backpain...

Great job on the conversion!!

I bought one and love it. It is a snap to take on and off, and you don't even have to take it all the way off. You can simply shorten it so it is out of the way. If you rent another boat, or upgrade you simply move it over, not to mention it looks nice. It blends in totally with my transom. If you don't want to permanently mount your transducer I say go for it.

Looks great! Keep us posted on how it works out for you.

Today we almost got her finished! I still need to run the wiring, and install the rod holders and some other odds and ends. I am still waiting on the seats to be delivered, so those have to wait. I am also going to wait and see how the boat sits in the water before I run the permanent wiring. I will place the battery where she helps ballast the boat best. I am thinking I will need it in the front, but you never know. Here are some pics with the carpeting finished!

FINALLY some progress!! Well, I finally had some time off when it wasn't raining, sleeting, or snowing up here. : My wife has made it "her project" to carpet the decks. As you will see from the pics I had no arguements, she is doing a great job and it allowed me today to tackle the seating installation. What I did was drill a hole using the hole saw and dug out as much of the floatation foam as needed to reach under to get the washers and nuts on the installation boats. Since my wife was carpeting the decks I was able to focus on installation and the seating. Here are some after pics from today. I apologize for not having any shots of progress as it came, we were trying to get it done before dark. Now I will need to focus on the electronics and wiring. Not exactly sure how that is going to work out, but so far I am pleased with the progress. There are HUGE slow periods but it seems once we get around to it we make some decent progress.

I believe he does have the pedestels for both seats, so you only have to face one another when you are running the gas motor.

Could it be the water temperature differnce?

A question while I am modding my jon. I am planning on screwing 3/4" plywood to the tops of my bench seats. Will this be enough support for a 13" pedestel like the swivel-eze 3/4" seat posts and bases?

They should open a shotgun season on them, just think of it, instead of a gun dog you just need a jetskier!

It is a 14' FLBassMan. I am going to carpet it all here very soon after I iron out a few design details. The lumber is regular pine/plywood that I got at Home Depot. I treated it myself with Thomson's water seal. Work has kinda slowed to a crawl here as my schedule has folled up, but I plan on working on her again real soon and will be sure to post more pics.

I have that same trolling motor, and the 30lb seems to push me along just fine even on the days the windsurfers are smiling. Another cool feature is the fact that you can turn the handle around with a simple screw adjustment. I have yet to wear out a battery as well even fishing all day. The only gripe I have for this model with a deep v, is the 30" shaft. Mine is BARELY long enough to use on the transom, and I have yet to use it on the bow but intend to this season. Hope it helps!

lol yea, welcome to philly... :-?

After a rest and planning session with my help, I was able to put in a few hours after work today. We got all of the decking cut and in place. I used Joeybago'donuts idea for the front deck, only modified a tad, I put in a T connector for support in the middle and used the main ribs in the hull for the lateral support. In the end it feels very sturdy and strong. I am going to cut one more vertical support for near the seat, and possibly one 2x3 on each side of the front deck, but due to the small span and the doubled plywood it feels plenty strong. The 2x3's on the bottom of the deck fit snugly around the center support making for zero movement. Tomorrow after work, it is time for water sealing andfinal fitting before carpet goes on when we get another nice day. We are supposed to get rain through the weekend here starting wednesday

I am screwing them into the existing bench seats with stainless screws. I have the horizontal footers srewed down onto the vertical braces, and the whole frame is screwed to the bench. I hope this helps.

Last night, I only had enough daylight to get to Home Depot for lumber and get the boat emptied and prepped. Here are the cleaned out pics, notice the nice rust stains from the swivel seats being in there for a few years. Today I was able to get an earlier start so I was able to actually make some progress. With a little help from my lil buddy and a friend (I am showing him the new invisible step). Actually my wife snapped a pic as I was jumping out heh. I was able to make some progress. What I did was made rails out of the 2x3's for support braces. I am going to screw cross members into the plywood flooring to make the actual floors two large hatches for the storage area underneath. Near the transom, I split the deck so I can store the gas tank and everything underneath and the middle section is going to stay open so fumes have a place to evaporate. Again, both decks will open as a hatch. As darkness fell, and my batteries died in my cordless drill I finished cutting out the basic shapes for the bow casting deck. I have since decided I will probably cut it down and make it more like the middle decks and have it lower than the seat. I am going to do this simply because I am pretty much stuck in the back of the boat because of the tiller steer motor and the transom mount TM. This will make mounting a front seat easier as I can just mount it on the bench seat. The guys I normally have fishing the front of my boat are a little more up in years and I think would rather a comfy seat rather than large casting deck. This way they will have a fishable seat with plenty of legroom, and I won't have to worry about having a 20" pedestel up there in the V. A shorter base mounted on the bench should be just the ticket, and if I have someone uup there that wants to stand up there will be plenty of room for that too. Hopefully the forecast is correct and I will have three nice warm days this coming week to get the front half decked, the bench tops covered, and all of the lumber water sealed and carpeted.

