Free C-list Project: 1959 12' Aluminum, Mercury outboard...lots of pics

[ezmobee]

Re: Shes gettin ready for Water!

Re: Shes gettin ready for Water!

I'm really glad to see this project back. Love that hull. The little details for it that you're working on look great. For your foam, get some sheets of the blue or pink construction foam (extruded polystyrene) from Lowes/Home Depot and cut/stack it to fit. It will NOT absorb water. The steering system you linked up is a little overkill for your application. I put this one http://www.lowcostboatingstore.com/Uflex-ROTECH-Kits_c_226.html in my boat and am quite pleased with it. You may need a clamp block to adapt your older steering-tube-less motor to a single cable system http://www.iboats.com/Corrosion-Res...5764940--session_id.611379388--view_id.192758

 

[wyliek]

Re: Shes gettin ready for Water!

Re: Shes gettin ready for Water!

I put this one http://www.lowcostboatingstore.com/Uflex-ROTECH-Kits_c_226.html in my boat and am quite pleased with it. You may need a clamp block to adapt your older steering-tube-less motor to a single cable system http://www.iboats.com/Corrosion-Res...5764940--session_id.611379388--view_id.192758

Cool, thanks, that one looks like a much better fit. How large are the bends in your cable? Do you have pics?

 

[wyliek]

Re: Shes gettin ready for Water!

Re: Shes gettin ready for Water!

Sprayed the boat and trailer yesterday.....
while prepping the bottom I found these rivets that are pulling through at the rear of the hull around ~1'-2' from the transom

You can see from the dirty stain that at least 2 of them are leaking on some level

We had previously discussed using Gluvit on the interior of the hull to seal it from the inside, I plan to do that in the near future with a higher quality paint job. Is it worth worrying about?

 

[wyliek]

Painting

Painting

Taped off the sides, trims and seat backs they will be raw ALU

I mixed gloss white with flat black to make a dark gray which I sprayed on the inside and top surfaces and transom
1 quart of white on the bottom and 1 qt black on the top both Rustoluem cheapo just so it looks reasonable

Then we flipped the boat and sprayed gloss white over the bottom

I will recoat the top surfaces and transom with flat black and experiment with some lacing for pattern on the hood

First time painting large panels like this usually do skinny frames so I ended up with some light spots on the top they will get covered tho

 

[wyliek]

Painting

Painting

 

[wyliek]

Painting

Painting

I held it down with no overspray on the transom angling out at the end but biffed at the when my arm was getting tired

 

[logan944t]

Re: Painting

Re: Painting

This is a very cool boat!

 

[fat fanny]

Re: Painting

Re: Painting

Nice find for free even! sure is a shame all that aluminum has paint on it now light sanding and some elbow grease and the right compound then a coat of heavy clear and it would look just like chrome then with some mock up carbon fiber trim accents. But as said above cool rig!

 

[TruckDrivingFool]

Re: Painting

Re: Painting

Nothing shows better progress than a nice new coat of paint. Boat and trailer looking good. I'll be interested to see how the lacing technique turns out.

I gotta ask though did you do anything with the rivets on the bottom?

 

[wyliek]

Re: Painting

Re: Painting

Nothing shows better progress than a nice new coat of paint. Boat and trailer looking good. I'll be interested to see how the lacing technique turns out.

I gotta ask though did you do anything with the rivets on the bottom?

I did not do anything with the rivets, I'm guessing the paint will seal it well enough I guess I will find out after I launch it.

If it warms up I may finish painting tomorrow.

 

[TruckDrivingFool]

Re: Painting

Re: Painting

Once your paint cures you could fill with water and do a leak test.

 

[wyliek]

Lacing the hood

Lacing the hood

It warmed up a bit today and the wind died down enough to paint, masked off and recoated the top surface with flat black, helped a buddy move out then came back and put the lace on, I taped a few parts but where it was long I let gravity hold it down. The middle was fairly tight and when I did a dry run with air only it didn't move much....

