Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Wow, time sure does speed by. I am not sure whether to update or not, do not want to clutter the boards with my little mess. There are some other good builds going on.

To bring you guys up to speed on my build. I finally picked up the third log from the welder. I have been positioning it on the boat trying to finalize the overall length. I think she will end up being 21' 6". Thanks again Toonguy for the push to think "outside" the box.
not sure why the first two pictures came up so terrible.

Ercarp wrote:
not sure why the first two pictures came up so terrible.

Awe come on man...you can't tease us with pics like that! Rude!!!

Looking good...keep the updates coming I love an "outside the box" project

You have some mad skills there,,,,, thanks for posting your work,,,keep the pics coming

hah! will try again on the pics... ( I am not good at this posting pics stuff, sorry for the large images. Guess I need to do a little reading on how to manipulate the pictures)
Thanks for the comment grouser I am really confused now...not sure why they came out so small. Oh well

So your a better fabricator than a computer geek,,,, go back to the old way the pics were fine IMHO

There went another month (or two). Here is a quick update.
Going to try to repost some old photos I need to take the center tube to the fab. shop to have them bend up a strake. Instead of putting the center tube on the side bunk, I modified the trailer for the center tube. I loaded the boat back on the trailer, took some measurements, removed the trailer and made the modifications (four bunk brackets, moved the "boat stop" and replaced all the bunks). Ready for the fab shop!

LOOKIN GOOD!!!

man I am jealous!

Nice , same thing Im planing to do with my 88 Tracker Party barge ,but I want to put a tank and batter box in the center log .

Awesome idea Hawk. I wanted to do the same thing, however I am trying to stick with a budget...trying (already failed).

I picked up the strake from the fab shop. Spent yesterday welding it on and managed to (find a weak point) break my tig torch. The center pontoon is 98% complete. New tig torch on the way, need to pressure test the log, and plug any pin holes I find. By the way, I think I mentioned that all the bids I received on aluminum welding ended up being between 90-100 buck/hour, total for everything was over $1500.00. So, I bought a tig welder and started practicing. I figured for the same price of paying someone to weld it, I could buy my own and have something to show for it (satisfaction of doing it and a tig welder)...even if my welds are not "pretty". I will post some pictures tomorrow.

You sound like me! don't hire it done learn to do it yourself!

Looking good! I keeping up!

Well my 20 gal tank will fit in a 25" very with room to spare So the only cost to that is going to be the metal and the time . If money wasnt an object I would likely get an 35 gallon tank . With the tank and batteries out the way I can add a fishing deck to the rear of the boat for 360* of fishing fun . Like you I plan on hanging the motor out a ways further , Im just having trouble finding a 25" log within a days drive ,missed one last month by 2 days .

Where are you located Hawk? There is a guy in Phoenix AZ (person I bought my log from, check Phoenix craigslist) has plenty more ($500 bucks a pop...if you go after one tell him the guy from NM sent ya...I am trying to sell him a 115hp mariner outboard and a bass boat trailer). He gets them from a Harris dealer. He told me the log I bought had been replaced by the dealer because it had a leak. When I bought it there was a 3/16 inch hole drilled in the rear of the log. I plugged the hole and pressure tested it, it held 2 lbs of air for a week. Not sure where the leak was/is, I was satisfied. He has a variety of sizes, many of them have at least one strake already installed. None of the ones I saw (last November) was a center log.

Thanks but Im on the VA NC state line so about dead middle of the east coast . Ive checked around at the local dealers with no luck locally , found a few dealers that had some logs in southern NC and SC then there is US pontoon a custom build company but all of them are crazy high ,as in 2000 or more for a log . Then it it me I have contacts at some of the scrap yards from my jeeping days so I let a few of them know , so far it had been 19 and 22" logs . I had forgot about one of my wife's cousins that now worked a a recycling center , when I ran into him I asked and he told me they had a 22 foot south bay get recycled 2 days before . Tree had feel on it during all of these snow an ice storms we have had but he said one of the pontoons was fine . Something will pop up , summer is coming and someone will wreck a toon , I live right off two major lakes so boat trailing and water accidents are fairly common here unfortunately.

You can see the new strake on the left trailer bunk. They made them out of two eight foot pieces and a one foot end cap. I used "toon bright" to clean up the side I was going to be working on (I would have cleaned the entire log, but I was low on acid) double checking the placement, used ratchet straps to keep it in place while I tacked it on I tried to follow the same "pattern" as the factory strake...as far as where I welded it just a cool picture and from the backside pretty proud of myself learning to weld aluminum, not to shabby for a beginner Here is what put the stop to the progress this weekend, hopefully the new one comes soon.