1980 HydroStream Vamp resto-mod

Got the throttle, and wiring pulled out, also removed the steering. These all have cracking in the cable jackets so they wont be going back on, new ones will come in to replace them.
Also removed the mushroom farm that used to be the front bulkhead.

 

This is a really cool project, I like the keeping the period correct look.

I have always though about redoing a boat (like I need another project not to work on) although it would be kind of pointless - I like boats but not the water so I'm following to live vicariously.

This book has been in my collection for over 25 years, as an odd coincidence the author is also from Minnesota.

 

Some friends of my parents used to buy, restore and flip Chris Craft boats long ago. They did pretty well for themselves with real estate, a machine shop and their boat flipping side gig.

 

I always told myself that I will never buy a boat, it would be cheaper to just rent any time I wanted to take one out. But here I am, with a boat that needs lots of work sitting in my garage. Its going to cost me $1200 a year in storage, plus any repair costs. Rentals are like $300-400 a day near me.

 

While trolling facebook market yesterday I found a parts motor. Its a 1973, mine is a 1974, so everything should work.
But I needed the lower unit as my skeg is broken, then I also needed the distributor as mine has a crack in the center button. I wanted a few other other parts but they are not there. But for $100 this is great for me.
Motor stand should be here in a few days, I can put this one up on that clean it out, do compression checks, and see what condition this one is in compared to mine. It turns over by hand, but the guy said it had low compression. Though Im not sure if I believe him as he said he wanted to replace the head gasket... No head gaskets on these things.

 

Nearly done grinding out old core! Im up to clean dry core now, so I am just trimming it back to where I am putting my bulkhead wall. Got a few more days of grinding and I will be able to start cutting wood for the stringers and bulkhead. I need to make a jig that holds both stringers straight and parallel with each other, then get some bedding compound. I already have cabosil to make thickened resin, but I want to just buy premade bedding compound and just use my cabosil resin to make smooth transitions between panels.

 

More surface prep today, each day the floor looks more and more the same, but its getting closer and closer to being time to put down the new core and fiberglass. Going to pick up some plywood tomorrow during lunch so I can start cutting the new bulkhead and stringers. Once the bulkhead and stringers are cut I will bed them in and put in the lower core. The actual floor is going to wait a bit, I want to do the transom before I put in the floor so I can bond them together. I will be cutting the floor and sealing it, but I wont be bonding it to the boat just yet. Floor will actually end up being 3 parts, forward, middle and rear.

 

Started taking apart the parts motor today, getting to the carbs has got to be the biggest pain in the ass...
But, the parts I need to take off need to be swapped between motors anyhow.

 

Started getting my core material down this weekend, also roughed out the stringer. This boat came with 3/8 inch core I am using 3/4 inch core for below deck and 3/8 above deck. The boat also came with a box stringer instead of wood ones. Originally I was going to go with wood, but seeing as how the stringers would be only 4 inches apart, it didnt make sense to do wood, so I made the stringer out of XPS foam and will cover that in fiberglass to make a new box stringer just like factory. The boat should be stronger than stock due to the core thickness, and the new stringer being a bit thicker.
The first problem I was running into with the xps foam was that polyester resin melts foam, so that was not going to work. I looked at epoxy, but at $300 a gallon it was too expensive. Then I found a special resin designed for use with foam. Its only $100 a gallon so that is what I will use.
Some people think a foam stringer is a bad idea, but the fact is most new boats use foam stringers or a fiberglass skeleton stringer. This boat originally came with essentially what I am making, but a empty box instead of foam filled.

 

What is the core material made of? It almost looks like a wooden flooring.

 

It kind of is. The core is made of balsa wood cut into a grid and glued to a fabric to conform to shapes. Its very strong when laminated with fiberglass on both sides and is how many companies do their boats. Balsa core is just as strong as a solid fiberglass core and much lighter too.
Many companies use foam cores too as they dont rot out, but the foam cores tend to break up when hit by waves and cause issues.

 

More core glassing today. The core is all put down now, but just has a single layer of chop strand mat on it, I need to cut the woven cloth to fit tomorrow to finish off the area, going to be a single sheet of woven fiberglass from the front to the back.
The Styrofoam safe resin that I need is out of stock at the local fiberglass place, so I need to wait a little bit to finish the stringer. But while I wait, I will be installing the upper core, cutting the floor and glassing it, also going to install the front bulkhead and getting that glassed in.

 

Laying down the cloth for the final layer on the core, I wanted to do it in a big single sheet, but its a pain in the ass to do that, so I am doing 3 sheets. 2 will get done at lunch, then when its cured the last sheet will go in so I can stand on the cured glass.

 

Ok, core is all done below the deck. Tomorrow I am going to put in the upper core just near the front of the boat, the bulkheads need to go on top of the core, so I want to get a few inches of core down there so I can get the bulkheads glassed in. Going to pick up the 1/2 inch marine plywood friday afternoon so I can get it cut to side and glassed on the bottom.

 

The area between the hull core and the floor is a sealed up airspace?

 

Kind of. While its not sealed, the only place that goes into it is a small open area under the front stairs, and the only way to get to it from under the stairs is to go all the way to the bow then under the stairs. The only way for water to actually get in there is if the bow eye is leaking, the nav light is leaking, or the front tie downs are leaking. All these things I intend to make not leak so it shouldnt be a issue.

I have been toying with the idea of using 2 part pourable foam and filling the void under the floor and under the stairs to seal it up. I used the foam in my 8 foot mini boat and its pretty easy to work with in small batches. So the thought is to hole saw 8 holes in the floor, and 1 hole in the stairs to pour the foam in. Then just fit the holes back in with the plugs and seal them with fiberglass. Adding the foam into the area under the floor would really add a good amount of structure to the boat without adding much weight or taking up space.

Then in the back of the boat I would leave a small compartment where the drain plug is that I can put a sump into incase I get into some rain and the deck starts filling up.


Here is the only picture I have where there is a opening to the area under the stairs. The new bulkhead doesnt go down like the old one as the old one was not even attached to anything below the deck.

 

It looks like the original wood was just raw, not sealed with resin?

Seems like boat = water + raw wood = rot.
I guess boats are built to "get through the warranty" too.

 

Yeah parts of the original boat were not sealed at all. Thats why even a half assed restoration of a boat is often better than the original construction. The deck was the same way on the underside, it just had a coat of paint on it that was flaking off.

Im no pro at building boats, so I am over doing some things to make up for the flaws in my building skills. But I am trained as a autobody tech, so the visible parts of the boat will look amazing.

Eventually I want to make some molds of the original hull so I can build a brand new hull with all composite parts. But building the mold is going to cost me about $5k in supplies.

 

Test fitting the floor, fits perfectly in there, though I need to figure out how I am going to glass the area under the steps. Im thinking I will glass a strip in the center of the floor, let it cure, then I can slide the floor in under the stairs and glass the sides into the rest of the hull. Since its such a tight fit I had to use a hammer to push it forward all the way, I will have to grind a little bit from the front edge of the wood and make it up with thickened resin.

So on task for tomorrow is to glass in the front bulkhead and put in a little bit of upper core under the bulkhead.

 

Upper core is all cut and ready to be put in tomorrow. Im going to bed it all in tomorrow afternoon, then get a layer of glass on the top half, the bottom half will be just sealed with resin for now. Once the floor goes in then the rest of the core will be glassed over.
I also got the bulkheads installed, I need to put a few layers of fiberglass over it when I glass the core tomorrow.

I need to get the stringer all trimmed down too so its all set and ready to be installed when the resin comes in.