Hello All

[polarisman14]

Hey everyone.

My name's Matt and I live in Gilmanton right on Shellcamp Pond. My buddy Jared (Blazen) got me into boating a few years ago and last fall I bought my first boat, a 1972 13' Chrysler Cadet. I plan on using it for a few seasons, then using it as a donor boat for a Glen-L "Flying Saucer" boat I'll be building.





That's from the day I brought it back home. I had to replace the transom over the course of the winter along with re-running the wiring, replacing one of the ignition coils, some carburetor fine-tuning, Jared and I made some back-to-back seats for it as it didn't have any, and I've had the lower unit on and off the boat 5 or 6 times. It didn't have a HIN, just a serial number so I had to go through that whole process with the DMV and Gilmanton PD.

Anyway, I plan on doing a couple more shakedown days at Winnisquam, but do plan on taking it out on the big lake a few times this season during the week/on calmer days. Don't hesitate to say hello, I try to get out on a lake somewhere in the lakes region a day a week, whether it be in this or on Jared's Stingray.

[surfnsnow]

welcome to the lakes region, i'm sure you'll love it

[Nagigator]

.......have fun, dude........

[Lakesrider]

I have built a few Glen-L's. Pick an easy one at first and work your way up. The last one I built was the Tornado, and it was fun....in calm water any way.....




The flying saucer is a great boat and extremely light weight. It is a great project and should be easy to get finished in one build season. Good luck with it and post pictures as you build it.

[polarisman14]

That flying saucer looks awesome. Did you decide to do the 12'3" or stretch it? I'm planning on doing the 10% stretch. Planning on doing white on the sides and black on the top with alternating stains on the deck planking, white putty between them and a red pinstripe to set the black trim off from the wood inlays. White seats with red piping, repainting the engine black with white and red trim.

I need to learn how to use photoshop so I can "borrow" your picture and overlay that color scheme. I have the plans already, just need the space, lumber, money, and time!

It's hard to work on building a boat when I'd rather be out floating around.

[RLW]

polarisman14, I just noticed that you are fairly new to posting on the forum and glad you have joined us. Have fun and enjoy the Winni Forum while making many new friends.
Best of luck with all your endeavors in boating and building you own boat.

[Tired of Waiting]

to the forum.

Just remember, now that you have teased us with stories of boat building you MUST post a pic, thread as the project gets under way on to completion.

ToW

[polarisman14]

Can do. I'm hoping once I get to a good stopping point with my car project I can dedicate some time and resources to the boat. I gotta shuffle some stuff around in the basement so I can make a form down there (walk-out basement) to get it taken care of.

Here are some pics of the Chrysler restoration--I probably should have removed the floor and replaced the stringers too but I didn't want it to be too big of a project. With such a small motor on there just replacing the transom was plenty to keep structural integrity, and it floats with 0 leaks so I'm happy. Keep that in mind when you're critiquing.

Before:



During:








After:


I'm into this thing for $600, $290 for the boat, motor, and trailer, $200 for ign coil and lower unit parts, and the rest for fenders, life jackets, registration, etc. That and several weekends. Not too bad for getting out on to the water.

Matt

[Orion]

I like what you've done in keeping costs down, while focusing a lot of effort on what really matters...the transom. Those no nonsense seats look like they'll work great. Well done!

[polarisman14]

Thank you. The cost of materials for the transom repair was about $60 in plywood plus a bunch of stuff I had laying around. The seats are actually very comfortable and since a half-dozen throwable PFDs were included I was able to slide a couple under the seats for use as seat cushions.

Off to winnisquam in 2 hours!

[Lakesrider]

You gonna add a Bimini top. You will wish you did as it is gonna get hot out on the water. I would think you could bend up some bows and rig one fairly easily.
I know that Boat US used to sell some premade ones.
Something like this?

http://www.boatcoversdirect.com/prod...tops/westland/

[polarisman14]

^^I had thought about that at one point, the previous owner (one of them?) had a bimini on it I think. There are a bunch of snaps, a couple hooks, etc.

