Project Boat V2
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With appropriate respect to inventor and visionary Harley Gheen whose boat design ranks somewhere close to the invention of the light bulb……………..
….and to expound on Zach and Andrew’s most excellent thread regarding the refurbishing of the Gheenoe…..I thought I’d give it a shot. I purchased the following for my 17 year old son. It’s primary use will be a duck hunting skiff and to also be used on local rivers. My plan is to find a small mud motor (like a Go Devil). If that’s not possible, I’ll put a small outboard on it.
Here are the specs:
The year she was built: 1987
15′ 4″ in length
3′ 8″ at the beam
approximately 120 lbs.
capacity 675 lbs.
15″ deep transom
Maximum — 10 HP
Day 1
Picked her up Saturday morning from the previous owner and did a little tinkering. I decided the pedestal seats had to go. I don’t believe this type Gheenoe was structurally designed for this style of seat. When I removed the plywood reinforcement….I saw why. Copius amounts of semi-rotted wood were removed along with what appeared to be Hardee Board or a similar wood/masonry product. With the seat, pedestal and accompanying detritus removed, the boat weighs about 25 pounds less. Now I’ll tackle the front seat for a whopping 50 pounds in weight reduction. Ginny Craig should be envious!
We tried to restore the original finish with some paste wax but may forego that altogether…..opting for a flat camo pattern.
We’ll see. My attraction to wooden boats may show in this refurb project as I’m thinking about some birch plywood panels for the seats and maybe even some cedar floorboards as opposed to a glassed deck.
Let me think on it and discuss with my son. 😉
Wow that is a familiar sight, right down to the stickers on the side. I think our boats might have been twins. Even the trailer looks similar. I’m looking forward to seeing how you decide to customize it. They are great boats.
It has been progressing nicely. The back deck pieces are cutuout and waiting to be glassed in. The dry box is already glassed in. I have a bunch of photos and will get them uploaded shortly.
The previous owner used latex paint on the interior….so a little strippage was in order.
Ignoring child labor laws….I put the kid to work with the grinder.
Dry storage amidship….experimenting with redneck composite construction…..a layer of foam board sandwich between two pieces of luan with epoxy holding it together. Compressive strength is quite impressive! We’re thinking that the compartment should have good insulating properties because of the foam…..hence this will be dubbed…..”Fat Tire storage”.
A twenty-plus year old piece of foam is removed. The final version now has more cubic feet of foam than the original boat.
The rear deck is in place….with an opening for the gas tank and the ubiquitous cupholders.
The front deck is glassed in. I chose to make it a little lower to keep the center of gravity low. Still….a good clean, uncluttered deck that should make a great resting place for excess flyline. An access hatch is available to allow for the storage of the anchor and rope along with copius amounts of tackle, food and beverage.
More to come…….
The dinky trailer bunks are replaced with a more masculine six-foot bunk in hopes that a heavy 4-stroke will adorn the transom of this craft.
Thanks……I’ve got a few more pics but they are a little redundant. Glass cloth, Interlux and a hatch door were ordered today. Barring any screw ups….the interior should be completed by next weekend. I’ll post the completed interior then. My son still hasn’t decided on an exterior color/finish. It’s on him.
I need to know how you and Andrew did the splatter technique for the interior???
I know a guy who makes fiberglass drift boats and you can purchase webbing that you spray on with an air compressor and paint type sprayer?
7: Splatter Finish: If a splatter or webbed finish is desired, you mix 2 parts of the colored gel coat with 1 part of clear webbing solution. You may vary the ratio of color to webbing solution for different effects. Pour approximately 1-2 inches into a standard spray gun; add the appropriate amount of catalyst, and spray. The coverage depends on how fast you move the gun. I put 2 coats on the inside of a Jeep with 1” of mixture in a spray gun. You do not need to add surfacing agent to this mixture, as the webbing solution will make the gel coat dry tack free. For best results, it should be sprayed while the base coat previously laid down is still tacky. This is obviously not possible if you have to walk on the base coat surface to get at the areas to be webbed. If there is a period of a day or longer between the base coat application and the splatter coat, decrease the catalyst a little to let the mixture of the webbing solution stay liquid a little longer. One alternative method is to apply the base (gel) coat without surfacing agent, spray the webbing on from outside the boat, and then PVA the entire surface to make it dry tack-free. See section 3 above. Webbing solution is a lacquer-based material and can be used with lacquer paint, polyester-based resin and gel coat, and polyester-based urethane like Awlgrip. It will not work with acrylic enamels, water-based paints, or acrylic-based urethanes like Imron. What the webbing solution does is to make the material that would come out in a fan change to strings. Increasing the amount of webbing solution tends to give a blotchy or spotty surface rather than stringy. You will also gel more blotches if the spray gun is aimed at a surface rather than along it. A smaller gun tip will give a finer splatter.
Any coated surface should be protected by waxingI found the above while surfing the web, don’t know if it applies but it sounds similar to what I saw being done.
Wow. That looks great! You guys are getting into some serious modifications. I can’t wait to see the finished project, it is going to be awesome. You clearly know your way around a workshop…..
Our splatter paint was nothing more than slinging it on like Zach said. The spray webbing approach would probably look more like the original finish, but I didn’t buy a sprayer until after this step was complete. I think either method yields an acceptable finish.
That method works Steve. As you can see by the photo, I was able to keep the pattern in the boat relatively similar to the “splatter paint mock-up” that I tried on my arm.
It doesn’t work without the beer though……
Where is a good place to look for a used gheenoe? I had never heard of one prior to joining the forum.
Grant,
Gheenoes are made in Florida and some of the older ones were made in Georgia. With that said…most of the used ones are found in Florida and Georgia. I found mine on Craigslist. Because they are fiberglass….you can buy one that is dinged up for relatively little money. Fiberglassing is not too difficult for the do-it-yourselfer so repairs and modifications can be done easily.
With the economy such that it is….you could probably score a decent one w/trailer for under $1000….especially in the Florida area.
Use these two sites as a reference:
and
Andrew….my son did the camo pattern. He painted large areas with three different colors of flat paint. He then oversprayed with a flat black using some ornamental grasses as a stencil. I’ll load some pics of the process tonight. We then epoxied over the camo to protect it. He may buff the epoxy out with some steel wool to remove the sheen once duck season arrives.
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