1959 Lone Star El Dorado "Project Texas Tornado" (Another Boat)

luke000

Been Around the Block
Not two weeks after finishing the last boat (1956 Duratech S13R “Project Pop Can”) I was on Craigslist and something caught my eye… a 1956 Lone Star El Dorado and I fell in love with the thing. The last project was a boat for my dad, and after loving doing all the work on it, I decided I wanted to take one on for myself. The boat was about a half hour away from my house, I went with my dad and grandpa to look at and ended up making an offer and settling on a price. We did not have the right stuff to pull it home so we came back a few days later and brought her back.

The Boat is 18 feet in length with an 84 inch beam, made in Grand Prairie, Texas, very tall sides, and a cabin with plenty of headroom for my 6’2 frame. The boat is in good shape, most of the original parts are all there. The boat did not come with a motor, but it is rated for up to an 80 horse power outboard or twin 40’s, I will probably go with something around a 70HP. The boat DID come with a trailer that I believe is the original Lone Star trailer. It is going to need LOTS of work (and money) to get into the shape I want it but I am ready to do it. The first job is to get the hull stripped down and tested for leaks, then after that is done I will rebuild the trailer and get it into restored condition.

The history of the boat is the original owner bought it new, always kept it inside and kept it in good condition, he passed and his son-in-law took position of it where it sat uncovered in his yard, filled up with water for many years before finally getting sold to the guy I bought it from who used it a few times. It was last in the water 3 years ago.

The name of the boat is going to be “Texas Tornado” after the old Buck Owens song.

And now for some pictures!

Bringing it home:




All home!













Now we ran into a little problem, our garage door is 6’11 tall and the boat is 7’1 when the trailer jack is all the way down and the grab rails are on the roof. I decided to take a spare trailer ball, a 2X6, and a furniture dolly and make this little gem! All it needs is a floor jack to drop it down low enough.


It JUST was able to fit in our garage. I got some of the stuff out and really take it in.








You can see how much water was in the boat over the last few years



And finally a few cool original things that came with the boat:

Canvas that closes off the cabin


The original commode!
 
AWESOMENESS ;D I love the shape of this hull, very cool! I look forward to your progress, polish or paint for this 1?
 
andycafe said:
AWESOMENESS ;D I love the shape of this hull, very cool! I look forward to your progress, polish or paint for this 1?

Thanks!
This one is going to get paint, Ill keep the paint as close to this original job as I can, I might make a few small changes, but it will be more or less OE. I will probably stay away from speckle paint for the inside at this point unless someone talks me out of it. There will be a good amount of polished bits though.
 
I got a good amount of work done. Cleaned out the boat, stripped it down, power washed everything and filled it up with water to find leaks. There are a few small leaks that I will seal with West Systems G-Flex, and about 25-50 rivets that will need to be replaced, some where they are a little corroded, some loose, and some completely missing that some HACK replaced with bolts and globed on the silicone. The transom is solid, and that is good because I would have to drill and replace A LOT of rivets to pull it out. But overall- good shape for the age and nothing that can not be fixed!

Pictures all striped down and washed:











Some of the bolts that a PO has replaced with bolts and silicone....


And a pile of the flotation foam I removed from the sides...



It is a tight squeeze, but no match for my custom trailer caster

 
Classic 8)
 

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Re: 1959 Lone Star El Dorado "Project Texas Tornado" (Another Boat)

I had a chance to buy a 21' Lone Star Cruisemaster about 10 years ago in similar condition. I passed…and I've been regretting it ever since.
 
Now that step 1: tear-down, is complete and onto phase 2: trailer. With the help from my brother, dad and two guys from work we were able to lift the hull off the trailer (about 6-700 pounds) and set it on some wood posts. After some paint scraping, I found out that the trailer is indeed the original Lone Star Boat Co.-made trailer! The model is called the "Road Crown" with a 1600LB capacity and had a retail price of $359. It is in decent shape for its age, I am going to completely restore it, bring the necessary stuff up to modern standards, and get it ready for many miles ahead in its next 55 years.
I stared disassembling it and when I took the tongue off I realized that underneath the winch mast it was extremely rusted and a huge safety hazard, it was also a little bent and the welded on coupler was very sketchy at best (I am being nice) I decided to bite the bullet and I drove to my favorite metal supply yard in Detroit and got a brand new 10 foot 2"X3"x1/8 rectangular structural tube. This will allow me to add a few things and have a clean slate to start from that I know is solid. The rest of the trailer is all heavy duty C-channel (no place for water to get trapped) and is solid as a rock.
I have the trailer mostly disassembled now, ready to get stripped and prepped for paint. And a just placed a parts order for lots of new goodies!
I think I will have to pass on the green shag carpet that someone used as bunk carpet ;D

Cool note about the trailer, there is a lever that when pulled releases the tongue so the trailer can tilt, it also drops the rear bunks down so the boat can slide off easier.







Old Vs New


Bad rust


Bent coupler and terrifying latch


Name sticker under some paint- Will have to work on getting a new one made


Brochure
 
Sweet project.

Did they not have boat ramps back then? What's the point of the tilting trailer?
 
SONIC. said:
Sweet project.

Did they not have boat ramps back then? What's the point of the tilting trailer?

Thanks!
It is to be able to launch at ramps with shallow ramps with drop-offs, steep ramps, rivers or ponds with no ramps, or just to make launching/retrieval easier all around.
 