I just don't want to put any money into it that won't be an investment in the Glen-L.

[Lakesrider]

I wish I still had all the stuff I used to build mine. I'd have given it to you to get you started. But that was years ago and I wound up throwing away most of the extra fiberglass and resins, activators, dispensers, spatulas, etc.

[polarisman14]

Thank you for the thought.

So far I have the plans, the Glen-L "Boat Building With Plywood" book, a good chunk of the tools necessary (Jared is a woodworker and I believe he'll be helping me as well), the fastener kit, and structural epoxy. I just need the thinner epoxy for encapsulating, maybe some microbeads for fillets, wood, paint, etc.

If I can save up a few hundred bucks in the coming months I can buy the materials for the transom and framework and get started on that this winter .

[Lakesrider]

It is very important that you get a good bond between the plywood' below the waterline and the fiberglass. If you don;t do anything else make sure you,let that first coat of resin sink into the wood for a while and then add more to build up the fiberglass to whatever ply you are going to use. If not it WILL de-laminate and you will get blisters or worse, bubbles and that is just NO GOOD!. Do you plan to vacuum bag the hull, or not? If you can do it that is a great way to get the air out. Otherwise it is going to be a whole lot of rollering. You will have massive forearms when you are done.

this ought to go into the boat forum. you'll get lots more great advise in there.....

[polarisman14]

If a mod would like to move this elsewhere please do, doesn't offend me at all .

I hadn't planned on vacuum bagging the hull although I guess it is an option if I can find someone willing to let me borrow some of the tools needed to do so. I had planned on rolling it out. My plan is to do what you mentioned--paint a coat of epoxy on, let it dry, paint another on, fiberglass, and put another one on the top. Should be nice and glossy and I can decide from there what I want to do for the finish--I don't think I'll be doing brightwork on the sides because I don't want the joint between the two lengths of plywood to show.

[polarisman14]

My boating season with the almighty Cadet came to a screeching halt Sunday. I lucked out bigtime, the lower unit took on some water and grenaded the pinion gear but the guy I bought the boat from had a spare block and lower unit. Picked that up from him for $40 and that gear case and contents are in better shape than mine were anyway. I'm rebuilding them today after work, hoping to get out on the big lake this week. Luckily the failure happened when I was still on Shellcamp just trolling around.

Is a pinion gear supposed to look like this?

lol!

[polarisman14]

Thought I would post up and let everyone know what I've been up to lately. As of the beginning of August my boat has been out of service (again! grrrr!). A friend and I went out to Newfound after fixing the lower unit. Now that issue is taken care of, the engine decided it wanted to give me more issues. First it gave me some sort of (I think) ignition issue. It would intermittently gain and lose power and eventually didn't want to stay running. We were slowly putting back to the launch ramp to call it a day (50 feet at a time, then it would stall), and the starter died. Later came to find out the brush on the positive side came off of the wire so I couldn't crank it over. Luckily as weather was coming in a guy in a square-back canoe with a 15 horse was nice enough to tow me back on his way in.

Fast forward a couple weeks. I was still bumming about the boat, but had a decision to make--drop a couple hundred bucks on fixing the motor, or start getting lumber for my wooden boat. I decided on the latter as the motor has been a pretty fruitless endeavor thus far. It's unfortunate as the Cadet has been a fun boat this season when it's been working, but the engine issues has put a damper on our fun.

As of today I've put 28 hours into my wooden boat and I'll show you a quick photo diary of the progression. Starts with the building form, plywood parts, wood cut-outs, and most recently, frame gussets. I'm now at the point in the project where I am ready to bust out the screws and structural epoxy and glue the laminations together for breasthook, stem, and transom knee, and glue and screw the plywood gussets to the frame members. Then it'll start to really look like a boat as I can mount everything on the building form!