16' Nescher ski boat complete restore- SPLASHED!!

[archbuilder]

I bought this boat about a year ago and have been working on it ever since. I'm going to try to post my progress over the next few weeks to get you guys up to speed. I found it on Craig's list, the ad said, "Free boat with trailer". I thought it had nice lines even with the mounds of leaves and small tree growing in it. I ventured up to Stillwater, about 50 miles away to see it. The owner said it was towable, he must have meant to the next block! The inner right wheel bearing was missing or mostly missing the race was still there. So we haggled, and the next day I winched both the boat and trailer onto my flatbed. Here are some pictures I took while cleaning it up and stripping what little there was off of the hull.

If you look closely you can see the original red and silver metallic gel coat under the black and white spray paint.

I'll post some of the major problems I found next.

MODERATOR COMMENT: This is a very long post and makes for great reading. I have "pruned out" all of the rah-rah comments.

IF YOU DO NOT FEEL LIKE READING Here is a youtube link to the restore http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUlrxjeF0zE&feature=fvw

Thank you Archbuilder for a really nice project example!

 

[archbuilder]

16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Here are a few of the problems that I found while cleaning it up.

Here are some issues inside the bow

The transom has some major issues

Here is a shot of the inside of the transom

And the trailer could use, a torch??grinder, sand blaster?..welder?oh and a new axle, other than that its fine!

Next time I will get up some pictures of the "demo" and some of my first steps putting it back together.

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

One other issue I have is find some back ground on the boat. Here is the tag that was on it (had to remove during transom repair)

I have done some reseach on it, apprently Sleekcraft used this tag for a while. They were in a lawsuit over there name (they won by the way) with AMF, during that time they put "boats by Nescher" on the tags. (Bruce Nescher the comapny founder). So I guess it's really a sleekcraft, but I haven't been able to find another like it. I have seen a couple of their jet boats that were close. One if found in an old for sale ad who's upper lines were almost excatly like mine, just the aft was differnt. The bottom was more angular than mine. Anyone have any ideas? Its almost like they took one of the jet boat designs, shrank it, and hung an outboard on it. Its hard to make out, but the number 130 is stamped next to Baldwing Park. I also found an older refrence to Nescher having a boat company before Sleekcraft, so maybe it was one of those boats? I haven't been able to find out much at all on what was made during those years.

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Here's some pics from the next step last winter. I took advantage of a warm day to take the boat off of the trailer and pressure wash it.

Fortunatley, the paint on the bottom was pretty thin and sanded well. I was afraid it would load up the sandpaper, but I went pretty well. If you look on the side you can see the orginal silver stripe......looks like I have a lot of work to do on the bottom!

http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu191/archbuilder/nescher pictures/bottomsanded.jpg?t=1258881347

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

I love an optimist! I have actually "solved" that problem.....I will try to work on getting the pictures caught up to where I am in the restore. I only have about 9 months worth to post! LOL! Working on the trailer today.....back too it!

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Here are some shots from my next step....I flippeed the boat and put it on saw horses. I have a rolling stool that is just the right height for working inside the hull. Here are some transom parts the shop vac wouldn't handle....

And I love scraping........

More transom parts.....

Ahh finally the transom is cleaning up......

Now a few zillion more hours of grinding and I will be done!

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

So the entire time I am scraping I am pondering the best way to do things / put them back together?.what do you build the transom / keel beam out of???? Plywood? Redwood? Pressure treated? Marine plywood???? Glue it together with epoxy??? Polyester resin????

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Ok, so now we start to get to the fun part! The four sides of the cockpit are reinforced with a piece of 3/4 plywood. In a few places it has some mold, but for the most part its fine. After some thought, I decided, in for a penny, in for a pound! I figured if I was going thru the motions I should go ahead and take it out too. Here are a couple of shots of I coming out. There was also a member that went from the center of the "dash" to the bow. I had a pic of it in an earlier post. It was held in place by some "fiberglass tabs", the front one had pulled loose. You can see it in this pic.

Here are some more pieces of the gunnel supports

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Here is a picture of the starboard side gunnel almost ready for a new piece of plywood.

Once I finished the clean up, I started working on cutting out templates and fabricating new gunnel reinforcing. Here is the starboard template, you can see the new bow piece in the background.

