# Deck and Casting Platform - 16' Crestliner



## Go Fish (May 24, 2011)

I recently came across this website and it seems to be the perfect place to share this project...being that it is a tin boat and all. I have posted some of this on other sites so for those of you who have seen it already: Sorry for the redundancy.

My 1.5 year old daughter made me get a 16 foot aluminum skiff last season to take her lake fishing and to the beach. While she approved of the boat I brought home, a 2002 Crestliner Sportsman 16 with a 25 horse Merc tiller, she was a bit bent that it didn't have a deck. Being 2 feet tall, she had a bit of trouble keeping her balance standing on the dry side of the running surface. I can't resist my little girl so I decided to just give in and build her a deck for her new boat.

Here is the reference image:







The plan is to core the new deck with 1/2" exterior ply, encapsulate it with some thin glass and epoxy and paint it with some rubberized non-slip deck paint. It should be pretty slick when it's done. 

First I stripped off the stuff that was going to get in the way and then set to cutting templates. I made about 4 zillion measurements, transfered them to 1/4" plywood and then cut the rough shapes. Quite a bit of time was spent with a grinder shaving little bits off of the rough shapes until they fit into their respective spots.






She really wanted a casting deck forward with tons of room for storage underneath it so I decided to go from the forward bench seat all the way to the bow. There should be room for alot of wet storage, a couple of dry storage hatches and the battery for the troling motor...

Oh yeah...she said she wanted to turn this little boat into a a bay and flats machine. I figure a trolling motor, some descretely installed electronics (including a stereo for the beach trips) and a jack plate to get the motor up and out should do the trick. If I can manage to set the jack plate up right this thing will run on wet grass.

The shapes I cut in the 1/4" stock were transfered to 1/2" exterior grade ply and were cut.

My goal with this project is to add as little weight as possible and allow easy removal of the deck I'm installing. Additionally, I don't want to poke any holes in the aluminum skin. So, this "floating" deck will have to be stiff where it isn't fastened to the hull or parts that are welded to the hull.

My solution is to add ribs to the underside of the deck:






What you are looking at is 7/16 base shoe opposed to make a half round with the long sides perpandicular to the undreside of the deck. The bit between the underside of the deck and the rib will get a fillet of thickened epoxy before I apply 2 layers of 17 oz. biaxial glass. 

Stiffness is commng from the glass. The base shoe is there just to make the glass take that shape.


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## Go Fish (May 24, 2011)

I layed the ribs out so there is a space to cut out for a 13" x 30" hatch in the bow section. The other hatches will be over the existing bench seats so I didn't have to plan for them in this portion of the build.

The dotted red lines show approximately where the underside of the deck will make contact with structural portions of the hull. The bow section will be screwed to the bulkheads that currently support the forward bench seat and a cross brace that is forward of the hatch cut-out. The mid section will simply rest on the chines and the aft section will rest on the chines and get screwed to a low bulk head near the aft of the boat (the dotted rectangle section)






The ply wood got a coat of epoxy and the next steps will be to coat the ribs with epoxy, lay in fillets and then overlay the ribs with 4" wide 17 oz biaxial tape. The bottom of the deck will be finished with a top sheet of 17 oz. biaxial cloth.


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## Go Fish (May 24, 2011)

I used a pretty neat trick that I picked up from another boat building website that essentially adapted a cake decorating technique to the application of thickened epoxy. After thickening up some epoxy with a good bit of colloidal silica I scooped it into a plastic bag, squeezed it all to one corner and clipped the tip off of the bag:






The thickened epoxy was squeezed out of the bag like a bead of caulk right into the corner between the underside of the deck and the ribs. It worked great! I was able to dispense all of a batch in a neat little bead right where it needed to be in a short amount of time. Getting the batch dispersed slowed down the "kick" of the epoxy and gave me plenty of time to smooth it into a nice fillet using the back side of a plastic soup spoon:











After I knock down all of the high spots with the grinder it'll get roughened up with some 150 grit sand paper and I'll start laying the biaxial glass over the ribs.

Go back up in this post and take a look at the "reference image" and think about this: I'm trying to come up with a good way to store 4 rigged 9 foot fly rods on the gunnels in the space between the top of the bench seats and the rail. My guess is it is going to involve some sort of custom fab and PVC tubes...but if one of you folks has a slick solution I would love to hear about it.


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## Go Fish (May 24, 2011)

Well...my fillets turned out pretty nice but I was questioning wether or not the 1700 biaxial fabric would take the bend. I did a quick test with a bit of wetted out scrap cloth and came to the conclusion that there was no way the fabric was going to stay in contact with the ribs and fillets while the epoxy cured. The fabric was stiff enough to beat the surface tension of the epoxy and pulled up at the bottom of the fillet curve.

Solution: build up the fillets. I spent a bunch of time laying in thickened epoxy with a 1.5" disc of plastic that I cut from a broken windshield with a hole saw. Additionally I put a bunch of extra material in the corners of the ribs so that the fabric would see a gentle slope when it was applied.

I cut all of my pieces and proceeded to wet them out:






They were laid in with care to be sure to get all of the bubbles out:











It worked well...and I learned a few things:


1700 is more flexible than 1708 (the material I have most the most experience with) but it still needs serious working to get it to take compound curves.
A mall plastic scraper is the balls for spreading epoxy while wetting fabric.
65 degrees F is the perfect temp to be doing epoxy work.


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## Go Fish (Jun 10, 2011)

There wasn't much interest in this thread but I thought I should finish it out:






I'll share details if anyone is interested.


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## countryboy210 (Jun 11, 2011)

With The Temps Way Above 65* Now, Would It Really Shorten The Working Time To Try This Now ?


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## JFDBasser (Jun 11, 2011)

That is sweet man....nice job.


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## chavist93 (Jun 11, 2011)

You must not go far with a 25 and a 3gal. tank.


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## SlowRollin' (Jun 11, 2011)

You do good work, very detailed. 

Looks great!


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## reedjj (Jun 12, 2011)

Wow! Very nice work. We get to see a lot of skilled craftsmen on this website, I think this is one of the best bulds yet. Simple but very good quality work and soooo Clean looking. It looks like one of the new Alumacraft Lunkers or the lowe V style boats.

I would get a bigger gas tank though! LOL.


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## Go Fish (Jun 13, 2011)

chavist93 said:


> You must not go far with a 25 and a 3gal. tank.




Nope, not far. The skinny water in New England salt is in close...and to fish that water is why I have that boat. I bet I will only fill that tank twice this year.


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## Tin Man (Oct 2, 2011)

Nice work!! I just bought the same boat (today!) and now I'm jealous!!


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## Tin Man (Oct 21, 2011)

I'm interested in all you can share about this project. Would love to read/see the other upgrades you may be currently working on or have completed.

Thanks for sharing!


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## bobbyb (Oct 21, 2011)

Very, very nice!! Thank you for sharing, 

bobby


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## Go Fish (Dec 1, 2011)

The requests for more info on this build happened a while ago and I'm truly sorry I have not responded until now. Better late than never I guess....

We left off with the ribs of the under-deck clad with a nice tight fitting layer of 1700. I learned that it is substantially easier to get a 5" wide strip of fairly thick glass to take a shape than it is to get a sheet the size of the part to take a bend every once-in-a-while:






You will notice in the picture above that the ribs in the short direction have had some work with the grinder done. For the life of me I could not get the glass to lay flush with the ribs when it was a sheet that was the size of the deck part that I was working on. In order to save a bunch of epoxy and glass I cut the wet out piece of fabric in the middle of laying it down to get it to go flush. I chose the short direction on the part because stiffness was not as big an issue relative to the long axis. It is a bit messy looking but no one will ever see it...

Next I moved on to the top sides. All of the structural stuff was going on underneath so all I really needed was a thin layer of glass to give some wear resistance and waterproofing to the topside. I went with a very light 3 oz woven material:






The raw wood got a thin squeegeed layer of epoxy before the wet-out layer of glass was laid down with some gentle tugging and a good working over with a laminating roller.

After the topside epoxy set up I gave it a good sanding with 100 grit paper, primed it with Rust-oleum wood and fiberglass primer from a rattle can and sanded it again with 100 grit paper.

