Posts: 202
Location: Angola, IN | I have quite a bit of first hand experience with this. I purchased a 1968 Starcraft V180 with the original 115HP Johnson on it. Boat, motor, and vintage TeeNee trailer for $500. My boat is 4th from the bottom on this page:
http://muskie.outdoorsfirst.com/board/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=76...
The floor was rotten. Tore it up. The stringers were rotten. Cut them out. While I had it in my garage during the winter, and turned the Salamander heater on one cold morning, the transom began to "sweat" real bad....like a cold pop bottle on a hot July day. Took a drill bit and ran it through the transom....the plywood core was soaked and frozen solid like I thought.
I glass in new stringers, repaired the transom (with a very novel technique I learned on line from some old pro's), and put a new floor in it. All the wood was Douglas Fir. This little 18' foot got two 2x4's, two 2x6's and a 2x10" glass in for stringers. It's WAY more solid than it ever was. Then 5/8" Douglas Fir Marine-grade plywood. I then glassed the floor into the sides of the hull for added integrity. I think my boat could drive through a Ranger if I t-boned it. LOL!!
The transom is a long-winded technique, but I'd be more than glad to email it to you if you want/need it. Just PM me. Boat has held up very well. It gets abused by some decent waves motor across LSC. First couple of times, I was nervous, but now, I know she's rock solid.
But as far as the fiberglass skin goes....you should be fine. It can go bad, but usually in bigger yacht-sized boats that sit in the water year round. Look for any patches on the bottom....even if you have some, it's not big deal really. And see if you notice any bubbles or deformation in the gel coat....sign of possible delamination/blisters.
The boats in the early days of glass (1960's) used much heavier layers of glass then they use today. They were also hand layed-up with full sheets or rolls of glass mat and woven roving. Much more structurally strong than the chopped up glass mat that they shoot with guns today.
Lastly, the gel-coat is actually just pigmented resin. When you build a fiberglass boat, you build it from the outside in. You spray the hold with your gel coat, then lay your fiberglass on top of that. Just the opposite of building a car. You paint a car last. The gel-coat is THICK. Even if it has big scrapes and gouges, or stains, or discoloration, you can easily remove them and polish them out (especially on a white boat).....flake boats are a little harder.
Okay, I just wrote a book. But I do have a passion for old glass boats. It's nice to, to fish out of a boat that you restored. Even though it's old and not that nice, I still people coming up to me to check out my boat at least half the time I take it out of the water at the ramp.
Peace.
Edited by SteveHulbert 9/3/2012 8:04 PM
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