Wyattsdad13

Leave the home store to the rookies, just do a google on your area for sheet metal supplies, aluminum shapes or extrusions. these would also be the places to get your rivets and stainless fasteners for a fraction of what the hd or lowes will charge. We have a couple places in Maryland one is called Posners and the other is called Nb handy, they say they sell to trades/commercial only, but that is not true most of the time, if you take cash and act like ya have some sense. Please also note that these places usually deal with biz's that holds their money for 90 days or more, if you take cash and have a material list making it a quick and painless transaction the price should reflect. Tell the counter guy what you are doing, he might fish too! Bozo's will pay more. Somebody here recently posted that a scrap yard also sold to them, that is a cool idea too. I have a awning shop near the sheet metal shop I work for, the awning guy always has scrap tubing and angle he is cool about parting with. I am currently attaching the 3/4 tubing front to back perpendicular to the bottom ribs as someone else here did to keep the center of gravity low and allow somewhere to place the 3/4 board foam to replace that removed elsewhere, then covered this with alum sheet. This is my third boat, you know how life tends to take away toys. I will never use wood again, it eventually soaks up water and adds a ton of weight, aluminum worked great on the last one. biggest reason to save weight, was so i could better carry batteries in an all electric lake. Hide wires etc below and dont hesitate to lose the benches. braces should replce the benches, but angle framing can replace the benches where they suit you instead of the where the maker put them. The configurations are only limited to your imagination and needs. By the way metal prices are down right now, so get it while you can. Like any good job, a plan comes first, try these if they are close 2094 Woodbury Hwy Manchester, TN , 37355-3523 Phone: 931-728-8657 specialty metals and supply 2547 Scottish Pike Knoxville, TN (865) 609-1007

There are a couple other things, bare copper in any humid/moist enviorment is not a good idea. Marine wire and lugs are normally tinned and have a better insulation to resist corrosion. Cost is the big factor for most of us and maintenance can help us avoid the top dollar tinned wire and hardware. My concern is that you noted that you had wrapped strands at a post, I take that to mean no lug on the end of that wire. This needs to be corrected to a permanent and sealed lug connection as soon as possible. That green pasty corrosion unchecked, will wick just like a candle up under the insulation and ruin that wire, it may even cause it to fail leaving you stranded best case, worst case which could result in a fire. It also sounds like there is not a breaker in your system to break the comnnection when needed. A suitable breaker should be added when you make up the lugs. I dont mean to fuss, but fire on the water is scary stuff, I dont like to risk that one in any way. I had a fusible link burn in a car one time, it takes no time to make a heck of a mess and on a boat it could be worse.

i have beeen doin a lot of digging since my current ride will carry a 36v setup and i want to take care of my investment, i crossed paths with a guy that does solar power backup systems and he was the one that clarified with me the importance of the silver plated/tinned copper lugs, you dont have to do it, but i agree with him after noticing how they performed on some of my later model stuff, my truck, the garden tractor and generator have them, when the tractor battery died, it corroded, it ate off some of the plating, i cleaned it and sealed it with the battery terminal spray protector, any battery place will have it, as far as a counttry cleaner, coke will do a lot of things, but you are much better off making a paste of baking soda and water, this will get things really clean, rinse with water and dry thoroughly, seal with the red spray when you are done, we used to use grease when we were young, the spray is a lot cleaner way to go.

I have had a couple batteries in the past do that persistently when they were going bad. That may have just been bad timing I dont know. What I did find out is that we are not supposed to use bare copper lugs on the battery terminals, they should be plated with silver, that is most likely the cause, copper does funny things with dissimilar metals and electricity. You can put that protective spary on them, but it will still be a problem.

