Here I go again, another build but this time a 21' Daytona

**jrork** · 10-27-2012, 07:19 AM

Okay, to keep from somebody starting this build without me and likely spreading all sorts of lies about how I stole this boat from him (

), I'll get this going.

My good friend Proppy found a 1983 Eliminator Daytona with a big ol 300 horse whacker hanging off the back and brought it home. He and I talked for over a year with me poking at him to let me buy it from him so he could focus all his time and money on just one project (that I'm sure he will post up a build thread on here) and after a moment of insanity or out and out foolishness, he offered it to me for sale.

Before he had a chance to say no, I grabbed my wife Jan and our less than 1 year old Austrailian Shepard, Sonny in the truck and off we headed making the regoddamndiculously long drive south from Washington down deep into California.

Got down to Proppys place around 1 in the afternoon, swapped some good tires and wheels I brought with me and chatted for about an hour and though I would loved to have stayed longer, we really needed to get back home before work kicked off Monday morning so off we went around 3pm Saturday afternoon.

Drove non stop only stopping for fuel & dog walks we pushed thru California into Oregon. That damn pup was so good and slept in the back seat and never was a problem EXCEPT for when we finally got so tired that we had to pull over at a rest stop for a short nap. His natural instincts to watch the herd meant that while we slept, he was wide awake and would growl at any truck or visitor of the rest stop. Regardless, we still managed a short power nap and off we went.

We finally pulled into the drive way around 1:00 am Sunday night Monday morning exhausted and tired of sitting in that damn truck.

True to form, we drove over 2000 miles and the only rain we saw was about 5 miles from home.

Though bed was calling my name, I was gonna sit in this damn boat and have a beer first.

**jrork** · 10-27-2012, 07:48 AM

Sadly, this boat like so many had been abused with multiple holes in the stringers, transom and the bulkhead was completely butchered. The original stringers were less than 1" thick and other than the Knees back at the transom, they werent much taller than an inch either. This is a light layup and I was afraid I was going to break the gunnels out of it just leaning into it so I knew I wanted some gunnel supports too.

Here's some pictures of what we started with.

Here you can see how they butchered the bulkhead

**jrork** · 10-27-2012, 08:00 AM

Since this was going Jet, I needed some bigger stringers to mount the motor to and no matter what ideas I, and others came up with, I knew it was just a bandaid and they needed to be replaced.

So, with some metal on each side of of the stringer to act as a gaurd, I set out with my sawzall and cut them out. Part way thru I discovered that I could bend the blade at about a 45 degree angle and could cut the stringers without the gaurds and it made it really easy and was easily controlled.

What I found was that the stringers had delaminated from the glass cacoon that it was incased in.

Crazy how the wood just pops out

This little tool was handy as hell. I ended up burning up this little one but I bought a Ryobi 18v one that matches some of my other stuff and it's a cutting machine and so controllable

The remains laying in the bottom of the boat

**76Bonneville** · 10-27-2012, 08:54 AM

I got to get me one of the tools. Looks good John, makes me kinda miss doing a project.

**Propless** · 10-27-2012, 01:27 PM

Originally Posted by jrork

Okay, to keep from somebody starting this build without me and likely spreading all sorts of lies about how I stole this boat from him (:D ), I'll get this going.

My good friend Proppy..................

What kind of person would do that ? That "proppy" guy needs to be watched, sounds like a trouble maker to me.