He was an older gentleman, yadda yadda and so on and so on....(fast forward) BooM! A day's labor for a Deep V Aluminum Boat w trailer. Make no mistake, the last inspection on the boat read '93 so it sat for a looong time. Tires on the trailer were dry-rot and junk. We had to make two trip: one for the boat, then one for the trailer.
funny side convo with my brother (who is not really an "outdoorsman" type) at the gentleman's house:
Bro: "I don't know man, it sat for a long time with no cover."
Me: "Yeaaah?"
Bro: "What if we do this work for a boat that won't float?"
Me: "Really? It's got a ton of water in it..."
Bro: "Thats what Im saying, they didn't take care of it."
Me: "Dude, water in the boat...... no leaks"
Bro: " Hahahahaha WOW!"
Below are the pics of the boat and trailer in it's original condition:
After checking out a bunch of ideas online and reading in various "boat forums", I decided to remove the old seats
and replace just the rear two rows with a piece of mahogany board and leave the space below the seats open. Then
I also plan on putting down a small "floor" made from some bracing/plywood/marine carpet to run from the back up 3/4 to the front. Where the "3rd" seat was towards the front, will be the start of a "deck-like" flat area for the dog as well as doubling as a storage haul area for life jackets/tools/anchor....
1st: I removed all hardware from the boat including all the seating:
2nd: I then flipped it over and put it up on saw horses to get ready for the blasting process. I plan on doing a new paint job, with the "belly" being original and polished aluminum - like a sweet looking Airstream. I used a "baking-soda blaster" that I have which has a very fine medium. I did a test area and it seemed to work just fine. Time consuming yes, but I use what I have access to at the time. It certainly did the trick:
3rd: After I blasted the one side, I couldn't wait to finish the whole thing before I started the polishing process.
I used buffing attachments for a drill, A LOT of rags that I had to wash a few times and re-use, and MOTHER'S metal polish. Below is a picture of a quick hit. I plan on doing it over, and over, and over again until I get that "mirror" look.
Below is just a small section that I worked on:
I will keep you guys posted as more "actual progress" shows... Please feel free to chime in with tips, or ideas for this restoration process. Can't say that I will be able to use them all, but I love the knowledge/info. so, again, feel free. Hope I didn't bore you too much, just always wanted a nice row/fishing boat and thought I'd share my experience with the restoration. I hear those fish mocking me, I need to get out on that water soon!
Edited by Set-In-Stone, 09 July 2012 - 10:51 PM.
