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Project Chris Craft Scorpion 390
- Thread starter jetcruzr
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jetcruzr
Competitor / Contributor
More living organizms found in the boat. I'm pretty sure this boat has it's own ecosystem! My only fear is that someone from MDEQ (Michigan Dept of Environmental Quality) will see this thread, come to my shop and declare my boat a protected wetland. I will be forced to turn my shop into a refuge for some kind of endangered bug!
redhotsommer
New member
Holy freakin' project!!!! I've been involved with one of those before...but we didn't bother with the interior when it went back together. The teardown is also the only part I was any good at...which is why I bought my boat pre-assembled! Lol.
fund razor
Founding Member
Just curious, once the boat was unrigged, how long did it take you to separate the hull and the deck?
Obviously the forklifts were handy, but I'm thinking more in terms of unscrewing everything, breaking the joint, getting it free to lift. Was there anything that hung you up that you didn't find visually?
Keep up the good work. I used to have a smaller Stinger and always loved these boats.
Obviously the forklifts were handy, but I'm thinking more in terms of unscrewing everything, breaking the joint, getting it free to lift. Was there anything that hung you up that you didn't find visually?
Keep up the good work. I used to have a smaller Stinger and always loved these boats.
Ratickle
Founding Member / Super Moderator
Okay, the decision is in.
You're not a glutten for punishment, you're friggin nuts!!!! (Or, as you put it, not in your right mind)
Ratickle
Founding Member / Super Moderator
Gee...any surprise that these boats had a reputation for breaking forward of the helm bulkhead? Unbelievable! What a POS! Hard to believe some poor person paid $100K for this boat back in 1983. Glad I got it cheap!
Are the stringers, forward of the bulkhead, not touching the bulkhead??????
Ratickle
Founding Member / Super Moderator
Hey, wait a minute there. In 1982, the 390X won Powerboat Magazines Outstanding Offshore Quality Award!!!
And it wasn't $100,000, in 1983, the Scorpion listed at $86,995 with 370's (57-58 mph) and $91,995 with 400's (63-64 mph).
jetcruzr
Competitor / Contributor
Hey Fund,
Looking at the glass "Half Full"....haha...the only possible positive that I can make out of all this, is the fact that with it being so badly broken and rotted, it comes apart rather easily. The deck was not glassed to the hull, nor was it thru bolted. Just a bunch of screws into a rotten wood doubler inside the hull. There was a minimal amount of 5200 in the joint between the deck and hull. A rather easy swipe of a utility knife around the perimeter was all it took to break it loose. The first time I took the deck off, a couple of years ago, was a much more impressive display. I made a 3 point harness to pick the deck up with my Cat 320 Excavator. It was nice to use the excavator because I could hoisit the deck into a tight place for easy out of the way storage. Fortunately, but unfortunately, the excavator is on a job right now, so I had to use the forklifts. Unfortunately, the pictures of the deck coming off with the excavator are on a hard drive that crashed, so I cannot post them. The short answer is "It was easy and it popped right off!"
jetcruzr
Competitor / Contributor
Ok, Rain Man! Since you are up on all the trivia, how many of these boats were actually built? I am told that less than 40, 390 Scorpions (not to be confused with the Stinger, which is the flat deck version of this boat) were built.
jetcruzr
Competitor / Contributor
The stringers actually pass through the bulkhead. The problem is that they cut out the starboard stringers at the bulkhead, to accomadate the lav. The Starboard Outboard stringer goes from being 9" tall to about 4" tall, right at the bulkhead. They cut a similar notch into the adjacent stringer. As if that was not enough of a stress concentration point, they did the same thing on the Port Inboard stringer to accomodate the step from the cockpit to the cabin. The only saving grace is that the lamination schedule on the actual hull, seems to be very thick. If it was not, this POS would have snapped in half long ago! It truly scares me to think about getting caught on Lake St Clair the day that we had 85 mph winds across the lake. It was all I could do to get across the lake to get to shelter. I was launcing off of waves and slamming down like something out of an Apache video. This was before I actually knew how bad the structure of the boat was. How the boat did not snap in half is amazing. I guess it was just not my day to sink a boat! Thank God!
As for the new stringers, there will be no cutting or notching anywhere!!! As you can see from the pictures, my new stringers are all one height from stern to bow. The new stringers are vaccuum bagged to the hull with a full length lamination, as opposed to the scraps of material tabbing the old parts in, like you see in the pics.
jetcruzr
Competitor / Contributor
That depends on how you define "tear the boat apart"...haha...
The only way that you have access to the stringers, immediately forward of the bulkhead is to somehow get underneath the galley on the port side, and to get under the lav on the starboard side. I would be less concerned about the port side inboard stringer where the step cutout is. The stringer is still fairly tall there even after being cut. The stringers underneath the lav are definately worth looking into. I would suspect that you could take the potty out and make an access panel to get to the stringers fairly easily. I am sure there are several ways that you could reinforce this area. At very minimum, some additional lamination, properly done, should help. One of the biggest problems that I have found is broken joints in the tabs. All the tabs are at a sharp angle. Most every tab in my boat was broken at a joint. To avoid this happening again, I am installing a healthy fillet at every joint, so the cloth has a nice radius to adhere to, instead of such a sharp angle.
Ratickle
Founding Member / Super Moderator
It's less than your version. I would call your version, "Kill and Gut". The only thing you havn't done is cut it into steaks and roasts (Although you said you made some hamburger).....
What are you making the fillets out of? (Or was that a filet you mean't to say you made?)
Offshore Ginger
New member
Paul , a fillet is a thickened putty usally made using Cabosil and resin ( peanut butter consistency ) and i think a better term used in the industry is Hack and Slash when doing this type of repair .
jetcruzr
Competitor / Contributor
Hack and Slash would be very appropriate! The only thing that I have not done is "Nuke and Pave"! Ha Ha!
Yes Artie, I am using Cabosil and Epoxy, but I prefer to think of the mix as "mashed potatos", especially today!
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