The next big project was to install braces in the gunwhales to stabilize the side walls. The boat is an 18′ and originally had benches that went across the boat to reinforce the sides. I fabricated some braces out of 1/8′ aluminum and riveted them in. That made a big difference.
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The front deck was the next up and I riveted together some 1″ angle aluminum and made a nice size fishing deck and a small deck for the trolling motor mount. I will have a 3/4′ plywood deck covered in epoxy in fiberglass for longevity over the three decks. Here is a pick of the completed front deck and the battery/charger rack.

I picked up a 3 bank 10 amp charger that will be permanently installed under the front fishing deck. This has a plug in that you throw and extension cord on and will recharge all the batteries at once. Will be a real convenient feature.

Craigslist you came in handy again! I put a post on there asking if anybody had a side console they wanted to sell. 1 day is all it took and someone emailed me out of Roseville with one for $30. A great find. was not looking forward to fabricating one. It will have to be stripped down and repainted but should work out great.

Next up is to work on the back deck and getting the gas tank installed. More pics to come!

I brought it down to the boat launch and backed it into the water with the trailer on to make sure it didnt leak. I found one tiny little leak but almost not even worth fixing. It has been back behind my house for the summer but due to summer coming to an end I am trying to get on the painting of it ASAP so I dont have to heat my garage for 4 days while it cures. I flipped it over and started on the exterior of the hull first. I used a stripper from Zinger that he had left over from stripping his aluminum mountain bike frame. Basically painted it on and it did the work for the most part. I used a nylon bristle brush to help it along. It worked great for the upper portion of the sides but the lower portion had some kind of paint that wasnt having it. I went back to the Norton Rapid Strip and also a wire rotary brush for around the rivets. That did the trick. Here are a couple of shots during the process.

Next up will be getting it up to the garage and buffing out all the swirl marks from the stripper. That is where I am at so far. I will add to this as I get some more pictures. Hopefully have the trailer all put back together and a final pic of that up later in the week.

I have wanted a boat for a long time but never had the space to store it and really didnt feel like dropping $3-$4,000 on a decent boat. Well the wheels started turning and I came up with a plan to basically start from scratch and build one how I want it. This all depended on a the perfect storm coming together. Once upon a time a couple of cousins were sitting around a camp fire on Lake Vermillion and Old Blue came up. For those of you that don’t know Old Blue was an old roughly 1964 Gulf something or other fiberglass boat that cousin Gabe owned and used for building his cabin. Basically a utility boat for going back and forth to the dock. (they are building a cabin on an island on Lake Vermillion). She wasnt the most beautiful of boats but it floated. We got to talking and Gabe was willing to let Old Blue go for cheap to a family member. Since Jen had no interest in a boat I was the next best thing. What I was really after was the motor and trailer. Old Blue was given away to a guy in Apple Valley that had high hopes for it. He didnt have a lot of money to spend on a boat and I had one that fit the bill. Here is a pic of it in all its glory…

The trailer was in good structural condition and the motor is a 1991 Evinrude 70 hp outboard. My number one goal in getting a boat was to have a motor that runs good. Having a great boat with a POS motor doesn’t do you much good. Nothing worse than planning on a great day out and instead find yourself paddling back to shore or flagging someone down to pull you in. This motor ran good and started consistantly. For the money I couldnt pass it up.

Trailer Restoration:

If your going to have a good looking boat you better not be putting it on a rusty old trailer. I pulled the whole trailer apart and sand blasted it and most of the brackets. I even did the rims on it. Messy job that I would only want to do once in my life. I would recommend bringing it in and having someone else do it. You wont save much money doing it yourself. Here it is all blasted and taken apart…

I had to touch it up with a Norton Rapid Strip brillo wheel on my angle grinder. Be careful with these, I caught the thing on a corner and it tightened so far down on my angle grinder I could not get it off. It ended up stripping the locking pin out and I was off to buy a new one. Lesson learned! I got everything down to bare metal and set up a paint booth in the garage. I primed the trailer with Kustom Shop Epoxy Primer.

After that was done I let it dry for two days just to be safe. I followed that up with a basic Gloss Black Rustoleum Paint. I could have gone with a higher quality acrylic enamel or something along those lines but its a boat trailer and it will eventually rust. This way I can do a quick sand job on any emerging rust and hit with a spray can of Rustoleum and she is good as new. No need to break out HVLP guns to touch it up. I did use an HVLP gun with the primer and sprayer so I didnt have to go through $100 worth of cans and the epoxy primer does not come in a spray can so I was somewhat forced to. It went on real easy, could of used a little bigger air compressor but it did the job if I took my time. Here it is painted…

I sanded down the bunk rollers and did them with a spray can. I used some rust converter on these as they were real awkward to sand and kind of a pain because the rollers did not come off. They probably wont last as long but pretty easy to re spray down the road.

Finished pic of the bunk rollers, rims, and leaf springs.

        The fortunate thing that happens when buyers are going through NACA to purchase these homes is that NACA will go through the inspection and detail what issues they want resolved before they will close on the home. Mostly the issues that they will require to be fixed come down to the three S’s… Safety, Security, Soundness. Many of the issues that we find will be required by NACA to be fixed which can potentially save the buyer thousands of dollars. The sellers may not appreciate it but the buyers sure do! The moral of the story… get any house inspected no matter what it looks like in your eyes. To a home inspector it may look completely different and could be loaded with problems that may not rear their head for years to come.

       A NACA inspection definitely takes more time due to the documentation/report that they require but in the end I am helping out a person that can’t afford to have anything overlooked and almost all are completely thrilled with the results they get. It is a good feeling knowing you are protecting a buyer that in the past may have been walked all over in these situations.

In the future we will be updating our blog, showing things that we find at inspections and providing tidbits on home inspections in general. If you have anything you want to comment on feel free to add your two cents!