1977 Cruise Boats Restore

[Woodonglass]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

Greg,

You have made yourself PROUD!
VERY NICE WORK !!!!


I'm just sayin...

 

[Greg Mrozinski]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

Thanks Wood. Long time getting here but glad I have almost arrived.

 

[Damifudo]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

Nice Job! EZ sent me a link saying it reminded him a little of my boat restore project. I totaly get what you mean about the sanding. I think I spent last winter sanding going to work and comming home again and sanding. It is so worth it in the end you have done yourself up proud. Its going to hurt when you get those scratches when you get it in the water and start to use it but it will still look great. I get so many compliaments on my boat still. Its amazing when you got to a marina and I pull up in my 1976 manatee and draw peoples attention when your sitting right next to a 250,000 dollar boat that people walk by to ask you about your boat.

I hope we can get our boats together sometime it sure would look great red and blue together. Here is the link to my project. http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=361424

On a said note I took my boat to the inner harbor for the Derious Rucker concert at Pier 6 Friday night. It was a little strange launching at night to go out. Next season we all need to do a raft up at one of the concerts at the inner harbor. Its a great time. This year I took my boat to the following concerts:

1. Crosby Stills Nash
2. Peter Frampton and Yes
3. BB King
4 Kenny Loggins
5. Derious Rucker

 

[Greg Mrozinski]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

Damifudo,

Great to hear form you and thanks for the compliments. I remember reading your resto and seeing that you were close by. Yeah I am very familiar with the Inner Harbor and Peir 6. I have kept my big boat (see avatar) down in Canton various summers and winters. Great times down there. People don't know what they are missing by not seeing Baltimore from the water and cruising the inner harbor area. We definitely need to have a raft up somewhere. Maybe in the upper bay area or down the inner harbor like you suggested. Keep in touch.

 

[Greg Mrozinski]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

Continuing on with the deck hardware and such, it was time to install the bow rail. I decided to use as much of the old bow rail as possible which only turned out to be the rail itself. Originally all of the rail fittings were made from pot metal (zimak?) and had all corroded and split. This also caused significant corrosion to the aluminum pieces of the rail and supports also. In order to take everything apart I had to cut the rail at the first connection point so that I could remove the fittings and install the new fittings. Most of the old fittings I had to cut off with a grinder. I cleaned the rail like I did with the windshield and rub rail pieces. Some spots were pretty thin due to corrosion but there seemed to be enough there to make it work. It turned out okay considering it was pretty beat up. I scored most of the stainless steel fittings from E-bay and a great online supplier marinepartsdepot.com. These guys have SS fittings at a fraction of the price you would find anywhere else and most of the time their shipping is free.

All of the support pieces were shot so I made new ones from new aluminum tubing.

I joined the bow rail section I cut back together by epoxying a piece of copper pipe inside the tube sections. Once that set I pop-riveted these inplace. Once eveything was good to go, I first installed the bottom 60 degree fittings. Then dry fitted the rest and worked everything into final place. I think it came out well and it is strong. Everything was bedded with 3M 4200.

 

[Greg Mrozinski]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

A few more pics of the bow rail. (Nice shiny paint too)

 

[4Winns2]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

"Nice shiny paint." You bet, I love the color combination of blue, white, and black. Helluva a job.

 

[Greg Mrozinski]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

Thanks 4Winns2. It did come out nice. That black bottom paint will dissappear when the boat is in the water.

I am tinkering around with the registration numbers and badging decals a little. I was originally going to run a thin (1/8") red pinstripe down the sides right on the blue/white line from stern to bow. I thought that the painted joint line might be more noticable than it is so I was planning ahead. Actually the joint line between the blue and white came out very crisp so I am debating wether or not to put on the pin stripe. As part of that debate thinking about the registration numbers and badging, I was thinking about also doing the registraion numbers in white outlined in red and "Crusie Boats" badging in white outlined in red. The red in all cases would be thin enough not to stand out and only visble when up close as an accent. Thoughts?

 

[Greg Mrozinski]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

Next up on the agends is to install the trim that goes around the inside edges of the cap/gunwales/splashwell. This boat originally had a small piece of aluminum trim riveted all around this area. (Geez it's hard to believe this thing looked like this once.)

I removed all of this trim and trashed it. I left the holes since I knew I was going to cover them anyway with some U-Flex trim. Here you can see the holes around the edge.

Here is the U-Flex trim (and cut thumb).

Installation was easy. Basically just push it on. I used a light tapping from a hammer to fully set it. Tight bends can be achieved by back cutting the back side to relieve the strain on the trim and then forcing it on. Here is the finished look.

 

[Greg Mrozinski]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

A few more.

 

[Damifudo]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

Man that looks good! I am going to come and take some lessons from you. There are some attention detail things I still need to do. Nice shop also. Looks like you have a nice area to work. That things looks sharp!

 

[jimdd810]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

Looks AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[SC's Forever!]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

Terrific job, Greg!!!!! That shade of blue is Great!!!(And I don't care for Blue!!!)
That white bootstripe really sets the paint job off!!! The "tapered" shape ????Maybe it will "grow" on me!! But then IYB(Its YOUR Boat!!) Far too many people leave it off, makes a big difference!!!!
Congrats on a job .....Jim

 

[jspansel]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

WOW! That is some beautiful work! I am jealous. Good job!!!

 

[Greg Mrozinski]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

Jim, SC and JS,

Thanks for compliments guys. She is shaping up nicely. Sometimes when you are doing these types of projects it is hard to imagine that it will ever look like this, especially when you are laying glass, your back is breaking from being bent over and your shoes are stuck to the hull from the resin.

 

[Greg Mrozinski]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

Nice shop also. Looks like you have a nice area to work.

Dami,

I keep my boats at the boat club at APG (Edgewood Area). We have two large warehouses we use for indoor storage of trailer boats. The warehouse I keep this boat in also has a small boat lift area. I am VERY fortunate to have this place because I would never have had the space at home. So yeah this has been a huge benefit.

 

[drewpster]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

I was also planning to use u-flex on my bare edges. (on the boat that is)
Looks great Greg. Did you replace your windshield gaskets? Are they shrunk like mine were?

 

[Greg Mrozinski]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

Drew,

I didn't replace the gaskets/glazing. I cleaned up the aluminum and left it at that. There is some shrinkage of the gaskets but I figured nothing is going to be water tight. If I did anything I would just trim off the top portion of the galzing and then reseal the entire perimeter with Seikenflex (sp?). It is a highly UV stable bedding compound used the seal hatch glass and sailboat ports. I used it before to redo the hatch glass in my larger boat. Really tough stuff and holds up very well to constant exposure to the sun and weather.

 

[Greg Mrozinski]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

Well let's see...I might as well put in the steering now since I want that in before I run the electrical wiring. This was very easy and straight forward. I installed a brand new 4.2 NFB (no feed back) Teleflex rotary cable sterring system. I was able to use the old mounting holes in the dash as well as the old 20 degree mount and bezel from the old system. Everything bolted right up no problem. I use wire ties to support the cable under the starboard gunwale. While I was at it I installed new cable boots in the splashwell. I covered the end of the steering cable with some scrap cardboard to prevent scratching the paint.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: 1977 Cruise Boats Restore

I covered the end of the steering cable with some scrap cardboard to prevent scratching the paint.

And right here demonstrates the difference between you and me I'd be like DAMMIT I scratched the new paint!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!