Norman 20 Restoration

[smitch6]

Well i've finally got me a new restoration project.....
The boat we have is a 17' so not great for overnight sleeps so i wanted something a bit bigger, and after looking about decided i wanted a norman 20'

I wanted a complete restoration project so i can get the boat how i want it not how someone else wanted it.
so after looking on flebay, gumtree & FB i saw 1 on FB cheap, but the trailer was an old caravan so flat and needed loads of work before i even started on the boat.
I was meant to be looking at it yesterday (Monday)
last week i went on Shpocky and found another for 3 times the amount of the 1st one, but the trailer was good.
so after a few haggles i knocked him down to half the price he wanted. and spent the weekend with family in Wolverhampton.
drove up to Wigan (just west of Manchester) on Monday and collected the boat.
The trailer has had 4 new tyres, new bearings, new brakes etc so i hoped it was good to tow back to Suffolk.
I put in the satnav avoid motorways just to make sue all was ok and the M6 was really busy with loads of tailbacks.
2 hours later after the stupid satnav took me north of Manchester and back into the city centre and me screaming at it i asked the wifey to go on google maps and get me out of here.
I was not best pleased i can tell you.
so I left Wigan at 10am and arrived back in Suffolk at 7pm rather shattered and exhausted.
dropped the boat off at my storage place, went home showered and went to bed.

Went back down this morning to have a look at her and was pleasantly surprised.

all the windows, windscreen, bow rail and rubbing strip are there which is handy as they are the expensive bits.

We didn't do much today just had a bit of a sort out as, as you can see it was used as a bit of a dumping ground, so lots of rubbish inside.
so cleaned the rubbish out, brought the windows & Windscreen home and that was it.

Looking forward to getting stuck in now.......

 

[smitch6]

well got home and had a look at the windscreen and stripped it down as the rubbers were shot.
what a nightmare, the screws that hold the corner brackets in were woodscrews so had rusted in
they had to be drilled out, and now i have the screw stubs left in the brackets.
the brackets are about 50mm long x 10mm wide right angles
so as you can imagine a bit hard to sort out.
i guess it would be easier to drill out the old screws if i had a pillar drill but i haven't
so will have a go at using an angle grinder to smooth the off and clean them and then drill new holes carefully without drilling into my knee.

The bow rail is also a bit bent, it's bent outwards so sticks out a bit further than the boat at the back feet, so tried to bend it inwards slightly and it started to crack at 1 of the front legs where it joins the rail.

so now got to find someone to repair that for me....... also

all the glass/perspex on the windscreen is either cloudy, cracked or slightly the wrong size (side pieces held in with silicone)
so will be replacing with new poly perspex off a windscreen friend of mine.
it doesn't go cloudy etc like normal perspex so should last.

hey ho lets hope the rest isn't as much hassle as i've had this afternoon

 

[Bouba]

Looks like an entertaining project in store for us:encouragement:
Is the Johnson salvageable?

 

[smitch6]

apparently it is working it's in my garden at the minute,
i have a friend who knows outboards and will be coming round to make sure it is running and then i'll sell it as i want a 4stroke rather than a 2

 

[Ian tan]

We had one of these in the 70's, well my parents did. We had many a good holiday in the lakes, the Norfolk broads and the south coast.

I'll look forward to your progress

 

[smitch6]

Well been having fun while the rain hasn't been spoiling things.

Wanted to cut the hatch out to look like the more modern versions so got the jigsaw out and took the plung.

before



After



I actually cut another inch off the side just to make it look slightly better.

i'm happy with how it now looks, just got the attach the inner skin to the outer skin.

Got the top half rubbed down, filled, repaired and 2 coats of undercoat, rubbed down again and got 1 top coat on.



Annoyingly every day this week now will have some kind of rain at some point so painting is on hold at the minute.

I want to get the top half painted and polished so i can then get the windows in and make her top half watertight.

I have a gazebo to cover the back half so that will help there.

I'm quite a perfectionist and i'm happy with how the top is going so that's good.

 

[petem]

Looking good, will look forward to more updates.

 

[smitch6]

Thanks
I notice on your signature you have stainless steel names??????
do you make them? as i'm after the norman signs for the side of my boat
I can make them in vinyl as i used to do sign vinyl so still have the cutter and some vinyl but would rather have metal

Looking good, will look forward to more updates.

 

[waynes world]

A Norman 20, had one for a short while many years ago that i recovered from the bottom of the canal near Wigan. Great boats i believe.

You have my sympathy, that is for going into Manchester, i live just North near Bury/Bolton, rare i go into to town, dont do madness.

I will read up more later as off to work now and just found the thread.

Looks a good project anyway

 

[smitch6]

Well lots been going on due to not having the greatest weather to go out on my other boat.
I managed to prepare all the outside, everything removed and rubbed down, any defects repaired and sanded.
coat of undercoat, check for defects sort out if needed and then keyed, 2nd coat of undercoat.
a good key ready for 4 layers of topcoat marine gloss in white.
keyed between coats.
The top half I brushed on and wasn't that happy with the finish, no matter what i did i couldn't get rid of the brush lines.
So had to flat it back with wet n dry and then polish it out, which took alot of work, sweat and some annoying looks and nearly loosing heart.
But the end result looks good, not what i'd say perfect but i'm more than happy with it and being a perfectionist thats not bad.

The main hull beneath the rubbing strip i did it slightly different.
after the 2nd coat of undercoat i flatted it back completely and thought mmmmmmm this could be alot of work, so went out and got some of them sponge paint pads that were the rave in the 90's
i rolled the paint on with a good quality gloss roller and then stroked the pad left to right and up and down then really feathered it off left to right.
and it came out great, just a quick compound and polish and she looks lovely.

started to get the windows in
amazing what difference it makes to get them in.

dropped the bow rail off at the engineering firm to be repaired, saying no hurry slot it in when you have spare time, so hopefully it'll be a cheap repair.
as the rail had nearly snapped


Got the rubbing strip on and all the main windows in a day with help from the wife bless her.
The boat is starting to look like a boat again now.....



As you can see i haven't got around to painting underneath yet, just given it a quick coat of undercoat.




Had a word with a friend who is a joiner and got a couple of pieces of sapelle off him cheap.

after a few hours with a jigsaw, planer and belt sander i had this.....

quite good if i say so myself.
and made to fit the boat as there are actually bumps on the roof where the rails have to go.

thats about all i've done so far.

Next job is to get some marine ply and remove the bulkhead walls and replace with new.

 

[petem]

Looking great!

 

[Bouba]

The speed you do things is incredible, I don't know what you do for a living but you must work the night shift.

 

[smitch6]

The speed you do things is incredible, I don't know what you do for a living but you must work the night shift.

haha no i'm a Pat tester and a fire alarm engineer.
My wife is a teacher so we try and have as much of August off as we can.
the weather was rubbish this summer and my other boat i'm waiting for the outboard to be repaired so we couldn't get out on her.
so we just went to the new boat most days if it wasn't raining and got stuck in.