Restoration of a 17' 1985 Boston Whaler Montauk

[fishingdan]

I am helping a friend to restore his Whaler. I brought it home yesterday and I am starting to prepare the restore plan. It will be a fun and quick little project. There is one minor hull repair and then everything else is cosmetic.

I was hoping to get a little experience doing gelcoat repairs, but this boat appears to have been painted before. As a result, I expect to repaint it.

I will load some "before" pics soon and then keep you posted on the progress.

[kiwi]

I tried repairing gelcoat once. I will never try again... It is not a fun sport. What I know now that I didn't back then (the web did not exist at that time) is to apply it then stop air getting to it while it hardens. To repair today will be epoxy and paint. I don't care if the color doesn't match perfectly on the bottom of a hull. I do care if water seeps through gelcoat into the hull!

I have two 15' beach cat hulls waiting for my attention...

Tony

[fishingdan]

I finally finished this winter's project... :oops:

I will post pictures and lessons learned later. I'm pleased with the results, but I would do somethings differently next time. For example, I would take some "before" pictures. :oops: :oops:

[NorthWoods]

:lol:

[fishingdan]

I started this project back in November. Like many projects, it should have/could have been completed sooner but life gets in the way and stuff sometimes takes longer than expected.

This is a 1985 Boston Whaler Montauk. It started out as a project to do a little "touch up" here an there, but it nearly turned out to be a complete restoration.

The condition of the boat could be best classified as fair when we started:
- The hull had some damage on the forward chines.
- The starboard rub rail at mid ship was loose and the bottom of the sheer lip appeared to have some minor damage in that same area.
- The boat interior had many cosmetic spider cracks in the gel coat
- The railings were very loose and barely attached to the boat. The tubing of the railings had slight corrosion, but nothing bad. The fittings (or the things that attach the railings to the boat) were badly worn and corroded.
- The original fiberglass fuel tank was slowly disolving from the new fuel mixes.
- The bow nav light was badly damaged
- The transom was good and, from what I could see, there has not been a great amount of water intrusion.

The hull was stripped early on. Everything that could easily be removed was. Basically, the only remaining items were the engine and operating controls on the console (steering, engine control, dash panel and gauges).

We then started to look into the chine and rubrail damage. As it turns out, this boat had been repaired at least twice previously. The chine area was previously filled with an auto body filler and the hull was painted. In fact, this boat appears to have been 3 different colors of off-white over the years. The chine was repaired with glass and epoxy.

The damage under the starboard rubrail was more extensive than expected. Basically a 3 foot section of the sheer had to be rebuilt.

The interior of the boat was completed sanded down to reduce some of the spider cracking in the gelcoat. What remained would easily be filled with high build primer.

Other hull blemishes were filled with QuikFair and faired.

The hull exterior and interior were then prepped for the high build primer. S3 primer was then applied the interior and exterior of the hull. We selected S3 Orcas White for the color and then had the paint tinted slightly to make it a more off-white shade.

The rails were repaired, polished and replaced. The fittings went back on after some cleaning up. They should be replaced but, they are difficult to find.

A refurbished bow light was purchased of ebay and installed.

A new rubrail kit from Boston Whaler was installed. That only took 3 people.

New decals from company called Magic Brush applied to the boat.

The original gas tank was replaced with a 26 gallon tank from Moeller.

All of the wood was stripped, sanded and then Bristol Finish was applied. This is a 2 part poly urethane product that is easy to apply, easy to maintain and should out last varnish. The product really fills in the grain nicely. However, the console seat was so badly weather, I would have had to put 20 coats on to fill the grain.

And finally, Seadek was installed on the floor of the boat. This is a closed cell foam product that is really easy to work with and is very comfortable to stand on.

Lessons learned:
- Next time, I will completely strip the hull including everything. It was too much work to work around things.
- Don't try to use the solvent based paints in a garage under your house in the middle of winter. It really stinks up the house and probably is not safe.
- S3 paint is very sensitive to temperature and humidity changes. A change of 10 degrees can dramatically change the drying time. Personally, I am an expert when applying it when the temps are 60-68 degress F. Over 70, and I can't get brush marks out.
- Take complete pictures of the boat before you start.

Here are some pictures of the finished boat:

[img]http://ctfisherman.com/data/976IMG_2034_small.jpg[/img]
[img]http://ctfisherman.com/data/976IMG_2035_small.jpg[/img]
[img]http://ctfisherman.com/data/976IMG_2036_small.jpg[/img]
[img]http://ctfisherman.com/data/976IMG_2038_small.jpg[/img]
[img]http://ctfisherman.com/data/976IMG_2039_small.jpg[/img]

[NorthWoods]

And there was much applause!

WOW! Very impressive Dan. I can't believe it, that boat looks like it just rolled out of the dealership.

Are you looking to start a marina or something? 8)

[kiwi]

Master, I bow low before you!

You realise you get on the front page with this one...

Tony

[fishingdan]

[quote=NorthWoods]
Are you looking to start a marina or something? 8) [/quote]

If I could only find a way to make a comparable living at it, I would. I have actually thought about it.

Thanks for the compliments. Next up: Penn Yan Explorer.