Here is a picture of the port piece clamped in place.

More later!

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Here is a shot at the bow. If you remember, there was a brace that went from the dash to the bow. Also there was a piece of 1/4 plywood that was laminated to the bow deck. Both pieces had rot and were damage, causing the bow skin to "warp". I removed both of them and was somewhat surprised at how flexible the bow skin was. After some thought it was pretty clear that without splitting the hull, it would be impossible to replace the plywood . Since I could do everything else without splitting the hull, I was reluctant to do so. Being an architect, I decided there had to be some other solution.

I carefully jacked up the bow skin to conform to the template I made from the old brace. Once it was in place, I glued these to the bow skin.

They are cardboard shipping tubes that I cut in half. The lady at Office Max looked at me a little strangely when I bought all they had! The ideas is that they will be a "form" for the glass to create stiffening ribs.

Here is the completed assembly. I hadn't laid glass in a few years....so its a bit "fuzzy", however still structurally sound. I was amazed at how stiff it was once I turnd the boat over. I walked on it (210 #s) with no problems at all.

Next time I will post the transom pictures, that was a pretty fun project too!

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

While I was working on the bow reinforcing and the gunnel braces, I also had some hull damage to work on. Some of it was from impacts and a bit in the transom area was just glass rot.

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Next was tackling the transom and keel beam. I debated the plywood and glass / epoxy method....but my friend David had just finished up a restore on a late 50's boat (complete with 57 Chevy looking fins!) and swore by Seacast. I looked into it, and liked the fact that I wouldn't have to ever deal with it again! It is pricey.....so get out your American Express if you go that way! The first thing I had to do was create an inner "skin", since my boat didn't have one. I started out by making a template out of cardboard. Since the hull widen as you move away from the transom skin, I taped some scrap blocks to the transom to position my template exactly where the new skin would be.

This allowed me to create a really accurate pattern.

I also had some glass work on the inside...reverse side of what you saw in the earlier pictures.

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

The next step was to lay up a "blank" of glass and mat. I laid up 4 layers of glass and mat on a sheet of gloss plastic laminate (Formica), worked great, no wax or anything.....just popped right off when I was done.

Once it was free from the laminate, I traced the pattern onto the blank and cut it out. I had been pondering what to use to spacers for some time. At first I thought of using small PVC tubing, but I wasn't sure if there would be thermal expansion issues. Finally I decided on the cardboard tube off of clothes hanger from the dry cleaners! I cut pieces to length, then epoxied them to the blank. After that set up I filled the tubes with epoxy. Later I learned that Seacast sells spacers....oh well!

Once I was ready to put it in place, I put epoxy on the ends of the spacers and held the skin in place until it dried with some boards.

Once the epoxy set up, I pulled out the braces and tabed in between the hull and the new inner skin!

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

The next step was talking some friends into helping me carry the hull outside onto the grass and flipping it right side up. Thanks Matt and B-nard! Once we had that done I picked up the boat and set it back on the trailer with my tractor. Given that the floor and transom were missing, the center of gravity for the boat was actually about where the front keel roller was. I was worried that if most of the weight was concentrated on the roller (not the bunk boards further back) that I might damage the hull. So once I backed the trailer into the shop, I lifted up the front end with the tractor. In the back I slowly blocked up the back part on the bunk boards.

Eventually I was able to slide a frame made from two 2x6's under the center of the boat. After that I added horizontal blocking between the 2x6's that matched the curvature of the hull. After that was in place, I taped plastic to the hull and "foamed" in the space between the blocking and the hull. Once this was done I pulled out the frame, added a rear cross member and casters.

Now I had a "cradle that would support the boat and keep it "square" during the floor / transom refit.

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

In this next section I built a "shell" to hold the seacast to form the keel beam. Here is a shot of the floor before I started the work on prepping for the keel work.

This one here shows the completed transom inner skin.

Getting the floor ground and cleaned up.

