New to forum
 

Hi y'all. New to forum here. Bought my second Wellcarft. My other one is a 84 26 Nova II twin. Great boat.

But I just picked up a V20 Center console. Is this also known as the fisherman? Gonna do a LOT of work on it and will post pics. Probably have some questions alone the way. I picked up used 2001 Evinrude 200hp FICHT. Cant wait to get going on it!!! But I live in Michigan and it sure as heck not 'fix up ur boat' weather. ha

Here she is. Branson feel solid as a rock. Stringers too seem real good. Typical Wellcraft built like a rock. Only thing is I see the floor under the seats is soft. At least that center floor section comes out. Or maybe I can get at it through those access holes??? Expanding foam?? Yes seems 1/2 *** but it could work maybe.. Gas tank must be there eh?

$430 on eBay and only a 1/2hr drive away :]

Opps I meant to put this in the general threads not performance. okay ... so will this 200hp get me to 50mph?

Sounds like a good deal.. Think the 200 will do just fine. Working on a 86 cuddy
can see some of the picks under general fla restoration..
Good luck

Thats a clean center console for the money, love the old Novas, Welcome to the Cult.

great deal on a center console, haul it to florida & i'll double your money

I was in the Keys for two weeks... sure didn't want to go home!! Beats the heck out of MI weather! Thanks for the double my money offer Phatdaddy but I really don't know what I'd then do with my 200hp on the pallet in my garage! ha Can't wait to get started fixing this thing up!!!!!

Thanks I will for sure check it out

Yea... cult isn't too far off. lol The way one thing leads to another in a project boat I'll be lucky if I'm still married by the time I'm done! ha My wife doesn't even like boating!! I really should have had a better screening process... turns out there were other 'qualifications' I needed to investigate. LOL

Welcome to the site. Good that the transom is solid. That's one of the weaker spots on the V's due to dry rot of the wooden interior. I went to school in Wi, so know about the weather up there. You're right on the money that it's not boat fixer up time. Put a cover over her and wait till the sun makes things warm again. Last thing you want is something snapping due to being brittle from the cold. Soft spots under the floor are an indication of rotted stingers. There's lots of discussions and threads here about how to go about fixing them. Just do a search. In all cases, once again, welcome aboard. Don't hesitate to ask questions, there's lots of guys here with decades of experience on these boats that love to share their knowledge.

looking at your pics, if the soft spot/rot is just under the seat post, might can get by with re-coring the fuel tank cover. never worked on a wellcraft center console, but it looks similar to a mako i had. you have to unscrew all of the base screws holding the console down. you should have enough slack in the steering, cables, wiring, ect. to raise the console 3 or 4 inches. then unscrew the fuel tank cover and slide to the stern to get it out to work on it.

Yea that's what I'm hoping. All those beers bouncing over the years on those seats took it's toll on the floor right there. ha The way the rest of the boat and floor is so solid I don't think it's anything major. I was very happy to see that center floor section was removable! I can't wait to see what it needs but not gonna happen until probably March. I also need to sand off the anti fouling paint on the bottom and paint it with this http://www.bottompaintstore.com/revo...t-p-12347.html

Might do the whole thing if I like how it turns out.

thanks guys for the kind welcome to the forum.

Given the age of this boat it all looks amazingly clean. Gotta love how Wellcraft has the hand laid fiberglass covering the stringers. No wonder the boats last so long!

are you planing on keeping it in the water? just wondering why the bottom paint.

No it will be a trailered boat. I'd like to get it back to 'OEM' so to speak. Better fuel economy too I think.. and I put a LOT of miles on mine :]

OEM is unpainted. Paint on the bottom of the hull will actually slow down your boat. The smoother the hull, the faster the boat. Painted bottoms are just to retard marine growth. But if she's going to be a trailer queen than it's unnecessary.

As to the topside deck, if you are going to paint it then I'd highly recommend something like U-pol truck bed liner. (It's like Rhino-liner). Soft on the feet, great anti-slip properties and it looks like a million bucks. You can find it on eBay.

