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I started stripping it the next day and got it cleaned up. Then, I waited. It seemed like forever, but in fact it was only a couple of months. Finally, my income tax check came in and I had something to work with. During the months spent waiting for money I started planning, researching, pricing, and looking at other pontoon boats on Google to get ideas. I wanted something different, something eye-catching;\u00a0a real head turner. The pontoons\u00a0were painted\u00a0already with good quality paint so repainting seemed\u00a0to be\u00a0the cheapest and smartest option. Three coats of black paint went on them and then the plywood. When I ordered the marine grade plywood I didn\u2019t account for the cabinet idea I had for the back. I was a half sheet short. That turned out\u00a0to be\u00a0one of the best mistakes I made and led me to\u00a0decide on\u00a0going with a solid wood front. The solid wood is all reclaimed heart pine wood that came from an old house and old tobacco barn that we tore down on our property.\u00a0I started to work on the rear cabinet. Actually, it is two separate cabinets. I built it that way to account for flexing. The rear cabinet\u00a0was designed\u00a0to hold the batteries, the fuel tank and a few other odds and ends. The top was the hardest thing to engineer.\u00a0It needed to open from the front, the back and be strong enough to support a full-sized man. After much contemplation, I came up with a design with three different sections. I hinged the two outside sections on the back while connecting the center section to the two outside sections in the front with a metal rod. By doing that it gave me access to the motor while in the water.<\/p>\n
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Enough about that, it\u2019s time to glue the carpet down, install the solid wood front and order the seats, console, wire, gauges, lights, under seat lights, cup holder lights, under water lights, running lights\u2026did I mention lights? I wanted to have almost everything on hand before I went\u00a0much further. I had never done this before so I wanted\u00a0to be\u00a0able to set everything in place before putting any holes in the floor. I double checked everything measuring and re-measuring\u2026and sometimes just staring at it lost in thought. The seats were in place, then the console and then it was time to start running wires. And when I say wires I mean wires. I\u2019m now wondering if all these lights were such a good idea or not. I pushed through it and every time a light\u00a0was wired\u00a0I had to check it. Every time I completed wiring something I got excited knowing I was a little closer to the end.<\/p>\n
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It really started to take shape. The rails were the only thing left to work on. I used the existing rails, but that wasn\u2019t easy. There were smudges of paint on them I had to clean off with a sanding wheel on a grinder. I then etched primer and painted with a base clear coat of automotive paint. I then ordered the new aluminum paneling siding and the graphics for the rails and installed. The motor is an 85 Force Outboard that needed a paint job so I painted that to match the rails. It came\u00a0from\u00a0a 1986\u00a0Bayliner\u00a0that was too far gone to restore, but after a tune up she purred like a kitten. Now the boat was complete, although topless, and was ready\u00a0to be\u00a0put in the water\u2026so I did just that. I did a couple small test runs with it before I decided she was ready for the big trip.<\/p>\n
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