This is how i recieved the boat and im going to start on restoring it. I plan on once i have it useable to keep it this way whyle im restoring it during the fishing season. Anything that i have to do that will make it non useable ill wait til winter time to do. I like the lines of this boat and i couldent beat the price. I am going to take my time with it and takle one project at a time.

Here is the front closed bow as i recieved it. Its in pretty good shape. It needs a good bath and maybee some touch up and some wax. Im not going to paint til the winter time. I have thought about opening up the bow, or even redoing the whole thing and making a center console, but for now im going to make a nice boat and then go from there.

This is a picture of the inside after about 8 hours of striping and grinding. It looks bad but im happy with how solid the floor is. The PO told me that it is a new floor within the last year. I cut a hole in 3 sections to see inside and there is dry solid stringers in there and the foam is dry. This makes me verry happy!!! There was some carped that was still glued and stapeled down to the floor and it was a real PITA to get it all up. There still is a heck of a lot of grindong to do at this point to get everything flat and get all the carpet glue out. I dont want to put down carpet again im going to paint the floor with non-skid paint so that i can clean it easily after use and carpet will hold water and rot things. Im still a long way from paint at this point i have to glass the whole floor first to keep water out of there.

Here is the transom as i recieved the boat. I was a little afraid as to why the PO put that metal reinforcement. I was thinking that the transom was rotted out but after I got it home and investigated for a few hours i cannot find any wet wood at all and it all seems solid. Eventually i want to clean this up so its not so buisy back there. I just want 1 fish finder transducer and thats it. I dont need a speed sensor back there because im going to use GPS for speed. So my plan here is to fill in all the holes with 3M 4200 or 3M 5200 and Clean up where the PO glassed the swim ladder into place. It looks shotty where the ladder is glassed to the top but its suprisingly strong.

As you can see in this picture, there is like a 6 inch gap between the edge of the floor and where it meets the inside hull. Mostly its twards the back of the boat. I have to find a way to fill these gaps so that water does not lay in there and drain below and rot things. I cant believe how much grinding is involved with this project. I have been through about 9 grinding wheels so far and im supprised that my angle grinder hasn't quit on me yet.

Here you can better see the gap in the edge of the floor that im talking about. Think im going to use wood shims to fill these gaps and glass over the wood shims. I just need the pieces of wood to hold the glass so i get a smooth surface to work with.

This is what i was talking aout the shims. As you can see they fill the gap pretty well and i dont need to completely fill them because i am going to lay fiberglass cloth over top of the shims. I think its going to work out pretty well. We'll see.

Here is more of the rest of the way back to the transom. As it goes to the bow it thins out and its also not as deep. Its taking a little time to shape these pieces to fit just right but im getting there.

Another one of closer to the bow. You can see how it narrows. Getting close to being ready for glass.

This is how i was planing on sealing everything up. Going to glass it like this the whole way back to the transom. It looks like the pieces of wook are going to support the fiberglass very well. All im trying to do here is let water drain better and not pool up in these gaps.

Well i tested a small section to see how it will hold up and it worked out great. I just need to glass the rest of the way back and start the same thing on the other side. So far so good on this boat hav not run into any real problems yet.

Gap is now glassed in and pretty smooth!

Working out Pretty well!

Pretty Smooth!

On this side i think that im going to try something different. The gap on this side seems like its a little bit deeper. I am going to fill the gap on this side using 2 part foam and once it cures im going to grind it to the contour that I want and then glass over it the same way i did on the other side.

Waiting for the foam to cure then im going to shape it using an old cd for the contour. So that way its round like the CD in the corner. It worked out well so im not going to add pictures of the fiberglass hardning. It worked the same as the other side. So the floor is getting there.

Some time went by and i left my digital camera in NJ so i havent been taking pic's. I have made some progress however. For the next few pictures it will be my cell phone that im taking the pictures with. Its a crappy picture but you get the idea. This is the only place that my boat will have carpet. The dash. The floor since has been completely glassed and painted with non skid paint. The color of the floor is battelship grey. Its nice that i can hose it down and it all runs right to the bildge and drains right out.

I got a moter on and im going to cherrystone Virgina to camp on the chesipeake bay. Im going to be there 11 days so ive been working hard on the boat fot that. I got 2 sets of back to back seats in there for fishing and the gauges are installed so lets y it out!

There is too much going on at the back of the boat for me. I whant to loose the swim ladder, the unused transducer, and the speed sencor. I want to fill the holes left from the screws and all.

There is some holes as im taking everything off. I ordered Marine-Tex to fill them. when i get everything off ill seal them up good.

Look at what the previous owner did to mount this. Underneath all the hardened epoxy resin is a U shaped bracket with only 2 screws to the transom. These are little screws like the transducer screws. Thats going to be a pain to get that big glob of crap off there. But at least it didnt hurt the transom.

Not the best picture but that swim ladder is gone. I took a grinder to the huge ball of hardened resin that the previous owner used on the transom to mount the swim ladder and its smooth. I repainted that half of the transom after I filled the holes with starbrite epoxy. I used the epoxy putty stick the 2 part kind that you mix together(http://www.starbrite.com/productdetail.cfm?ID=1462&ProductCat=Marine&ProductSCat=Epoxies%20%26%20Adhesives%20%26%20Caulks&ProductSSCat=Epoxies). That stuff gets hard as a rock! I took a nail that was the same size as the holes used for the transducer mounting screws and grinded off the point of the nail and used the dull nail to push the starbrite into the holes. That way i know that i didnt miss anything when filling the holes. After the starbrite cured i sanded smooth and then preped and painted.