B-reak
O-ut
A-nother
T-housand!!

I taught my wife to hate the boat early on, only took her out on crapy days, I have enough of her when I am hone never mind on the water!!

I guess I didn't really tell the whole story. It has had anti fouling paint on it. The guy I bought it from spent a lot of time trying to sand it off. The bottom gel coat is now somewhat rough from sanding. I have heard that at this point if I don't put a coat of paint on it the gel coat can blister. so... I'm gonna finish sanding all the antifouling paint off then put a coat of clear or white.

Never heard of using U-poly... worth looking into thanks!

LOL yes perhaps my wife not liking boats is a blessing in disguise!

here you can see the bottom not finished sanded.

i would avoid sanding to remove paint. soda blasting, chemical stripping, pressure washing, etc. would be a better alternative in the long run.

blisters are usually caused by exposing the hull to long term exposure to water. weak spots of polyester resin absorb water and it "pools" under the laminant.

if the previous owner has sanded through the gelcoat, then yes, your going to have to put a coat of something on it to protect the polyester resin.

Welcome to the site. Good luck with the V20.

sorry to highjack the thread but I have a question/request. What year is that?looks to be Late 70's ? I love the way the motor well is open straight to the deck.
If you get a chance, could you post a pick of the motor well from several angles. Its got me thinking of a project to remove the "spashwell" on my 84 cuddy, since I'm redoing the transom this spring.
I see there is a deck hatch for the battery?

Here's a pic of what I'm thinking of removing.

Hey no problem. Here's about the only pic I have of the transom area. It's under a tarp and a foot of snow at the moment this pic is a couple weeks ago before the snow. If you look close you can see a chrome hook. I think it came with removable panel that could go over the transom opening if you want. Perhaps somebody else has a pic of that. My dads boat has a similar transom design as yours and one thing I did like about it is he can create a small table for cutting up bait and or handling of fish and any mess can easily be washed into that transom well. But the open design will be nice for sweeping minor dirt or water from cleaning right out the back. It has the scupper drains but those are also susceptible to clogging so straight out the back is even better. Start a thread with pics when you start your project love to see what you come up with.

ps no that deck hatch is for the bilge. The bats go under one side of those seats with the teak tops.
Its a 1989

Ahhhh! I see.... there's a trade off on yours cuz you have those boxes on the sides. I did put some Starboard on top of mine and I mount a cooler there.

I would love to have clear space in the stern. Not entirely all-in on the idea of fabricating the deck and a hatch though...definitely has "delayed fishing start" written all over it. And in the end, I'd still be kicking a cooler around...

http://www.wellcraftv20.com/communit...&pictureid=926

Here's my other WellCraft. I get some killer shots with my RC quad.

Don't worry I know this is the V20 forum so not gonna post much about this boat other than man O man does it ride nice :clap:

Well you know what the real solution is right? Buy another boat! lol This V20 is my third. My wife is just thrilled with me right now. opps. ha

Yes, you'll have to either paint it again or gel coat it. And Soda Blasting, although messy, is the fastest and safest way to remove bottom paint with no damage to the fiberglass.

After I finished my underdeck restoration on my V21 I used it. This is what the finished project looked like with the U-pol

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l1...511/photo9.jpg

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l1...11/photo10.jpg

Wow I looked at your photo bucket man that was a big project? Did you re-use the floor or new plywood? How did you attach it to the edges? Resin and fabric? That does look some nice stuff you finished it with. A little dark maybe?? Does it get hot in the sun? Looks damn good though.

I re-did my floor in my 73 SR190. The floor was actually pretty solid it was just soft around the floor access door. Doing the resin and cloth was a PITA! I had bubbles etc. Sanded them out then filled them in with fiberglass reinforced bondo. 4-5 years of use still looks and feels new. I added those little flakes while the last coat was wet. Worked great to give the floor some texture for anti slip.

ps I cannot figure out how to have pics directly in the post only as attachments. Guess I'm a dummy. Do you really have to use a third party picture host?

And this is what happens when you mix too much resin at once and don't keep it cool!! Opps!! Live and learn!