There is a shop near you where I bought a Crestliner jon boat. It is in the town named northeast md and called "Hooked on the bay". The address is 21 flint drive, northeast, md. 410-287-4290. I found out recently that there has been some back room dealings between jon boat companies. What I was told that not too long ago, Lowe was making the crestliner boats, supposedly now Crestliner makes their own. Hooked on the bay had a good selection and seemed pretty cool to deal with back in 2006. You really outta consider a trailer and a bit more boat. We all have been thru it, you lose big when you switch up. If ya like fishing, you just cant go wrong getting something a bit wider and longer. I know money is an issue, gotta do what ya gotta do. enjoy whatever you settle on.

man that sure was a pretty antique, looked like new, do searches at small ob shops, they are more likely to have their own bone yards, maybe one of us will come across one, i will check down this way in my travels

My fishin bud and I were just talkin about this last nite. He has a lot of time racing alcy dragsters and doin machine shop work. I have had issues with rubber fuel line not liking the new fuel with ethanol and it has caused me to tear down a old float type carb a few times now on a machine I use. It had black chunks of rubber in the float bowl every time that were clogging the jet of a single throat. He confirmed that alky and rubber DO NOT mix. I made up a 1/4" line out of some brake line tubing and kept my rubber so short it should not be an issue anymore.Not sure it is related, but my complaint is they are forcing the old stuff off the road with that ethanol garbage, it is worse on gas mileage, it drive up grocery prices and worst of all it attracks water, so you are paying for water at the pump and if it sits too long that is a whole nother problem. Like i said, your issue may not be that at all, but ehanol SUX!!!! okay i feel better now. 8-)

Wow, what a great way to start the weekend, ya outta get a news team to do a spot for the scrap yard. I asked ours about that stuff and they said they take drivers license number for everything without exception, and they will call the fuzz for anything that looks too good to be true, like brand new copper or anything that looks better than it should. They said they have a big problem with illegals, they show up with stuff mostly catalytic converters and no drivers license, they get turned away, then the stuff shows up later with somebody else, they get the license number and then call the cops on the idiot that does the drop for them. At least somebody out there is doing their job.

That sucks big time, sure does look like a lonely location for huge chunk of aluminum. It is hard to believe in small town USA something like that can happen and nobody knows who did it.

Removing the seats is not a big deal unless you are getting into offshore racing(LOL). Seriously though, some sort of cross brace should be reinstalled, I used them to create a storage area for gear and batteries in a more useful location. Make your aluminum additions to the hull by using stainless steel 1/4" bolts with nylon loc nuts and seat them in silcone, it will not leak. Interior fasteners can be, more bolts, screws or pop rivets. The easiest way to remove original rivets is to make a small pilot hole in the center of the domed head (1/8"), no deeper than the depth of that dome, then gently use a larger bit (about 3/8"), before you hit the base metal the head will pop off, push the remainder out, done with that part. Next, remove seats and you will find foam. Replace any foam you remove with equal amounts distributed evenly througout the boat. Be sure to use a foam proven to not soak up water. I took some samples and found the 3/4" blue and pink board from any home center does not absorb water when imersed in a sealed container of water for a period of 2 weeks. I have hidden most of mine in a built up sub floor to accept same keeping the floor low as possible for stability reasons. Recently a fella posted the use of 3/4 x 3/4 aluminum tube ran bow to stern. This works well to create the space to redistribute the foam. I have used this modification method 4x before in growing from small jons to larger jons. I am now doing it again since a divorce in the 90s got in the way of fishing for a while. If you wish I can post some pics later when I get home from work.

That poor fella having his boat stolen has had me thinkin and was wondering if this idea might help. How about whenever you see or hear about a boat being sold without title, post the info. on this board or any board for that matter. They could be legit, but in our area getting a copy from DNR is no big deal so it raises a flag with me to not have one. They say when a child is kidnapped, with every hour they can be taken 50 miles away on average, I am sure the same is true for stolen property. Maybe the advertizing places should require the serial number be posted. I saw this on craigslist for hagerstown Maryland today. http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/mld/boa/835520973.html Reply to: sale-835520973@craigslist.org [?] Date: 2008-09-10, 3:12PM EDT No title. Pick up only. Location: Hagerstown, MD it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests PostingID: 835520973

lookin good, electric only is great, no noise, no fumes, if ya got the power, no people either, looks like you have it all. I am in the middle of the same project, mine is naked right now, workin out the guts, not sure i will get any fishin this year or not, after seeing your, i sure dont wanna rush thru it and screw it up, we will have to hook up some day. You dont have any under construction pics do ya?