Some other experts on another forum have talked me into replacing the transom in the boat, I will need to drill/replace 34 rivets and laminate up a 1-3/4 inch thick piece of marine grade plywood :p They pointed out how much water has sat in the boat over the last few years as well as the transom has swelled in some spots and is probably just rotting out as it sits. Might as well do the job right and have it last another 55+ years untill I am 75, then Ill do it again ;D

But the trailer is still first on the list of things to do!

locations of all the rivets:


side rivets


keel and stringer rivets


normal thickness 1-3/4"


Swollen wood ;)
 
Last week, I started doing some of the work on my trailer, specifically making the new tongue. I had cut out the old pivot sleeve from the old one, drilled the 1 inch hole in the new metal and welded it in. It is now a much more secure interface than what it was. After , I cut the 10 foot tube to length on my horizontal band saw I picked up on my last project in a package deal with a wood saw and started to weld on the new safety chains and about halfway through- My Harbor Freight welder died on me :( (more my fault than the welder unfortunately) Rather than spending the time to fix the busted wire feed or dropping $100 on a new one, I bit the bullet and bought a nicer welder- Longevity Migweld 140. It is a 110v Mig machine that can also do flux core and has input for a spool gun to do aluminum with. I got it yesterday and today I set it up with some .35 flux core and went to work and boy is it nice! It took no time at all to get dialed in. The other safety chain bracket welded right up as did the mount for the jack, some tie-down anchor points I wanted to ad on the back end of the trailer and some modified fender mounts.

Tomorrow is some more tear down, drilling holes, adding a second set of supports for longer bunks and maybe start paint stripping and wet sandblasting.

New unit!


Cutting Tongue tube to length:


Safety chains and jack mount:




One of the tie-down points I added:
 
Nice work buddy ;) I'm glad your replacing the transom, might as well do it now while you have her apart ;D
 
Got the trailer closer to being ready for paint. I removed as much of the paint as I could with reasonable effort, between a flap disc on an angle grinder for the large sections and a wet sandblasting unit for the hard to reach areas. The wet sandblaster unit is one that attaches to a power washer and has a siphon feed for the media (coal slag) in a 5 gallon pale. I used the sandblaster for about %30 of the trailer and used about 350 POUNDS of media...it made a bit of a mess As you can see from the pictures there is a fair amount of flash rush so I got some metal prep solution to convert the rust and pre-prime the fresh metal. The only other thing I got done was making two new bunk mounts, the new ones I made are just some angle stock with 1/4in backing plate, they are about 2x as heavy compared to the stock ones.





What #250 of wet coal slag looks like


2nd set of bunk mounts next to the old ones
 
Well it has been a long two days of work on the trailer but the painting gods have smiled and the weather is perfect over the next few days. I got the trailer all striped down and the raw metal/ rust was all treated with a phosphate solution. Got the trailer up in the air and I went to work with the spray gun. Some of the pieces were painted a few days ago so the first coat of color went on, the other pieces like the frame just got primered. Tomorrow is going to be the first coat of white for the frame.

The original color of the trailer included the diamond plate walkway down the center being black. I am tossing around the idea of doing the walkway in bed liner- both to keep with the original color scheme and to give it a durable and non-slip surface. I have some (sealed) bead liner left over from another project too. What do you guys think? Yea/ nea?

Striped down and suspended, with phosphate treatment.


Primer shot




Top coat on the new fenders and winch mast:
Still need a final coat of paint

 
It took a LOT of work and a pretty penny, but the Lone Star's chariot is finished! The assembly took a little longer than I expected, there was lots of measurements and adjustments that I had to make on everything from the rollers to the new, longer, fixed bunks and the winch mast.

New parts to the trailer include:
all rollers, bunks, fasteners (grade 8 and 5), winch, bearings, seals, side marker lights, coupler, safety chains, entire tongue bar, tires and wheels, fenders, tie-down anchors. The tail lights and jack are almost new but came from the PO.

The center walkway of the trailer was painted with bed liner today, I planned to use some roll-on bed liner but when I went to do it, I found out that it had solidified in the container over the last year, So I picked up some rustolium rattle can bed liner and masked the trailer off with plastic and sprayed away! It turned out quite nice!



Again, this is the look I wanted to copy and keep the original look of the trailer (with a few modern touches)



And the final result!






 
Wow that looks sa-weeeet 8) great work, bet your looking forward to the day you slide the boat back on for her maiden voyage :D
 
Thanks everyone for the good words! Finally got the boat back up on the trailer again and it only took 3 people and an engine hoist . The bunks and rollers needed a lot of adjusting but I got it tuned in right and she sits nice and snug now, better than ever. The next project I have lined up is to remove a bunch of bad rivets, along with the transom and a few other items. Then it is time to make a new transom and start bucking some rivets! Does anyone know how to measure and find out what size rivets I need to order? I found an unused rivet embedded in the foam but I cant find it anymore :(

On the towing rig during a quick test ride.



I also have my eye on a donor boat for a new motor- I will have to see what the price is, but if it right, I think I will have to grab it. The motor is a '94 Evinrude 70HP tripple. This is the motor I have been wanting for a while after doing some research in the engine section.
 
Well I ordered up the punch and set for my air gun. I got the stuff for 3/16 brazier head rivets, I was about to place my order of 200 rivets (100 7/16 length and 100 1/2) and I noticed that rivetsonline is only 20 miles from my house so ill save the $10 shipping and go pick them up sometime this week.

On another- more disappointing note, I lost the auction for my engine donor boat. It was a 1994 Alumacraft Dominator with shoreland'r trailer and a 70HP Evinrude triple (1994) The boat had a rotted transom and floor. I topped out at $1351 and it sold for $1376 on ebay. I was getting pretty excited about picking it up, but I guess it was not meant for me :'(
 
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