Another look at the side of the transom that the swim ladder used to be attached too. The sun makes this pic kinda crappy but its smooth and you can see yourself in the paint like a mirror. I cant believe how much work is involved in preping for paint! I might paint the whole thing like this, section at a time.

I got the boat in my parrents garage for the winter. They are going to let me keep it in there for the winter so i can work on it. This is going to give me the time to open the bow up for more room if i want it.

Here is the closed bow. I used to like having it closed up there cause it looked classic and i could store stuff under there but after a season of using the boat i would really like to have the room in the bow that the closed part is wasting. I have penciled out where im going to open it up to start with.

Im going to have to split it up in the center to gain access. Here is a pic of how it is now. Plan on cutting out the center where the step is to get ontop of the bow.

So i started cutting. I am going to cut out a lot more i just needed to be able to get in there and have room to work and see what i got going on under there. Now to start the dash section.

Ok Started cutting out the center of the dash. They are now consoles. Its going to be a wider opening than what i just did but i got to plan how im going to support the consoles. Im going to have to build a back to them to support them to the floor. So far its going pretty well.

So far im happy with how its going. That fiberglass is about an inch thick where i cut it. The floor under there is solid as a rock! Im going to support the sides by cutting ply in the contour of the edge of the boat and glassing it to whats left of the top of the upper bow. Im not going to cut the rest out til I have a plan and all the materials to support the sides.

Next im going to make temporary supports for the consoles. I want to install a fuel tank under that raised part of the bow before i get too far along. There is a fuel tank in there now but it hasnt been used at least for a couple years. I have been using portable fuel tanks and switching them when they run out. That 115 yamaha used 6 gallons pretty fast. Im not sure of the condition of the fuel tank thats in there now but im almost set already before even seeing it on replacing it. Ill keep adding as i go.

This is the seats i made and used this past summer. I dont think that im going to use these seats after i finish opening the bow up. I built the bases to these back to back seats and they are just regular $69 boat seats from walmart that i put back to back.

I liked these seats and bases but i think im going to use single seats this time. I might use the actual seats just the bases im not going to use. I use this boat for fishing most of the time so i dont need back to backs.

I got the idea for making the bases from someone on iboats that had shown pics of theirs that they had built. I like the storage you get when you make bases like these. The only thing that sucks is there is no way to get the seats to lay down flat like most factory back to back seats. Im going to be taking sudjestions for ideas on how im going to do the seats as im glassing the floor back down later this winter.

You can see that the huge glob of resin is gone and that part of the transom looks a lot better now. There is still some resin all over the place on the top part that i got to clean up. Im making progress though. I used rustolium to paint that part of the transom i might just do that for the rest of the boat section at a time.

I took out some more of the bow today. I have started to cut large pieces of cardboard where im going to wrap plywood around the bow under whats left of the top. Im going to glass that to the underside of the top and to the inside of the hull all the way around.

I went looking for the gas tank under the floor and i found wet foam!!

From the middle back is not bad at all in fact they look like they were replaced recentlly. Not sure if im going to take them up and the foam back here was pretty dry except in a couple of places. I bet i took about 100 pounds of foam from the bow area. I think that happened because whoever replaced the stringers before did not allow the water to drain from the bilge. You will see what im talking about in the next picture.

I dont know what to do here. this piece is not cut correctally and its just covered in resin. There was no glass put on a lot of the stringers just resin. Well resin dripped down to the hull here and blocked any water from draining to the bilge. I am not sure wether to try to clean up all this or re-do it right with ply and shape it correctally so everything drains and is protected.

I am hoping my buddies on i-boats can help me out with what to do. Im not sure if i should pull up all the stringers and redo them or just try to clean them up and re-glass them. I would like to re-do it all since im this far. Whats there looks like 2 X 6's. i dont think i would use 2X6 again. I would probably use ply and contour it to the shape of the hull and make it double thick then glassing it all back down. This will let me clean up the inside hull and check for any leaks.

Getting a little farther now and the stringers are looking better and better.

Its pretty clean where the closed bow part was. Its nice to have it in a garage so everything can get nice and dry as i take old stuff out. Now to start getting old resin off the stringers so i can see whats under there. So far it all looks pretty dry under there.

To my suprise everthing under there is dry. My plan was to replace these stringers but im starting to think that im going to leave them in place and just glass over them after i get them all cleaned up. Whoever replaced the stringers before just put in this wood and just used resin and thats it. I plan on using mat and roving mat roving. To tie them into the hull.

Decided to remove the stringers out of the entire boat. Stringers gone whth a lot of grinding. A LOT OF GRINDING done to this point!

Its taking me a long time to get the hull cleaned up with the grinder but im getting there. I ran into the previous owner at walmart one day and i asked him about the repair that was done before i got the boat and he told me that he had used about 25 gallons of bondo glass "Jelly" to put in the old stringers. He got 5-5 gallon buckets of it at wholesale price and now i understand why there was so much crap everywhere on the inside of the hull. This is why i been grinding so much. 25 gallons of fiberglass jelly is a lot!!! It was the bondo brand Jelly that they sell at walmart. He had 25 Gallons of it and thought it was doing good to put it on everything!!! Now i dont feel so bad grinding so much! Bondo jelly is like stray glass strands and cloth and waxed epoxy all mixed into a container. And he poured it 5 gallons at a time and smoothed it with trowls! That has been a pain in the ass!! Well i thought it was me that is slow but now i got a little of my confidence back. Im ready almost to put in some new stringers and move on with this project!