Joined From BC, interior

[Landy_Andy]

Hi,

Joined up as I've just purchased a project boat. I live in the BC interior and have been tinkering with 4x4's for many years and have a heavily modified Land Rover Defender 100" being built in my shop. So, the boat is a 18' Harbercraft 'Adventurer', it's a bare hull that appears to have been partially built (up to floor level) then stripped out & sold off via auction. I've acquired a '95 Evinrude 115 o/b to hang on the back and am getting a new trailer this week.







Plan is to work on it over winter ready for next summer. Any input & suggestions most welcome !

[Chaps]

Just needs rigging and a deck, good project

[Landy_Andy]

Thanks, first task is to clean it out & remove the old adhesive from the EPE flotation foam. Then get the motor mounted to free up my gantry hoist in the shop. Am thinking pool noodles & a diamond plate deck with bed liner finish for durability.

[Chaps]

Is that a vinyl covered plywood deck in the forward section? Don't want that aft? Aluminum diamond plate across the large spans in your framing I think would end up flexing under weight?

[Landy_Andy]

Hi Chaps, yes it had ply decking in from factory. I had thought of that and once cleaned up I was thinking of adding in some additional support between the frames or directly onto the back of the floor plates to sit between the frame rails.

I have CAD (Solidworks & AutoCAD) and access to water jet cutting fairly locally so making some custom parts is no problem. Wife has bought me a Millermatic 215 with spool gun for my birthday, just need to get some practice burning aluminum wire before I start on it.

Will be a while before I can start on it as I still have quite a bit of work to do on my Land Rover Defender 100" truggy I've been rebuilding.

[Landy_Andy]

So, I'm thinking that I could cut some 1.5" angle and weld it to the underside of the diamond plate decking so it sat between the frames. This would give good stiffness and be easy to weld up. For securing the deck down I was going to use 316 machine screws into st.st rivnuts set into the tops of the frames... Thoughts welcome.

[Chaps]

Wow, is there any original Defender left in that rig? I can't wait to see what you do to that skiff!