I gave up on using any wood in my aluminum boat after much thought it seemed kinda silly to put a vunerable product in something so weatherproof. the previous projects, 2 using wood, showed me that when I sealed it, water still would get in on the edges. We fished rain or shine and had a bottom full of water more times than I can count. That wood floor sucked up so much water it was very noticable when picking the tounge up to unhook the trailer at the end of the day. So after that, I placed 2 layers of 3/4 styro between 1-1/2" tall ribs and placed aluminum of about .072 on top of that for a floor surface. I used no glue on carpet, I made strips of .050 aluminum much like they do in your house to pinch it at each edge, it was very secure and the styro foam supported the mid grade thickness aluminum just fine. I am currently putting another Electric only Resv rig together and after consulting with Badfish about the golfcart motor, we hope to have a much better setup than last time. If you dont want to use the golf cart deal, in the pictures i attached we had 4 batteries mounted in a stainless steel box where the center bench was, but it did place some weight on the tounge. We used the two 3hp 12v motors with 2 batteries goin out and two to return. I concealed the batteries by a housing that i made by spanning some braces side to side, with a large aluminum lid to cover the batteries, it made the boat really stable, our feet were down lower and made reaching for fish much safer. This time with the 36 volt setup we plan to split the batteries fore and aft of the trailer axel as I saw on Badfish's rig. That made the trailer much more balanced. I just saw your post on the 5/8 stuff, I grew up fishing on the chesapeake bay a lot in addition to lakes and they used marine plywood down there just like any other salt water enviorment. It may be what you need to do, but I do not think I would alter it's properties with any sealer, Then again on the bay boats they paint both sides when they install it. I am not real familiar with the marine ply and if it is compatible with alum or not, I will ask around on my end tomorrow. For my purposes, I feel the marine ply would still weigh more than the alum, tend to suck up water and would not work for my application. I gotta make up for all those batteries somehow.

The more wood you use the heavier it will be, wood on top of the alum framing is okay, but remember the plywood will soak up water like a spnoge and if you seal it, it will not escape normally and hold it longer causing rot, been there before, pressure treated wood has a chemical that will attack aluminum so dont use that, battery acid is bad for aluminum also so create a stainless steel or plastic containment for the batteries, place any wiring you may need below the floor, we added styrofoam sheet between everything to make up for seats being gone, consider load placement b4 you start, the tounge of the trailer will transfer any weight you add right to you tow vehicle, it will also take a super human to pick up the tomgue or move it around if you load too far forward, i saw a rig that badfish has and his battery weight is offset front and rear of his trailer axle, that was real smart on his part, you may want to start trying to make friends at a local sheet metal shop to have aluminum sheet cut and formed or find a scrap yard that will let you root thru the pile, ours is not friendly that way, had to go new, you will need to buy a good size box of 1/4-20 bolts about 1-1/4 long at a commercial distributer not home depot or lowes, they will rip you off, you should beat their price by at least a third, but go in with cash for the hardware and know what you need before you get there, use nylon lock nuts on the inside and apply silicone forst, use this combination to add any angle framing you may need, it will not leak. the commercial hardware place i go to has a lot of folks with saltwater boat buy from them so they are cool and very helpful as far as new advances in hardware, you may want to give them a chance to offer any knowledge they have in this area. this was the last boat, hope to make the next one better

I really like to read and learn from this board, but this whole thing is messed up. I went lookin on line and that is a great little lake. Why somebody needs a gas motor much less a real big one on that little thing I dont know. I also read where the powers to be prefer you to have the gas motor tilted up and use electric. There is something really wrong with anybody calling themselves a avid fisherman and outdoorsman that wants to ignore rules set in place to preserve a cool place for future fisherman. My point being this sounds like a great place to take a little kid, not have hotboat competitions. When we were young we were taken to a very similar lake, Lake Anna Va. had just been flooded and I have to say they were great memories and it made me feel a lot of respect for that resource. Now that lake is hotboat heaven and is no place to teach a kid to fish. While we are fisherman, we are also stewards of the enviorment and have a responsibilty to leave as we found it for future generations. Ya know NASCAR was a lot better before they got too big for their britches too.