The entire underside of the floor was soft due to the PO not venting the area after use and during the winter. So the wood that is just glued to the underside rotted out. I left about a 4 inch border all around and cut the floor out, (4" mini grinder is your best friend) then scraped and sanded the underside of the floor bare, then glued new irregular shaped marine plywood pieces to the underside, then fiberglassed everything with a thin coat of woven glass to seal the wood against further rotting. (The reason for the irregular shaped pieces (think of a jigsaw puzzle) is that it's stronger than large squares or rectangles since there are no transverse running joints). Once that was done I discovered that all the foam flotation was waterlogged, so removed that, cleaned out everything, ran new hoses for the gas tank (since it was open it just seemed like the logical thing to do) and re-foamed the voids. But instead of foaming just to the void lips, I foamed all the way to the underside of the deck, so the deck actually rests on a bed of foam. (nice and solid as a rock) To attach the deck back on, I glued and screwed strips of plywood to the underside of that previously mentioned 4" border, leaving them about 2 inches proud , then spread glue on the shelf that created, laid the deck onto it and screwed it down. Filled the cracks with thickened resin, sanded everything, masked it all off and applied the U-Pol, tinted to a very light shade of tan, almost white. No, it doesn't get any hotter than a regular painted deck, and the rubbery feeling on the feet is actually soothing, with great anti-slip properties.
One of the really nice things about the truck bed liner material is that it's so thick that it completely hides all cracks and screwheads, giving the finished project a seamless look to it. The only bad thing about the stuff is that it's going to be a bear if I ever have to remove it. The last thing I did was cut out the floor and installed that hatch you see in the second picture between the captains chair and the mates chair area. There's a huge void there that Wellcraft never did anything with, and it makes a perfect storage area. ( I may move my batteries up there come springtime, but that's just a dream for right now.

Too bad you decided to take so many short cuts ha Just kidding ... wow I guess that's what they call going the whole 9 yards. PO= Previous owner?? How did you apply the foam? That's a bit beyond the spray cans at the hardware store it would seem? So... when you did the foam did you let it rise above the floor line then cut it off flat at the correct height? I used foam to repair a kitchen floor that was 2x4's laid flat over concrete then 3/4 ply. They didn't secure them to the concrete at all I don't think. So over the years the 2by's warped a bit and so there was a spongy feel to the floor. I drilled about 40 1/4" holes and spayed about 10 cans of expanding foam under the floor. It worked fantastic. The floor is solid! Always more than one way to skin a cat.

I can certainly see your point about that bed liner being nice and thick to hide the cut edges and screw heads. That alone probably negated any need to resin the entire floor. How long has it been on there? Guess it lasts okay? No indication of peeling on the edged? You know how rubber glue tend to roll loose at the edges. You say you tinted it that color so I assume it came in white?

You make me wonder if I could cut an access door for storage just ahead of the center console on my V20. Any idea if there is a empty void there? I would definitely need a completly waterproof cover. But worth the effort if it's doable you can never have too much storage.

Just wondering if this would make a nice storage spot. Is it void do you know?

Sorry, I know nothing about the underside of center consoles.... it would seem to be about right. But if you want I can measure from the inside of the transom to the hatch. That should be about the same... bu8t like I ssiad, I really do not know.

Yes, the base coat comes in either white or black, and tinting runs the color spectrum.
No, there is no peeling on the edges This stuff sticks like a tongue to a metal pipe in winter.
The foam is a two part that comes in plastic bags inside of cardboard boxes. You mix and then have about 5 minutes to pour before it starts it's expansion. I foamed to the top, then trimmed it flat, which involved several trial fits of the deck on top of it.
The U-Pol has been on for 2 years now with no signs of any wear or deterioration.
`

a trick for that is to pour the foam then temporarily screw down (weigh down) a piece of plywood with some 1"-2" holes in it (to allow expansion), then remove ply leaving foam flush with stringers

Gotta admit I never thought about that. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks after all. Thanks Skunk. (Hopefully I'll never have to do that job again and use that trick though) :beer:.