13' Gheenoe Rebuild

[Rhettley]

While we are on Gheenoe projects- I have a quick question. I need to replace both seats. The bolts are rusted up badly as I use it in salt water and the originals were evidently not designed for this. Short of cutting an access hole to get under the seat deck or using a toggle bolt, is there any way to mount the seat swivel? Right now I'm planning on cutting a hole to gain access underneath and I'll cover it with a circular deck hole cover or cut it in a rectangle and mount a hinged door with some dry storage. I don't want to loose too much foam though.

[filetandrelease]

If you don't want to drill into the seat, they make a clamp that you mount your seat to and then clamp to the bench. I bought one, but haven't put it on yet. I'm not sure how stable they are, but I wanted my seat to be removable for duck season.

[caseycook]

We did a lot more cutting and grinding tonight. Cut open the front seat and removed more waterlogged foam.


The openings were cut as close to straight as I could get them with a sawzall, but I'll go back and sand them down to straighten them up a bit.


Still undecided whether we go with a high or low deck on the front. A deck the height of the current bench seat will probably be easiest, but I have concerns about the stability of the boat with a higher deck. Another plus for the high deck is that I could install a hatch in front of the current seat to store a TM battery.

A low deck would mean removing the front bench seat completely and then customizing one to fit the front. The low deck would only be about 3" off the bottom of the boat which would alleviate my stability concerns, but you lose storage space. I've also seen people fill the low deck with foam, an added benefit.

The third option is that Gheenoe makes a "plug-n-play" deck made to fit a 13' gheenoe, but they charge $550 for it...think I'd rather do it myself.

Cutting open the decks was the easy task for the day. We also started sanding the inside of the boat which is a dirty, time-consuming ordeal. Made some progress using the cutting wheel to grind a lot of the gel coat down and then came back with the sander to get more. Probably have another couple hours of this just to get the floors done.



Hopefully I can get the sanding done this weekend and then we can start glasswork on the inside early next week.

[grouperlips]

coming along pretty good man, fun working on the gheenoes. you should def go with a lower deck due to stability, I had a temporary platform on top of the bow and at times it was a little iffy up there. about to remove the front seat on my 15' for decoys/duck gear or a cooler for fishing. keep up the good work, Colby

[Rhettley]

Gheenoes are incredibly stable but a high deck is going to offset that.
I'm sure you have figured this out but that fiberglass dust gets EVERYWHERE. I use some of my grandfather's coveralls, latex gloves, and in addition to the breathing mask I use a deer hunting head net and goggles to keep the fiberglass off my face and out of my eyes particularly.

[RCS]

Looking good so far. I've got a Classic that I've contemplated cutting the center box out of for a while to open up room for decoys and gear. This has me wanting to start a new project.

[grouperlips]

http://www.2ndlight.com/fusetalk/forum/ ... adid=88677

this dude did some major craftsmanship

[Gulf Coast]

Casey, you got anymore done on the Gheenoe ?

[Tidedancer]

[bman]

While we are on Gheenoe projects- I have a quick question. I need to replace both seats. The bolts are rusted up badly as I use it in salt water and the originals were evidently not designed for this. Short of cutting an access hole to get under the seat deck or using a toggle bolt, is there any way to mount the seat swivel? Right now I'm planning on cutting a hole to gain access underneath and I'll cover it with a circular deck hole cover or cut it in a rectangle and mount a hinged door with some dry storage. I don't want to loose too much foam though.

I think you are going to have to cut it... I tried clamps and had to go back and screw in wood "keys" to keep the clamps from sliding around.

[caseycook]

I've been traveling for work lately and took the week of July 4th off to chase tarpon so haven't made much progress on the gheenoe. I was able to get a little work done yesterday. We decided on the low deck for the front so we cut down the front seat to our desired height. Skip had a new saw he wanted to try that made cutting much easier than using the sawzall or the cutting wheel.



The hardest part of the cutting process was making sure we didn't cut into the hull when removing the upper part of the front bench.



Top removed


Skip grinding the sides down


Here's the new look. The deck will sit on bulkheads that are attached to either side of what's left of the old bench. We're also planning to add a bulkhead halfway up the deck towards the bow. Once the deck is glassed in place, we'll drill several holes in the top and shoot foam under the deck. I picked up a sweet casting platform on Craigslist and am now deciding whether it will go on the front or back deck. At the moment, I'm leaning towards the back deck so you can be elevated a little while driving the tiller steer. She's coming along nicely, but the fiberglass work scares me a little...will update in a few days after my first go at it.


Oh yeah, here's a photo from last week. Next step is catching one of these is the 'noe.

[Gulf Coast]

[SHOWBOAT]

nice Casey. The boat is looking good. Did you get the tarpon on artificials or did you feed him a livey?

[caseycook]

Well, I updated the thread last Friday only to see it get erased by the interwebs. Much has been done to the gheenoe since the last update.

Skip removed the rub rails off the gheenoe and sanded, primed, and painted the outside.


He built a false floor using pieces of an old center console that he found laying around. The new floor lays perfectly over the old ankle-breaker channel running down the center of the boat.


Bulkheads for the front and back decks have been cut, epoxied in, and covered with resin / hardener to make them waterproof. Decided not to fiberglass them as they'll be under the deck and not exposed to water (in theory).



Skip also cut the front and back decks. Here's a shot of everything layed out.


Yesterday, David and I removed as much of the paint / gel coat on the inside of the gheenoe as possible. This was a hot, messy job and we both regretted doing the work in short sleeves. Fiberglass does not feel good once it becomes embedded in your skin.



We epoxied in one more bulkhead up front and a piece to cover up the gap I made when removing the front seat. This has been a learning experience and I have several things I'll do differently on the next one.


We also put down a test patch of the "dead grass" gel coat I picked up at AMS this weekend. Not crazy about the color, but it should be work. You can see it in the bottom left hand of the frame.


Tonight begins the fiberglass phase.

[charlie tuna]

Very nice job ! My only suggestion is to consider the use of foam board over plywood. You will end up with a much lighter boat, stronger deck and it will never rot. Not to mention how easy it is to work with. Once you try it, you will never consider plywood on a rebuild. There are basically two types of foam. A urithane that i used for vertical supports and a more expensive foam ($96./sheet) for deck materials. This is a john boat project i did.

I needed storage and wanted a large fishing platform.
This is what i had to "stow"

More of the rebuild

Finished product