Test piece with rattlebombs from the other day

Draping the lace over the hood, the waving border looked nice aligned with the dash lip

Sprayed flat black as a base, then mixed some black into the empty white can from painting the bottom to get this gray

Horrible lighting in my cousins garage there is a 48" fluorescent in the back of the double bay, Im painting in the single bay next to that using a fluorescent drop light - not the best coverage, daylight will probably reveal some zebra stripes

 

[wyliek]

Lacing the hood

Lacing the hood

In the future I will be more scrutinizing about the lace I get - next time I would like it to be a bit thicker and heavier to block the paint better and hold in place I imagine a higher quality one would do that, I will find a more unique pattern which may turn into a little challenge in itself

I got this one a few days ago at Hobby Lobby it's like Michaels Crafts, I got the last yard they had for $10

I let it air dry for a bit, but as I looked at it looked like the paint went everywhere, once the surface wasn't wet or damp looking I carefully peeled the lace back

When I did the first pass along the dash edge I guess the extra power from the paint moved the lace more than my test so the nice wavy edge is faded out in the center

it came out excellent! better than I was expecting.

 

[wyliek]

Leak Check

Leak Check

Filled it with water, yesterday, found several leaks. There are at least 15 dripping rivets the fastest 2 or 3 were about 1 drip every 5 seconds the others much slower. I plan to seal them with JB weld from the outside unless someone offers a better solution.

The back of the boat has a steady leak out the back, you can see the lack of rivets and the intersection of the two hull halves create a decent sized hole.Will it self drain while underway? I thought I may seal it but it might be a good bailer of my other small leaks...

Also need to tighten those plug screws.

 

[cumberlandriver]

Re: Free C-list Project: 1959 12' Aluminum, Mercury outboard...lots of pics

After tons of research, I painted my riveted aluminum boat with Steelflex.
After 3 years it is still drys as a bone. Comes in lots of different colors.



http://www.fascoepoxies.com/products.html


Nice project by the way. Where did you get the idea for the lace?

I like that a lot.

Good Luck!

 

[wyliek]

After tons of research, I painted my riveted aluminum boat with Steelflex.
After 3 years it is still drys as a bone. Comes in lots of different colors.



http://www.fascoepoxies.com/products.html


Nice project by the way. Where did you get the idea for the lace?

I like that a lot.

Good Luck!

Interesting link those are some serious chemicals there. Since I plan to repaint it this winter with highquality urethane laquer with clear coat and all, I am just trying to finish it quick n dirty for now I will seal each leak individually at most, may not do anything except for the bad ones.

I originally wanted to paint a large logo on the hood but never got a chance to have a friend who is an spray painter airbrush it for me since we live 3000 miles apart.
I like hot rods, motorcycles, low riders and rat rods so that's where I get some of my style influence. Look at this site, http://thebackstreetbucket.blogspot.com/ I really like the work there a lot of great stuff but particularly the helmets for paint ideas.
I think lace used to be a lot more common in hotrod circles but died out like all hand-on trades did, so somewhat as a tribute to the old school, strive to be as good as the best. Mostly I just thought a plain hood is well, too plain, square, lame, I like to be unique. I like experimenting so I gave it a whirl, I will definitely be using this technique extensively in the future.

 

[wyliek]

Re: Free C-list Project: 1959 12' Aluminum, Mercury outboard...lots of pics

Update from Wednesday...

