tmc209
Member
We bought Wine Knot a little over a year ago; she was a mess. Thirty years of hard work and poor updates. When we bought her not only did she look bad but due to a leaking injection pump on the starboard engine she smelled horrible with 25 gallons of diesel in the bilge.
We gutted her completely - all soft coverings (headliner "monkey fur", vinyl, furniture, mattresses.) - the admiral is fastidiously clean and scrubbed every inch of the boat with some form of disinfectant and deodorant.
Here are some before pictures:
Here is what she looks like today:
Where we had to replace woodwork I used Sapele - a form of mahogany as the photo finished "woodwork" they used in 1983 is not restorable. We replaced the green hued vinyl with modern light colored vinyl and used hull liner on all ceiling areas.
Wherever we could we installed LED lighting; very inexpensive from Amazon - I found that they used step down transformers/rectifiers from 120vac to 12vdc so it was a matter of cutting off the transformer and wiring them directly. I can have every interior light on and only draw about 1.5 amps. In contrast if I turn on the original incandescent bilge lights - only 3 of them - they draw 4.5 amps alone.
We converted the aft cabin from two twin beds to be a Cal King bed - very comfortable! Still some trim work to finish in the aft cabin.(hard to see in the pics - I couldn't get a good angle)
It's been a fun project. The Admiral has worked right alongside of me the entire time and we've enjoyed the time at the marina even when we were working.
Currently I am working on rebuilding the upper helm. In the '80s the fiberglass had been redone to accommodate the electronics of the day. I am going to rebuild it in Sapele with new Raymarine electronics that Santa brought me. I'm glad Santa is in to boating also :smt038
We gutted her completely - all soft coverings (headliner "monkey fur", vinyl, furniture, mattresses.) - the admiral is fastidiously clean and scrubbed every inch of the boat with some form of disinfectant and deodorant.
Here are some before pictures:
Here is what she looks like today:
Where we had to replace woodwork I used Sapele - a form of mahogany as the photo finished "woodwork" they used in 1983 is not restorable. We replaced the green hued vinyl with modern light colored vinyl and used hull liner on all ceiling areas.
Wherever we could we installed LED lighting; very inexpensive from Amazon - I found that they used step down transformers/rectifiers from 120vac to 12vdc so it was a matter of cutting off the transformer and wiring them directly. I can have every interior light on and only draw about 1.5 amps. In contrast if I turn on the original incandescent bilge lights - only 3 of them - they draw 4.5 amps alone.
We converted the aft cabin from two twin beds to be a Cal King bed - very comfortable! Still some trim work to finish in the aft cabin.(hard to see in the pics - I couldn't get a good angle)
It's been a fun project. The Admiral has worked right alongside of me the entire time and we've enjoyed the time at the marina even when we were working.
Currently I am working on rebuilding the upper helm. In the '80s the fiberglass had been redone to accommodate the electronics of the day. I am going to rebuild it in Sapele with new Raymarine electronics that Santa brought me. I'm glad Santa is in to boating also :smt038
