greenhornet Posted December 20, 2015 Report Share Posted December 20, 2015 Just thought I'd post some info on my current boat repair. I've had a crack in the bottom for some time(its not floating, just very slowly sinking). my home lake is a little over 32000 acres and heavily developed. Ribbed aluminum boats and big rough water does not mix I've found. The past 4 years it has been on said water an average of 2 days a week and has taken quite the beating. I decided it was time to get her patched up and ready to sell this spring and move onto a new boat. I knew it was goint to take some work but I didn't realize how bad things were until I got going. I has hoping to pull the floor out. weld the crack and be done. I had hoped of redoing the front deck and adding a little storage, fish out of it the rest of the winter and send her to a good home this spring. After drilling some rivets and pulling the floor I found that every single rib was broken in at least 3 places. Some ribs had been welded by the previous owner and simply cracked on each side of the weld. Ive been fishing out of a hull with almost no support. Ignorance is bliss. Not only were the ribs cracked but every single support for the entire front deck was rattled loose. The rivets were just keeping the supports in place enough to keep the hull from caving in. I pulled most of them out by hand. After much head scratching and over complicating I decided on a fix. I don't like working with aluminum. Its expensive, hard for me to work with and I wanted something that didn't work-harden as easily. I decided on thin wall steel tubing. I'll be posting some pics of the fabrication. Id also like to say this is just what I came up with. Their is many many different ways to make this repair. I tried to keep cost down and make fabrication as user friendly as possible. Putting this out there in case somebody is in the same "boat" I was in and looking for a reasonable fix. Update to follow soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t.musky Posted December 20, 2015 Report Share Posted December 20, 2015 I have a 2000 Skeeter SX17 Aluminum that cracked at the welds where the sides meet the bottom from the beating it takes in rough water. I thought I could take it in for a quick weld job and it would be alright. The guy that welded it managed to catch the boat on fire! What was suppose to be a one day job turned into 6 weeks before I got the boat back after their insurance replaced everything. 2 weeks later the weld cracked again. Still looking for someone to add braces to it and reweld it, in the mean time it's patched up where I can fish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigpoppabass Posted December 20, 2015 Report Share Posted December 20, 2015 (edited) I am so lucky i have an old crestliner timber bboat, thing is bulletproof and rides over waves nicely too. Edited December 20, 2015 by bigpoppabass Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenhornet Posted December 20, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 20, 2015 That sucks about your boat. This is my 4th week since I've been without fishing. The longest since I've been a boat owner ad I'm going crazy. You may be able to adapt what I'm doing to an extent to minimize the flexing your having Aluminum just acts so much different than steel when welding. Temp is critical and it conducts and dissipates heat so fast I struggle. It takes more skill in my opinion. I generally use a spool gun (MIG) for aluminum, but I still don't have faith in it structurally in an application like a boat with so much flexing. I;m not saying aluminum boats are bad. I love mine. I'm just not set up, nor practiced enough to weld it consistently. These are a few pics of the frame I made to essentially replace all the structure in the front of the boat. I built it out of 1.5 and 1 inch square 16 ga tubing. I would have used thinner if it was available but my supplier doesn't carry 18ga. All in all I'm adding less than 200 lbs with the entire mod. Its painted with 2 different colors of paint. just using up old stuff sitting around. In the pics its up side down for paint and all the white stuff you see is Dynaflex 230. Just a latex caulk for exterior use thats flexible. The only reason for it is to separate the steel and aluminum. It acts as a spacer so the two different metals dont conduct across each other.From what I understand, when they touch it can cause the aluminum to pit. Basically like a sacrificial anode on your outboard. I have an idea but I don't fully understand it myself. Simple enough to use a little caution. When my wife gets back I'll put the frame in the boat and give a little more info on the design and build. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigpoppabass Posted December 20, 2015 Report Share Posted December 20, 2015 I think something like that should be epoxied and then gap filled with foam spray. Sounds like a design flaw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenhornet Posted December 20, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 20, 2015 The frame incorporates the existing ribs. They are cracked but are still bearing on the entire length of the hull. The extra cross members you see front to back bear on the existing ribs. Foam is good idea. One i'll probably use but I don't see any benefit of epoxy. Its not glued in and a good closed cell foam should be more than enough structure. Latex is just a insulator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerrystowing Posted January 21, 2016 Report Share Posted January 21, 2016 Best fix I've found for Aluminum boats is using 5200 and stick it all bac together.stuff is amazing will tear out around it it will NEVER break. I've spooled back together but if you don't use a tig it's useless .looks good just be carful using mixed metals the electrolysis gets real bad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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