Oiled up the wood, I used Watco Teak Oil from Home Cheapo....

its leftover wood from a deck my dad built, he calls it palope otherwise known as Ipe, in Milwaukee where it was sent from they called it ironwood - fits the bill it is incredibly dense, it cuts Very smooth....

oiled 2 front seat slats, 2 back seat slats, dash (1/2" slat with a 1-1/4" walnut chunk glued behind to hold the air gauge) and 4 stomp pads

I did the front seats and stomp pads first, I think it was a little hot (90ish and dry) late afternoon and it dried darker and got thick before I could remove it....pic shows the 2nd batch oiled in the evening nice smooth without too much tint....now that they are fully dry the color seems to be matching up better

more paint on the dammed stomp pad retainers they were heavily pitted

Also got the dash and under hood ready for air tank, dash and air lines....after this pic I added a 1"x1"1/8" aluminum angle to reinforce the dash after all the holes that were in it and especially since I added the huge square hole

Finishing touches on the transom, had to scrape some paint to get the cap on, fits on smoothly now through holes for the transom cap were drilled in place, added the counter sink sex bolts for a nice flush surface

 

[wyliek]

Re: Free C-list Project: 1959 12' Aluminum, Mercury outboard...lots of pics

Got more done over the last few days ....


Air tank, horn, dash, and hood accessories installed.

Air tank mounted under the hood. I found the tank behind an abandoned truck repair place near Chicopee Mass, Im guessing its around 4 or 5 gallons.
I added the pull valve to the original drain plug so that the handle could stay on the port side of the dash, then to get the height I wanted I rotated the cylinder. I welded a few 1.5" pieces of pre-drilled angle iron to the new top of the tank, then I added a 4th angle perpendicular for a side support to prevent the tank for wobbling side to side.
Rubber is scraps of commercial roofing from the guys next to my old shop; used as an isolator between steel and aluminum - we all know what steel does to ALU, and of coarse All stainless hardware. Looking at it now I wish I had flipped the ALU side support angle so the vertical leg was facing up - probably will be redone down the road.
Copper lines and compression fittings from Home Cheapo, and a brass schrader valve that I probably picked up scavenging at an abandoned quarry or the like.

To mount the schrader valve my dad an I drilled small amounts on either side of the through hole large enough to fit a brass washer on each side, then using guess and check method drilled until the valve was fully tightened to the female adapter behind it. The pull handle was taken from a vintage grease gun I bought at a swap meet for $2. 5/16 hole through the dash for that.

Pull handle is OK - it tend to like to wiggle and bind tho. Due to unexpected variances in the shape of the boat (the dash angles slightly downward in relation to the sides and hood), the handle now angles upward to the bow, which results in pinching when you pull b/c the joint between steel handle and wire is higher than both end points, when tension is added the joint is driven downward causing the steel shaft to bind on the wood.

Still looking for solutions around that, I several ideas.

1) Add some type of slide joint instead of a wood to shaft connection
2) shorten the shaft so the wire has a more direct path to the shaft end
3) glue a tiny pivot under the hood for a lever to mount the handle will pull the lever which is also tied to the valve
4) add a small roller under the shaft to support the shaft and prevent it from binding

Any thoughts on this? I would love to get some input and get the ideas flowing


And, in case you were wondering the horn is loud as hell just ask my neighbors!

 

[wyliek]

Re: Free C-list Project: 1959 12' Aluminum, Mercury outboard...lots of pics

Here is my cousin lending a hand bolting accessories to the hood

Original brass cleats re-installed - I hope to polish them sometime when I finally just man up and just do it

Dash installed and complete.

I will be adding a steering setup in the near future, as well as the original remote throttle control.

A few more small parts missing - mount stomp pads once dry, mount fire extinguisher to the left of the glove box, get bilge pump and mount on left of back seat, add oar holding brackets possibly to bottom of the sides, and finally replace the foam in the sides - as it turns out pink foam is turning out to a little hard to find in Arizona.

High Res finished pics coming soon.

Thanks for looking!

 

[CTSwampYankee]

Re: Free C-list Project: 1959 12' Aluminum, Mercury outboard...lots of pics

Darn, got to the end of this thread and realized that it's been over a year since the last post. Any updates?

I just picked one up myself. The only difference is that most of the rivets on my hull are the flush, airplane-style ones. I'm missing that aft cowling, although I don't see any holes that it may have been bolted or riveted to. And someone added the fins, I'm guessing as spray rails. They wouldn't be too bad if they weren't attached with self-tapping screws.

Here's mine on it's ride home: