Pics History of an Old Boat

I wouldn't dip it. I'd undercoat, and for this reason: plastidip is intended to lose adhesion suddenly (when you peel it), whereas undercoating stays where it's put.

yeah, i should abeen clearer. Not necessarily plastidip . Just whatever the most "rubbery" coating is.
 
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I'm wondering if I'll be able to make a mold. Not sure if you can see, but on the top side of the plate, on the bottom edge it's got manufacturer's marks and such.
 
I don't necessarily need to replace it, but I'd rather not destroy the original, ya dig? Right now I'm thinking of ways to make a replacement as well as refurbishing the original. Just examining the options.
 
Don't use plastidip or undercoating, neither of them are durable enough. Go with 2-part urethane rubber. Smooth-on has a pretty good catalog of stuff, lots of videos on their website showing how to do shit, and you can get their stuff in low quantities.

If you're building one from scratch, I'd machine a chunk of aluminum. Make a bunch of holes/slots/whatever into it to give the urethane something to grab onto, and roughen up the surfaces with coarse sandpaper to give it more surface area. Then make a mold to cast/pot the thing in. We build something at work almost exactly this way.
 
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Sounds good, I'll look into it.

Thinking a little out of the box, I sort of wonder if Dad might have a piece of wood that might work. This would be a thin piece of wood, to keep it looking stock it would probably be under 1/4" or so, although I could go up. Generally the transom clamps dig into wood pretty deeply, and something thin enough to work might get eaten up fairly quickly.

I need to find a cheap piece of aluminum about 1/8"x18"x8" for the backside of the transom
 
I get by with a little help from my friends...

Took my cruddiest parts to my old job where I've still got a couple friends, and after hours I used their NASA Approved Sandblasting Cabinet™ to clean everything up. Tonight I am painting the underneath of everything with zinc chromate primer to prevent any further corrosion. Hopefully not giving myself cancer in the process.

At this point I'm not sure if I will paint the top and bottom of the aluminum parts, the corrosion and pitting was pretty bad on them, if I were to make the pieces pretty I'd have to use some sort of body filler on them. If I did that I'd have to paint the entirety of the pieces a completely different color. As of right now I'm not really sure I want to do that, or even what color I would paint the aluminum parts.












One of the things I modified was the steering column. As I mentioned there is solely tension holding these onto the firewall and they have a tendency to rotate around the hole in the firewall. So I fucked around with it.


As has been mentioned before, Helicoils suuuuuuuuck. So I got ahold of some Keenserts from my local Fastenal. Important part for these is to countersink the hole just a hair.


You screw 'em in, then you hammer down the little arms.








I thought I grabbed a good pic of the welded piece, but apparently not. In the top right is the welded version.




Found some interesting stuff, mostly casting numbers, I did find this on the front side-to-side floor brace. I find it interesting as this is supposed to be a '56 or '57 boat. This isn't necessarily a year model, it might be any number of things, width for example.
 
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So, I sandblasted the Herter's parts, then painted the underside with zinc chromate to hopefully prevent any future corrosion issues (use a respirator if you paint with this stuff!)
Now I'm ready to put it back together and I'm wondering about sealing the bolt holes. I don't know what Herter did from the factory, but I'm fairly sure that they didn't use any sort of RTV (which i found underneath when I took it apart.) I was thinking about making gaskets out of some thin rubber to try and keep them from rubbing against the fiberglass, but honestly I don't know if that's needed. I might be able to get away with using just a neoprene washer around the bolt holes
Pretty sure that the transom brace and the transom had a rubber gasket between them for vibration.

I could see stuff getting stuck underneath the rubber, or the rubber sealing the entire interior bracing so that any water that does get held in stays inside that area.

Anyone have any thoughts on the matter?






Transom brace and transom, the notched portion is the part that bolts to the transom.


 
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I can see mitigating vibration. I don't know what was used originally, but I'd use either something that could dry out if it did get wet...or...some sort of "damn good seal" to ensure it couldn't wet in the first place. Rubber seems like an in-between...neither of those really.

Basically don't know how I'd do it, but probably wouldn't do it with plain, inner tube style rubber.
 
So, I sandblasted the Herter's parts, then painted the underside with zinc chromate to hopefully prevent any future corrosion issues (use a respirator if you paint with this stuff!)
Now I'm ready to put it back together and I'm wondering about sealing the bolt holes. I don't know what Herter did from the factory, but I'm fairly sure that they didn't use any sort of RTV (which i found underneath when I took it apart.) I was thinking about making gaskets out of some thin rubber to try and keep them from rubbing against the fiberglass, but honestly I don't know if that's needed. I might be able to get away with using just a neoprene washer around the bolt holes
Pretty sure that the transom brace and the transom had a rubber gasket between them for vibration.

I could see stuff getting stuck underneath the rubber, or the rubber sealing the entire interior bracing so that any water that does get held in stays inside that area.

Anyone have any thoughts on the matter?

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Transom brace and transom, the notched portion is the part that bolts to the transom.
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If it's really a '50s boat, my money would be on a cork washer. Modern neoprene or something like would be fine to avoid the galvanic corrosion.
 
So, mocking everything up for the first time was pretty damn satisfying.
Still need to get the front seat recut, then assembled, but man, putting this all together just put a big ole grin on my face.

I can finally run the steering cables and everything else necessary for the controls, I need to do some other work before it's ready for the water though.











 
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Well, poo.
The really ugly patch in the back of the Herter's is pretty bad, and one of the ones up front isn't the best either although the repair seems better.
Time to learn how to fiberglass, I guess.











I didn't get a before pic of this, although you can see on the inside that there is a puncture




At least the crappy camo paint is still coming up well


It's shiny here because I rinsed it off with a hose.
 
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Inordinately happy with the color match of this. Just a rattlecan from O'Reillys, but its real close to stock. Lower unit had no paint on it previously, now it'll look better than the rest of the motor.

First time playing around with bondo as well, the skeg was all sorts of chewed on, didn't get everything but what I did I'm happy with. I'll upload some before pics and post em.

 
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