water on the deck that I need those extra drains to clear it I'm already screwed haha.

fishingfun

I have a Wellcraft V20. When we did the transom we pulled the entire interior liner out. That help us avoid cutting up the boat. What your doing looks great and if you didn't know there is a great site Wellcraft V20 you may want to check out.

silverbullet87

I started painting the motor. It took forever to prep because it had some much grease on everything.


Looking good.


I leaned the motor over too far while moving it around and snapped a fuel rail... oh well. $15 on ebay fixed that.

silverbullet87

I used "SoftSand Rubber" mixed in with my topside paint for the non-slip surfaces. I believe I used the medium grain. The first coat didn't go on evenly at all and was really clumpy. I quickly realized the issue was my roller. I was using a heavy mat, then switched to a small flat style and it made a huge difference. Once I ironed that out the end results were great! This is the only non-slip product i've ever used, but i'd go with it again for sure.




















Next I drilled out new drain holes. I sealed these up with resin to make sure there are no leaks etc.


New flappers installed.


Time to hang the motor.


Starting to rig it up.

Seikinnow

Awesome! I used to have an 18 Fisherman with a 90 Johnson. It was pretty beat up but I just used it and it was a great boat. I think I would top out at 36 MPH. It's funny, I just came across boatworks today on Youtube and saw him doing the gelcoat thing to help with the cure and the non skid. Did you see the one about using the Jamestown Distributors fairing compound to eliminate pin holes?

I always admire you guys who tackle something like this. It looks easy in a series of photos but there is a TON of work behind each photo.

silverbullet87

I've watched pretty much all of his videos and learned a ton. The gelcoat trick saved me lots of time, and got me out of several jams.

Regarding the faring compound... I wish I had went that direction but I had some much resin that I ended up making my own mix. I think it was a mistake ultimately. My mixes were never consistent, often gummed up my sand paper (not cured properly), and were hell to sand down. There were plenty of times I had to coat them in gelcoat to making it sandable. I would have been much better off buying some premixed stuff like that, at least for the finishing touches. I"m sure it sands 10x better than the mixes I was making.

silverbullet87

Well I think this is the last of the pictures, and this is where the project stands currently. I started making a switch panel out of starboard, reusing the old switches. This will go under the gauges.


Many hours spent sitting on HD buckets stripping wires and figuring stuff out. I have the console leaned forward so i'm not upside down half the time.


Switch panel wired up.




So now at this point I have 3 somewhat big projects on the list.

1) build new side panel rod holders. The old plastic versions are trashed.
2) rebuild the insert for the front of the console.
3) carb rebuilds - they are leaking badly.

There are probably 100 other things that still have to happen but these are the largest of the tasks.

BigShrimpin

I always liked these 18's. Nice work so far fixing some of the shortcomings (splashwell, low console, etc.) When you get ready to tackle the rod pockets try making MDF molds and laying up the parts. It's real easy and you end up with a nice factory looking parts. You'll be able to make the trays to the exact size you want rather than trying to locate replacement parts.

catch232

Everything looks great!

Got to ask... what happened to the positive stud on the Blue Sea fuse panel?

Badmako

silverbullet87

Eh... I don't recall if it broke, or if I dropped it into a unrecoverable location. Either way... yes that needs to be fixed haha.

Wow - the similarities are crazy. Nice work! Did you build those rod lockers?

Badmako