The product I chose for the non-skid coating was largely directed by un-spent Cabela's points accumulate by paying for business trips with a Cabela's Visa:






After working with this stuff and seeing the finished product all I can do is give it two huge thumbs up. It was tough to stir due to the high concentration of rubber non-slip grit in it...but that is a good thing.
















I raked on it with fingernails after it was cured and I could not get the little rubber nubbies to come up. Walking on it with bare feet was not painful. If it lasts a few years it will be well worth the cashed in points.

The finished product is a few posts up in this thread.

I have plans to add a second casting deck aft, basically taking up the whole width of the boat over the area where the two rear bench seats are. The motor will be set back about a foot on a jack plate and I'll add a grab bar so I can drive standing up. She is going to be one sweet skinny water platform to sight fish stripers from.


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## skloak (Dec 21, 2011)

this project looks really awesome. i am really glad you chose to go ahead and add more pics and more explanation. i really like your work, first rate; and i didn't know there was such a product out there like that from cabelas. i will have to keep that stuff in mind. i imagine that the cabelas floor product alone should seal any wood. thanks again. skloak


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## Ride_Klein (Dec 23, 2011)

Really great project. I'd be interested in your experience with the traction paint after having put it through some use now. 

Thanks


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## Go Fish (Dec 23, 2011)

The non-skid has held up well. Since it was installed I fished it 10 or so times in the salt (blood and guts) and 20 or so times in the fresh (catch and release) and it has withstood all of the washings and use.

I dropped the anchor on the deck during a salt trip and I had to touch up the ding but that has been the extent of it.


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## RiverBottomOutdoors (Jan 10, 2012)

Wow! That is cool.


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## MRichardson (Jan 31, 2012)

Nice work, really like the use of fiberglass to strengthen the ply rather than a bunch more wood.. or aluminum angle.. Do the ribs give it enough support to forego the use of additional crossbraces - or are they more of a way to eliminate flex?


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## JasonLester (Jan 31, 2012)

Nicely done...good job..


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## Go Fish (May 9, 2012)

At the last post this is what the boat looked like:







We left off with me and everyone else thinking my skiff needed a rear casting deck. I also decided it needed a very simple electrical system to power a trolling motor and the new GPS/Fishfinder my lovely wife picked up for me as a gift last X-mas (there was substantial “suggestion” as to make and model of GPS/Fishfinder from me).

Let’s start with battery placement. My ass is big; the boat is small so the battery needed to go forward. There was a nice spot where the forward seating used to be under the new casting deck…but it was full of foam. I’m not shy about digging stuff out of boats so I went after it like a Chi Wawa on a pork chop. The finished product looks like this:






And with the casting deck in place:






The split loom in the bottom of the picture will protect the 4 gauge wire from abrasion while it is living in the bilge under the deck piece that is not in place in the picture. The wires run through a limber hole into the amidships seating area that will accommodate passengers on the port side and the electronics area to starboard:






The brown wires lead aft to an 1100 GPH Johnson bilge pump with an integrated solid state water level sensor and the big black and red will go to a trolling motor plug. I still haven’t decided if I will tie the GPS/Fishfinder into this power or use the small sealed lead acid battery I bought for the last configuration of this boat as an independent power supply. This is the scene aft of the electronics area:






The aft casting deck will span the stern of the boat and will be supported by the aluminum framework already in place. You’ll notice a motor bracket…Up and out is good for a shallow water boat and I have a Strongarm tiller extension on order to deal with the offset. I’ll also be adding a grab bar on the aft side of the amidships seating area so I can run the boat like a center console rig.

There will be more to come.


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## kfa4303 (May 10, 2012)

Looks great! Can't wait to see the finished product and your 2' first mate will appreciate the decking and grab bar. I just added one to my tinny made out of 1.5" PVC. It's pretty ghetto, but looks ok, is super strong and entirely removable. Being able to stand makes a huge difference in visibility while underway. Best of all it only cost about $30 vs. $130+ for an aluminum/SS one. You'll probably also want/need a tiller extension so you can stand. I made one out of 1-1/4" thin-walled PVC and a couple pipe clamps that works great. You can buy $100+ whiz bang carbon fiber extensions, but they really don't work any better. Keep us posted on the final transformation.


