![]() Then the tops of all the parts were painted with epoxy, the top layer of glass cloth laid over them, and enough extra epoxy painted on to ensure good wet-out. Then one at a time I painted epoxy on the bottom of each part, wet out the corresponding area of the glass cloth, pressed the part onto the wet-out cloth, and then painted the edges of each part with epoxy. I arranged the parts on the glass cloth as tightly together as possible, and marked their outlines with a felt marker. I put a layer of wax paper on a large piece of plywood, put a sheet of peel ply on that, then the first layer of glass cloth. Instead of doing them one at a time I took a shotgun approach to save time. The cap will stay on until the deck and gunwale foam-boxes are all glassed in.Īfter test fitting everything I glassed all the plywood parts for the flotation boxes and battery trays. If for some reason the hull twisted a bit on the trailer (perfectly possible with over 200 pounds crawling around in it) as the deck was being installed that twist would become permanent. It's worth mentioning that for installing stringers and the deck I temporarily re-installed the cap (but no rivets yet), this is to help ensure that the hull stays straight. This blocking will be under the middle of the seat boxes, not a bad place to have a bit of extra strength I added blocking where the two pieces of deck will be joined (I decided it would be much easier to build the main deck in two pieces). The stringers (deck supports if ya' wanna' get technical) and bulkheads were glassed with 7725 cloth before being installed. I'm being anal about making sure this boat never sees one bit of rotted wood again. (Originally there was only a single stringer along the centerline from about the drivers seat forward. I fabricated these from some good quality 1X lumber, they're only purpose in life is to support the deck around the ski locker. It involved moving the transition from the main deck to forward deck about 6 inches, and adding two small stringers. This boat originally didn't have a ski locker, I changed the configuration slightly to be able to add one. Re: Complete rebuild of 1979 Checkmate Eluder The plywood under this section of the bow was completely gone, all that remained was a layer of fiberglass. Here's a photo of that "soft spot" in the bow after removing the carpet. It was obvious that this boat had been left out in the weather uncovered for a long time. When I got the boat home I did a complete inspection and found extremely wet foam under the deck and wood so rotted around the flotation box in the stern that it would crumble with only slight help from a screwdriver. ![]() I was still interested because the asking price wasn't too bad even for a project boat (and I held out the slightest hope that I could simply replace a section of the deck and be done with it). Well, having already replaced the transom in my other boat I knew full well what soft spots usually mean. I found my project Checkmate online, the seller stated that it was lake ready and only had one soft spot in the bow. In my opinion nothing matches the look of vintage Checkmates, especially the closed bow models, but for me a bowrider was the only way I could get permission from the Admiral to do a Checkmate project since it's more family friendly. I fell in lust with that boat, I remember many mornings hearing the scream of that engine and watching Kenny disappear across the lake followed by a huge rooster tail. When I was a kid we had a cabin on Higgins Lake in Michigan and the oldest son of one of my dad's friends had a Checkmate with a 150 Merc Tower of Power. I finished this rebuild over a year ago and thought I'd create a thread detailing the entire process so that maybe someone can learn from it, especially since there seem to be quite a few older Checkmates being restored now. I was going to start this thread in the "completed projects" section, but noticed that I can't start a thread there (so I'm guessing the moderators will move this over once I complete the thread.)
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