Restoring a Deltacraft Islander by Steve Leonard
I am the original builder of Deltacraft... for a period of 36 years ! Retired now and no longer involved in building Islanders anymore but "to keep my hand in" so to speak, will be restoring a MK2 over the next few months of 2015 .
It actually takes a lot longer to do this than the 10 days it took us to build her in 1982 ! So here I go and will send to Tom at the club site as I go through the job.
First job was to get her home so I can do the work, thankfully at 5.7 meters most folk can squeeze one in somewhere, unloaded then scraped of barnies, I then wet and dried all the deck cabin and hull then polished with a machine buff and cutting compound then low and behold a shine appeared ! Since gelcoate is simply pigmented resin, and is 2 mm thick, the process is just elbow grease mainly. Use a cutting compound that is water based, very important because the oil base will cause a yellow finish.
I wont go through each job just yet but this is what I have accomplished so far.
- Wet Dry Polish entire exterior.
- Renew the perspex side and front widows.
- Remove and strip back all timber work,replace the center door panel,varnish with 9 coats and use Penetrol additive to the single pot Polyurethane.
- Remove the engine and gear box (no mean feat this one, I built a gantry ).
- Replace both fuel and water tanks with new ones.
- Replace all controls and cables.
- Make up a new dash panel .
- New switch panels (2).
- Acquire and fit a model 2002 Volvo and gearbox.
- Make and fit new engine bearers and tank bases.
Over time much can be done so dont be scared to have a go !
I will be making a transom door and timber cockpit rails and I reckon she will look like new eventually.
Almost absolutely everything has to be replaced and its becoming expensive !
Ah well, it should be worth it.