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## Go Fish (May 12, 2012)

The bow of the boat is all set, save for a sweet recessed cleat that I need to install, so let’s look more at the stern. There is a lot of structure back there to help support the new casting deck so I wanted to take advantage of it. The only spots I had to get creative with were the spans between the existing benches and across the notch at the transom.

The bit between the benches was really straight forward. It just needed a few pieces of angle aluminum and a chunk of plywood:











I had some fun with the piece at the stern. My intent was to close up the transom so I needed a fixture that would support the deck and fit well with the irregular aluminum that makes up the transom. The router and Dremel tool came out to make a part out of poplar that would take all of the curves. After it was coated a couple of times with epoxy it was installed:






One of the most important parts of closing up the transom was to come up with a way to plug the splash well drains while still making use of them. I opted to custom fab some 2” X 2” pieces of Starboard and run the sonar transducer through one and the fuel line through the other:
















I’ll have deck on soon.


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## snips (May 13, 2012)

good to see another saltwater striper rig.That thing looks awesome!I'm in the process of doing the same basic thing to my 16 Starcraft,but with nautolex instead of paint.I'll post up some pics once it gets wrapped up.


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## HOUSE (May 13, 2012)

Go Fish, I learned quite a bit reading through your build. Thanks for posting so many pictures and descriptions! Good luck with the stripers up there


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## Go Fish (May 30, 2012)

We left off talking about stuff on the stern so that is a good place to start. The aft casting deck runs right to the transom so there was no longer a place to hang the motor. The solution was a Bob’s Machine Shop Mini-Jack Plate:






Here is the overview shot with seats in, set up for a family trip to the lake:






And with the seats out for a flats trip to the salt:






The grab bar is fit with a Hummingbird FF/GPS and it allows me some security while driving the boat standing up:






The other part of standing while driving is afforded by a Strongarm tiller extension:






One of my favorite features is the recessed cleats. There are two on either side of the stern and one at the bow:











There is storage for 4 spinning rods in forward and to the starboard of the steering station and trailering secure room for 4 rigged fly rods on the gunnels:
















I am really happy with the result of this build. Over the long weekend I went messing around on a lake with my wife and young daughter and the next day went for a serious striped bass fishing trip with a buddy. The boat was perfect for both applications.


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## baldrob (May 31, 2012)

Your boat looks great! I really like the recessed cleats.


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## wihil (May 31, 2012)

I love how simple and complete this build is - everything has a place, it's not overly complicated or over dressed, it's well thought out and multi-functional/multi-species.

This one's going to be book marked for future reference. Outstanding build IMO, especially for the kind of fishing I do.

One question, where'd you get the hardware for the stainless grab bar?

=D> =D> =D>


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## Go Fish (Jun 1, 2012)

Thanks for the complements guys!

wihil-

The stainless hardware cam from an outfit called Surplus Unlimited:

https://www.surplusunlimited.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?

Look under the "Rail Hardware" link on the page that the link above will take you to. I have been using these guys for my boat projects for years because thay are typically half the price of West Marine. It is a surpluss house so they may not have what you need every time but when they do it is always a bargain.

PS: My mom grew up in Appleton so I get to your neck of the woods every once in a while.


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## wihil (Jun 1, 2012)

Bookmarked for future reference - I bet I could make a nice trolling rail with that, but it'll be on the next tinny, not this one.

Thanks!


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## novaman (Jun 2, 2012)

Very Nice Job =D> =D> =D> . Really cool setup with the grab bar & FF.


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## Go Fish (Jun 3, 2012)

Thanks novaman!

I am really happy with both the grab bar and the fishfinder. Hummingbird has really got it going on right now. the screen resolution is incredible and the transom mounted transducer will hold bottom at full throttle...I had to put a through hull transducer on my big boat to even come close to the same performance and I still lose bottom when it is sloppy and I am going fast.

I put the grab bar together with some scrap aluminum tube that I had in my garage...at some point I will convert it to stainless tube so it looks a bit better. Getting all of the kinks out with aluminum was the right call. It took a few tries to get the hieght right. Cutting stainless is a little bit harder than tossing a tube of aluminum on the miter saw.


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