Yea they helped, sorry took so long to respond. This message board software hates me, I basicly have to reset my password every day and sometimes I still can't log in lol.

You could use one of those tubes that kids ride on behind boats, I have seen them at dick's with the tow rope already attached.

One of the hatches open would be great. I am wondering how to get the proper support for under the hatches with say people standing on them. I am slowly (after owning the boat for almost a year) getting my plan together.

Sweet job! How does it handle the extra weight?

I have a 98' Mercury 15 HP tiller that I purchased with my boat back in the spring. It has ran like a top all summer until last night. Me and my Dad were out on the river catfishing and I pulled the rope to start it for the ride back to the dock and it started right up but then immediately stalled. Finally after about 15 pulls it cranked on and I just hit the throttle because I didnt want to be caught in the outgoing Delaware river tide heading away from the ramp. It ran fine till I got back to the dock and as soon as I killed the throttle it stalled once again. This time I was able to start it after 4 or 5 pulls but once again as soon as I motored onto the trailer it stalled again. Any ideas? I am definately oing to get it tuned up and a waterpump/impeller replacement before next season but what could the issue be? Any advice or idea would be greatly appreciated. This is my first boat/motor and I am totally clueless. Some other factors to note, it was the first time the boat was used in about three and a half weeks. I had 3/4 tank (roughtly 4 gallons) that I put in a month or so back with a 50/1 oil to gas ratio as per motor reccomendations.

Hey Joe I have that exact same boat minus the console, mine is a strait utility John with a tiller motor. You are giving me great ideas here with what I can do and some things I might need to do differently because mine is a tiller. Make sure you get some good overall shots for us to drool over! Are you putting in a livewell? If so please share the ideas! Thanks for sharing this, I am getting stoked again at getting my boat "decked out". One last thing I would ask is maybe after it is all said and done letting us know how stable it is I am really wondering what the extra weight + higher center of gravity will do for stability.

I too have tried the "standing on the seat" test. Mine felt the same as standing on the floor pretty much (there were two other guys in the boat at the time as well) but even in that situation, on top of the seat you would have to have your feet pretty close together. I guess I am kind of overwhelmed at this prospect. I am pretty much a trail blazer around here. I am the first one in a loooooong line of bank fisherman to get a boat, so not only am I clueless but so are those around me. I guess I just need to get started and do something. I just feel like it is such an undertaking!! I think I have pretty much settled on decking from the middle bench seat to the bow, giving a large front casting deck and underdeck storage, as well as a place for a future livewell. I am also going to deck over the back bench to the transom allowing some workable space overtop of the batteries and gas tank. This will leave a small floorspace with high walls for my wife to be comfortable with the little one and allow the boat to be more useful for fishing. I am going to get this phase finished before I worry about seats.

Howdy. I am a new boat owner, and a new member to these forums. I got a decent deal on a 14' Sea Nymph V Series John boat. I paid $1300 for the boat, trailer, and a 15HP Mercury outboard. Here are a few pics. I am wondering a few things... #1 How much do I need to worry about raising the center of gravity of the boat? Would it be ok to just deck it to the level of the tops of the benches? #2 related to #1 If I raise the decking would I be stupid to put 15" pedestel seats on it? #3 Would removing the middle bench seat compromise hull integrity? I would LOVE to be able to take the bench out and make a nice floor in the middle (keeping the high sides because of my toddler) and have two casting decks, front and back. Here are a few pics, and ANY input would be appreciated!

Nice job! I have a few questions as I have a V bottom jon I am itching to get "decked out". ;D #1 How long is your boat, looks like you have a ton of legroom between benches (wich makes me insanely jealous!)? #2 What did you use for support under the bow platform seeing as it isn't a solid piece, would you mind a pic with those doors open? #3 How much of a performance hit did the extra weight give to the performance with all of the lumber in the boat? Thanks in advance, I saw that puc in another thread and hadn't found this one.

Been there, done that. :-[