1983 14' Blue Fin with a 1989 18 horse Mercury. This thread will be long and slow but I'll post up lots of pics. I don't have a time frame on it but I'll peck away steady as I get extra money. 12 years ago my father in law gave this boat to my boy when he was 5 so we drove to Illinois and picked it up. He bought it in Wisconsin from a guy that moved from Michigan and it was originally brought from Indiana so you can imagine the nightmare to get registration but we did it. This thing has been run hard and abused for the 12 years we've had it and it's been time for some clean up for awhile but I've been putting it off. Today it made the trip from Graham to Arlington after two new tires. I'm not really ready to tackle it yet but we've ran out of room in Graham so it's here now and I've started the tear down.
The plan is to remove the middle seat and raise the floor up to the bottom of the benches, no live well and possibly removable seats for the benches or I'm actually thinking of no seats and using coolers to sit on top of the benches or even just a chair.


Under the floor on my end all Mt Dew cans and under my brothers end was all beer caps.
The easiest part should be to remove the motor right? Turn two handles to the left a couple turns and lift motor,nope!!! Turned one knob a few turns grabbed the other and it snapped right off, cuss loudly throw broken handle against fence and started looking for my for sale sign but my kid talked me off the ledge and we continued.

Once we removed all hardware and unnecessaries I started drilling out rivets in the middle seat. It had been made into a live well but was really small and the lid had cracked so I wanted the entire thing out. I knew this would leave two holes in the bottom of the boat but I will worry about that later.
I put my top hand on the power washer and we gave it hell. There was things I couldn't identify coming from places I didn't know were even in the boat. I seriously doubt in 20+ years and five states of fishing and highway it had ever been completely cleaned. We flipped it over and kept spraying lake grime and film off.
At this point there are two issues that I see, the holes in the bottom from the live well but I have a couple plans I'm trying to decide on one and for some reason someone did a terrible hack job on the corner to install a light. There will be no wiring in this boat. All lights will be LED with batteries in them that attach by a clamp and no live well. I have a battery to start the motor but to me it's more weight than use I get from it, this motor will start on two pulls if not the first almost every time.

Overall it's in pretty good shape, the only place it ever leaked was at the live well holes, I've been over it in and out and no lose rivets and really not many scratches. I just got a new galvanized trailer today after I bought brand new tires for the old one but the trailer as you an imagine from the salty northern roads was a rust bucket so that part is taken care of, all that's left now is start pouring money at it and see what happens.

Just a word of caution....

I had a very similar boat. 14ft v bottom shallow draft aluminum boat that was done exactly like you plan on doing. Plywood platform across the middle with removable seats bolted to the benches. It changed the center of gravity of the boat and made it very unstable. Got super tippy in the waves and was very difficult to lean over the side. Had to always have someone counter balance you or the edge would go under pretty easy.

Now...I think what you are describing might have the floor just a little lower than what we had...but you'll still have to be careful raising the seats up off the benches. You could still put some soft swivel seats on the center of the benches but bolted right onto the benches. A cooler would be way to high.

Just my thoughts. YMMV.

Now that I look a little closer...my boat had a shallower draft than the blue fin. You might be alright. Have you been out in it with the floor as it is?

missingAK I've thought of that and the floor will be back the height it was originally, I could see the old factory line so I'm hoping that will help but my main idea of helping with that is the enitire boat under the floor will be foamed. I'm hoping that will stabilize it enough that it don't tip. We will see, I still have some research to do on a lot of things as I said I wasn't really ready but doing it any way. Keep the ideas coming though I got nothing really, Ive never done this.

I've been in it for five years with this floor height which is about three inches lower than factory and have no issues. This thing is pretty deep and it's just over five feet wide. I think the foam will help a lot.

I do love those little boats. Perfect for getting into some hard to reach coves

Looks like a fun project.. I'll be checking in for updates!

That middle seat probably provided some structure to the boat.

Love a good ole metal boat. Looks like a nice project.

I'm sure it did but I got that covered.

