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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS Choosing the working sides Here are the two halves of the plywood, with the "bad" sides up. They are "bad" because all those big knots are actually voids in the surface. The other sides look similar, but the knots are all...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS Cutting the sheet into two. There are different ways I could cut this. I could use my table saw if I needed a really precise cut. Or I could clamp a guide bar on the plywood and slide my circular saw along it. But this cut...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS I'll probably put more detail in the transom stuff than is necessary, but I'll not assume that all my readers are familiar with any step. The transom space in the hull is 19-1/2" inches high. There may still be some material...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS And here's the result. It's actually working! Here are temperature readings taken 12 hours after setting up. As background, this is taken off of the fender of my 4-wheeler. 57.0 degrees. This is taken off of the top...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS So here's my next attempt: This time, I set three concrete blocks on end, and set the steel grate across them. A placed a pair of heat lamps under the grate, facing at an upward angle. With the plywood on top of the...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS Since we've been having record hot days (90+ degrees in Iowa in March. That's not right!), my first idea was to simply place the board in the sun and block it so it would dry flat. A couple days in those temps in the hot, hot...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS So it's pretty well cleaned up now. I have run the grinder with a sanding disc up the lines where the new stringers will be built. Not a final sanding yet, but it's mostly done. The transom looks really clean, but there's...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS It took a little more work to get the wood off of the outer shell of the transom. We mostly just worked a crowbar underneath the layers of the rotted plywood and pried out. It splintered and peeled off layer by layer. This...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS Next step was to get the rotted wood off of the outer wall of the transom, without damaging the figerglass. I saw no need to cut out the whole thing, since the outer wall of the transom is in excellent shape. We started at...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS Sorry for the delay in posting. The stuph of life got in the way, plus I had to clean up and rearrange after putting up the plastic around the work bay of the garage. My dad came up to help out over the weekend, and we got...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS As promised, pictures of how I enclosed the work bay of my garage. As background, the garage is 40' X 30', of "pole barn" construction. There are 5 large trusses that support the roof, set on 5 pairs of 6"X6" posts. This...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS The Damage In the process of taking off the Durabak coating, a chunk came out of the chine in the area I marked as "broken" in an earlier picture. Under the chunk, a hole. After taking off the black, it was apparent that...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS Got an unexpected break in the cold today, so I tried out something different to strip the Durabak off the hull. I got a knotted-wire cup brush for my angle grinder. It spins about 14,000 rpm. Picture: Circular saw. Angle...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS I've been running a Piranha 4-blade prop, which helped my hole-shot and stopped porpoising. Mostly, though, I had got it to replace the damage stainless steel prop. Previous owner had hit something hard with it. Hard enough to...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS Here is the transom plate that was on the boat. As you can see, there really are no adjustments available in it. The holes marked "Hook" are for mounting a bracket that matches a hook on the motor. There are two holes for...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS CORRECTED MOTOR/TRANSOM MEASUREMENTS I took another approach to measuring. I set the tape measure stationary in relation to the pieces, and took photos. I also pulled out the transom plate, which I had not seen off of the...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS The Damage Once it was flipped and on the dollies, we started prodding and tapping. We found any and all damage is along the inner port chine. It appears that the boat hit something hard while at moderate speed. In this...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS Flipping the Hull I didn't get any pics of us actually flipping the hull over. But with stringers, ribs, and foam all removed, it's LIGHT. I can easily lift either end by myself. It was a simple matter to slide it off the...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS Transom Here is the transom, close up. It has been previously worked on. It is coated on the inside with something very hard and solid. I have beaten, tapped, and prodded all over it, down the sides, and across the bottom. I...
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    1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS

    Re: 1979 Champion Bass Boat - Tear Down and Restoration -- with PICS I was pleasantly surprised, and a bit horrified, at how easily the stringers and foam came out. I used my body spoon tool to break around the outside edges of the foam, then slid my floor scraper down the sides. A little pry...
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