1988 220 Cuddy Revival

[Picknasty]

1988 228 Cuddy

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. I've taken the plunge and started on this project. Plan is to do a lot, more than I realize actually. Right now I know that I need a new transom and likely a foot or two of stringers where the meet and the gas tank access panel needs to be recored. What I find from there, we can only imagine. So here is the laundry list of plans and plenty of pictures to get you started.

- Enclose the transom and add an armstrong bracket. Currently have an Evinrude ETEC G1 200 H.O. but I think I'm going to need a 250 on the back.
- rework the dash area to accept flush mount VHF and stereo head unit and gauges. New Wire Marine for a switch panel to mount in plain view, why Mako placed the switch panel at knee level is beyond me.
- Garmin or Furuno chart plotter/finder. Chartplotter will be a top mount so it is easily removable at the end of the day. Thru hull transducer.
- new taco vinyl rub rail
- new wire marine for a new switch panel
- keep teak in a few places to preserve some of the nostalgia.
- find some way to refinish the windshield frame, cuddy windows and cuddy hatch.

The boat has been neglected for a while. It was full of leaves and dry rotted tires on the trailer.

[Picknasty]

Motor came off, sold to help finance the mission. Four new tires and now I have a dependable trailer to get me around until I get a new one. The axles are in good shape as well as the hubs. Next step is to figure out where to make my cut to expose the back 3-4 feet of stringers and transom. There was a nice crack along the length of the transom seen after removing the aluminum angle guards. You can also see how much of the core has just rotted away.

[marttimat]

Looks like a good project.

Are you planning to keep the stern storage boxes, and more specifically, the flood lights in them? If not, I would be interested in take those light assemblies off of your hands if they are in somewhat not horrible shape.

Cheers-

[Picknasty]

Marttimat,

I thought about it and considered going a different route with my courtesy lights, however after taking one of them off today and cleaning it up nicely with a gentle sanding, I think I will hold on to them. It looks stellar and now I just have to find the LED light to replace the old one with. The opening is 2inches and flange out to 2.5inches. I'll post pictures soon of how it looks so far.

[Picknasty]

A few things are starting to move forward. Now that my trailer has 4 excellent tires and I have no worries of a blowout towing around town, I'm going to visit two local guys who said they would give me a quote on a transom job. I think I am more than capable of doing it on my own, Id like to use epoxy, coosa and 1708 to get the job done, But i'm unsure If I would miss something small that would have a big effect on the rigidity and reliability of my transom. Additionally, I have all the specs filled out for the Armstrong guys to give me a quote on a bracket so I can get it built to how I want, I'll send it in tomorrow and hear back soon.

Did I mention my placards from Eddie came in?? Well, not mine but a buddy's that I ordered for him, They look SICK!! I will absolutely be ordering another set for myself when my project gets to that stage in the refurb.

[Picknasty]

I placed my order for a new Armstrong bracket two weeks ago, it is currently a 6-7 month turnaround time so I'll have plenty of time to replace my transom. In addition to work keeping me busy I've been working on a few odds and ends. It was a task to find an LED light that would fit into the aluminum courtesy light housing but I finally found the one. Its from West Marine, it has a silver bevel but I made some cuts with a angle grinder and flattened out the rim to fit into the slot. Also, I've beenworking with New Wire Marine to get the layout of the new dash all put together.

[S4cruiser]

Nice work on retrofitting the oem light housings! I did something similar for my 221b.

For your New Wire Marine panel, how has it been working with them so far? I will be redoing my panel and am curious how the process works and costs. Are you doing toggle, rocker or boca push button switches...looks like push button from the drawing. What material / finish are you going with?

[Picknasty]

Thanks, I am going to try and smooth the aluminum a little more to get it looking better. There are a few metal refinisher services in my area, I'm thinking about reaching out to a few and see what it would cost to get the aluminum polished to a dull luster.

Working with New Wire has been great, they are very timely with follow up, most times in less than one business day. I was going to go with rocker switches but I will be going BocaTech now. They have a few different options on material but I will be using the Lux Matte material in 1/2 inch. I just spoke to Alex from New Wire Marine today and I think now I'm going to extend the new panel to cover the entire mounting surface of the helm. I'll mount the steering helm and throttle box directly to the new panel. It's going to look slick. I'll post pictures of the revised proof when I get the dimensions finalized.

[Picknasty]

It’s been slow (damn near stand still) due to work but I was able to make a little progress. I dropped off one of the courtesy light housing to a metal polishing business, I was hoping for a little more of brushed look however I’m not made with what the guy did instead. I’ll drop off the rest of the light housing and likely my rod holders and cleats and have them all polished up to the same.

Now working on striping the transom down to skin. Itchy fun to come.

[Fffred]

That looks awesome!!!

[Lectro88]

Did I mention my placards from Eddie came in?? Well, not mine but a buddy's that I ordered for him, They look SICK!! I will absolutely be ordering another set for myself when my project gets to that stage in the refurb.

"I'm late to the table on this reply"

Eddie does Great work.
I had him make a set for me, Very Happy with them.

[Picknasty]

I dig into the transom today and got most of the old core out. The whole process went pretty quick due to the top 1/2 of the transom being dry rotted and no longer anything left for core, the bottom is soaked and a mixture of pulp and wet plywood.

Also, I was hoping there wouldn’t be too much water intrusion into the stringers but one foot into the port stringer and it’s pretty water rotted. I’m hoping maybe I can cut back another foot, maybe two and get to some dry wood. If so I can lay down good stringer tie them together.

I should have all of the core out and down to clean skin tomorrow.

[Picknasty]

As always, work gets in the way. The transom is clean and should be getting replaced in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I have been finalizing the design with New Wire Marine on the new helm panel. What do you guys think?

[Picknasty]

Moving closer, I have a final proof on the dash panel and look what else finally rolled off the assembly line from Armstrong!

[Picknasty]

Not too many pictures to show the current progress. I've been compounding and polishing the hull lately, trying to knock out what I can while waiting for the glass guy to place the new transom. The gelcoat was in pretty rough shape to start with. I started with wet-sanding with 400, 600, 1000 and 1500 with DA orbital, then compounding with Presta Gelcoat compound, then finishing with Ultra Cutting Creme. I've followed with a coat of Collonite 885 paste wax to keep the stains off. I've noticed that the fresh gelcoat has a great gloss to it compared to what it was, however, there are still very fine pinholes. I'm debating on going back and wet sanding more until I get all the pinholes out or just leaving it as is. Meanwhile, I've removed the old rub rail and started to compound the hull above the rub rail.