If your day starts dressed like this it ain't gonna be fun

If I never see another grinder and wire wheel that will be fine with me. It took me six hours to take out all the screws that had been put in for various things over the years by previous owners and to wire wheel the entire boat.

Any skin left exposed was subject to flying debris but I kept at it and got it done. At one point I was hoping to burn up the grinder just to have a reason to stop but that stupid ryobi just kept going.

The plan was today to take a couple hours to wire wheel a couple to patch and a couple for the Steel Flex epoxy that will go on the bottom, that didn't pan out but I'm hoping the hard part is over.

Great start...

That is a lot of grinding, bet your feelings wouldn't be hurt if you never picked up the wire wheel again! Think would have pulled out my sandblaster

If I had a sand blaster I would've and I thought about paying to have it done but I wanted to do all the work myself so grinder it was.

Not sure on aluminum but on steel, wire wheels make the surface too slick for paint to stick good. Just a thought.

Looks great!

I cleaned my steel jon boat trailer covered in tust with a grinder and wire wheel about 10 years ago and painted it with rustoleum out of a can and a brush. It still looks great.

Maybe the 'tust" left the surface pitted well

Looking good.

Actually the wire wheel is gonna save me some sanding to get it rough. I used the heavy gauge wire and it roughed it up while removing the paint. I think I can go straight to the epoxy product for the bottom now.

I've been a little intimidated by the coating I used for the bottom. It's called Steel Flex its a two part expoxy basically what they use for the bottom of air boats. The reason I was worried about it is I'm usually by myself and it's hot outside and anybody that's used epoxy knows when it starts kicking off that's it. I didn't want to rush too much but couldn't take my time with the resin either so I called the company they said that today's tempature of 95 would no doubt kick off the resin faster so I decided to mix real small batches and work fast. I needed a well ventilated place but out of the sun and my shop is crowded already so I moved it to a shade tree and just got started.

Sometimes you can read and watch and think until you confuse yourself and you just have to do it and hope for the best.

First things first, patches, these are holes from the live well and again I've read and studied a million ways to fix these and they all claim to be the best way. I'm sure welding would be best but I can't weld aluminum and I wasn't paying some one to try to weld this thin pitted metal so I would patch.

Originally I was going to put them inside but I decided to go with the outside in hopes the Steel Flex would help seal them. I'm sure there are better ways but if this works then I guess it's the right way. I cut squares from the seat I took out for the patches and marked a corner so I could keep track of the position as I bent the contour to fit.

I siliconed both surfaces and riveted them in. I think with epoxy and silicone these should hold up. They looked good but that doesn't matter if they leak I guess.
This drove me nuts because the more holes I drill the more chance for leaks but not enough rivets and the patches don't stay so again at some point you just have to do it and this is how they came out.
After that I roughed the surface of the entire bottom again and taped off for the resin.

One more wipe down to clean and the fun started. I mixed the epoxy in pints at a time. The company said in this heat don't mix more than you can apply in five minutes, this was about the right size for one guy to handle. It was slow going but I got it on. One problem was the V on the front, I needed to level the boat more so I was not applying it to a vertical surface as it tried to run but I couldn't handle the boat by myself with wet epoxy on it so I applied it thin over and over. I am moderately satisfied with the results. Structurally I think it's fine but cosmetically it could have been better. It's kind of a hurry and take your time deal, you gotta work fast but at the same time I'm trying for a good finished surface.

The last batch I just mixed the remaining epoxy together in one can. This was a mistake because the metal can transferred the heat a lot faster than the plastic and that batch kicked off about twice as fast and left some marks. I would do several things different next time but I learned and again I think structurally it will hold.

Not the best picture because I was in the shade of the big tree but you get the idea. Also this stuff has some powerful insect attractant in it. There were flies and bees constantly landing and getting stuck so I have some decoration. If this works like it claims it will be $100 well spent but either way it's on there now so I'll live with whatever results I get.

Looks great. Love little old aluminum boats.

Where you get the epoxy coating from?

That boat is going to be something to be proud of for years. Nice work and keep the pics coming!

Looking good!

A company called Fiberglass Supply Depot out of Florida.

Thanks men, tomorrow we paint.