23' Fish Nautique Restoration Project

John- do you have anything new done to your boat yet???

firefight-n wrote: John- do you have anything new done to your boat yet???

Yeah I did a little work on it today. Draged it to my friends marina so I can really get down to business. Don't think my neighbors where to happy with me during the deconstruction the last few days, so I decided to bring it there. Got her all set up, tomorrow I will start grinding everything down and make a BIG order at Nida_Core and Fiberglass Florida.

I have been reading the last few posts about the stringer thing...... I am going to keep my seconday stringers just shorten them. Well I took a few Pics today but will have to uplaod them later, taking the fiance to dinner.

John

The stringers I am using are 1inch tall with a carbon skin. Very very srtong, so that wil give me the stiffness I need and the room I need to fit the tanks.

Tuna, when u going to get started on the build?

I gotcha... If anyone needs, i have a new stainless driveshaft, swim platform with brand new stainless brackets and some other things i will not be using on my build.

hey im gonna be at the station tm so i will go through the stuff i have and let u know on sunday... cutting the stringers out was a pain in the a** as u found out. What i did for most of it is took a saw zall with a long blade and put it on its side and she went to town on them alot easier than with the ol trustee grinder.

jzarski wrote: I haven't cut them yet. I was going to attempt it tomorrow. I have a brand new saws all and new 12" blades so I guess I will give that a try. I was also thinking...... If I cut the tops of the stringers off, and clean all the wood out. So I would be left with two glass sides with no top. If I where to cut a new piece of 2x4 and resin it in that pocket then glass over it do you guys think that would work. I just really really don't want to cut these stringers all the way out. Lay the feed back on me!! John

I kind of like that idea. Seeings that your going to have to put motor mounts back in composit stringers won't support the engine so wood is the only material that will work. I thought about plywood but you can't lag into plywood so fur is the only thing that will really due the job. The 2"x4" fur worked for 30 years so if it has to be redone in another 30 years so be it. It won't be my problem!!!! Who are you going to get the composit secondery stringers from? I took pictures of the engine compartment yesterday with my partners camera and he will email them to me. I can't figure how to up load them to this site. I can forward them to your email but I don't have you address. How are you comming with the saddel tank design? my email is don@poolsrus.mx

Hadn't read this thread before because I know zero about Fish Nautiques. But, I read it tonight, and think it's pretty cool you guys have a little Fish Nautique fraternity going. Over the years a few Fish guys have popped in, but haven't stayed long.   Probably because nearly all the talk is about ski boats.   With you guys sustaining a good Fish conversation, I hope some of the others who happen by might jump in and stay a while. Good to mix it up here.

BKH

Just want to say thanks for posting your restoration info. I will be starting restoration on my Fish Nautique soon and the information I am learning here is priceless. Now I see all the foam I need to dig out...lol. By the way my Fish is powered by twin inboards. - I'm guessing my stringer layout will be different.



As you can see - I have my work cut out for me too....

And much less draft, cool boat.

John, make me an offer on the driveshaft, I dont know the specs on it at this moment and know nothing about inboard drives but i have the shaft and the bronze mount/bushing that holds the driveshaft frwd the prop. The swim platform Brackets have never been mounted still in paper are polished stainless paid 140 but cant take less than 75 for them and u can have the platform with them, its in good shape. When i get home tm i will go through and see if there is anything you can use if so Ill probably just give you anything else...

I have been pondering weather or not to pull the stringers and finally decided that I am going to do it. There is no reason why not to, I am this far into the boat and I would kick myself if I didn't do it and had an issue later on. Well it is not an easy task to get these things out. I tried a grinder, saws all and finally the winner was the circular saw. I set the blade about 1 inch and cut the tops off the stringer it was like cutting butter. Then I peeled the tops off like an orange. Once I had all the glass up, I stuck the pry bar under the wood stringer and lifted the whole thing right out. I was only able to do one today because all the messing around with finding the best way to do it. So Monday I will get the others up.

I agree on the inboard theory. I sold my 25' CC with twin 150 OB for this boat. My friends say I am crazy but I just really love the lines of this boat and to have the boat I want i needed to design it myself.

I have two ideas for motor mounts. One idea is to just scab a piece of wood in where the motor is going to go. The second idea and I think the way I am going to go is to use the composite poor from Nida-Core. Super strong and you can drill and tap it.

Right now I have the boat on the trailer but will put it on stands and level it before I start the restringer job. The composite company I talked to gave me some great info on what products to use for the best adhesion. One is Epoxy, the only problem is the cost. So he also told me I can use vinylester resin. Both have really good adhesive properties. The one bonus in using the vinylester is you can put pollyester resin over it. With epoxy you can't put resin over it. So my plan is to use vinylester on the first wetout then I can use pollyester over that and save a few bucks.

The company is Prisma Composites. They are located right here in my town. I am going to bring the boat right to them so they can measure the deadrise and length. He will custom make the stringers for my boat. He will also make bulkheads if I wanted him too. I will makeing these myself as I may have to make changes as I go.

John

Here is my 86 Fish Nautique. Had it a couple years now,been trying to slowly restore it "maintain it". still has original 351w motor. Last trip out tranny started slippen. just had the trans out to get seals replaced. Thinking about repower. not sure best engine route.