Creating the shell took some head scratching for a while.....I needed to create a blank.....figured I could do this out of two layers of foam covered with packing tape, but how to hold it in place??? The solution was to cut out some plywood braces that spanned perpendicular to the beam. I cut them so that they would fit where the floor would eventually go. This not only held them in place, but the bottom of the braces would give me a reference to where the top of the beam should be. I wanted to make the blank taller than it needed to be, then cut it to height. I made the blank 2" taller than it needed to be, and cut notches in the bottom of my braces. I also made the notches wider than they needed to be. That allowed me to position the beam right where it needed to be left to right. Most of the braces were slightly wedged into place. I used a wood shim to tighten up any that wouldn't stay in place on their own. Once they were in place, I nailed a 1"x +/-10" piece of plywood to each side of the keel blank to hold in place. After that the easy part, if there is such a thing in boat restoration!

I laid up a section of mat and glass between each one of the braces. Once that set up I took out the braces and laid up the rest of the glass. Good thing I made it tall, the top got a bit "wavy"!

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

After it cured I marked the top using the braces as a refrence.

Then cut it to height

Here is what is left of the form after I pulled it out. It popped right out, worked great!

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

The next step was to pour the seacast! My friend David volunteered to help me, so one morning this summer we mixed it up. I wish I had shots of the actual process.....but we were a little busy. The best way I can think to describe it is runny peanut butter with hair in it! Before we did the pour, I prepped the trans by cutting out the damaged area.

That gave us a great opening to pour the seacast through. I also built a "funnel" that fit in the opening. If you use seacast, I would highly recommend the funnel, makes life easy! Hmmm if you look closely at the bottom you can see that bolt I had been looking for! You can also see the spacers.

Here is a shot of the transom when I was grinding it down for the fiberglass cap.

The keel right after we poured it.

And with the glass and mat cap on it.

I have been very happy with Seacast. It is expensive, but works exactly as advertised. I was worried about it "kicking off" too soon, but that wasn't an issue even with the temps in the heigh 80's. I'm amazed at how strong the keel and transom are! And I will never have to do it again! If you plan on having the boat long term, it?s the way to go.

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Beautiful work. How did you insure that the seacast got to the sides of the transom and filled to the top on the corners?

Did you tie the keel into the transom with seacast?

I imagine some of the iboats member's are going to ask so I will for them.....

How much seacast?
How much money for the seacast?

What's planned to power this beast?

Thanks Bob, I will work on the picture size....I've had a hard time figuring all that out here on the forum.

I didn't tie the keel into the transom. The original designer didn't have the keel tied into the transom, so I followed what they did. I did consider it, but I thought I should follow the original design in that respect.

I bought 3 five gallon buckets. I used about 2-1/2 of them, more or less what I figured I needed.

As for getting the transom full, we used a 1"x3/4" x4' piece of wood to work the seacast into the transom......more or less just poking it in and out of the different areas over and over. There are a couple of voids on each side at the top. Those areas were actually higher than where we were putting in the seacast. When I flip the boat, I plan on drilling a hole through the inner skin in those areas and filling them with seacast. According to the litature it will still bond the the hardened seacast. They are both really small areas, so I'm not to concerned about them.

I can't remember exact price, but I think it was around $700 for the seacast....not cheap at all. But it doesn't rot and is incredibly strong!

As for power.....I'm waiting on a local mechanic to finish up tuning up a 115 hp Mercury tower of power. I thought it would be the correct choice for the boat! I'm guessing there won't be much boat in the water with the Mercury behind it!

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Thanks Mikezohsix, it seems building things is my gift. I have been in construction since birth more or less (my Dad built houses)....so all the experience makes it a lot easier. I also have a great shop and tools, that doesn't hurt at all! Here are a couple of pics from fitting out the floor. I started with a handy cardboard template.

Here is the back section of plywood, eventually I cut it in half.....you will see more of that in the "foam" section to come......that should be a loooonnnngggg post! I did spring for the marine plywood....it was nice to work with.

Here is shot of Buck and I testing out the floor. Buck is in charge of security, food tasting, and of course any complex issues that come up during the project!

I will work on posting the "foam" section next....

 

[archbuilder]

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Re: 16' Nescher ski boat complete restore

Thanks for the info!

Since you did not tie the keel in ....... if you do not know what the original boat was rated for HP wise (I am sure the 115 should be fine) now might be the time to install a knee brace or two ..... just as a suggestion.

I think the way I tied the floor in should solve any issues with bracing the transom. The original tag did indicate that it was rated up to 125 hp, so I think we are good. I have some shots of how it all ties together once I get that far in my post.