Glass Magic Playmaster
Sept 18, 2007
Well, I've gone and bought myself a boat! I wasn't looking for a boat, though I was looking for a kayak, when I ran across this ad on craigslist and fell in love. An unknown little mystery boat with giant fins on the back like an old cadillac. Who could resist?
Research (and a little help from other old boat enthusiasts) indicates it may be a 1959-1961 Glass Magic Playmaster. Not sure about the year, though it perfectly matches another one on the internet that is listed as a 1961, but with a '?'. I have since been in contact with those folks and he thinks it may not be a Glass Magic at all, but maybe a Harvey out of Aloha, Oregon. If you have any information about Harvey fiberglass runabouts that might enlighten us, please let me know.
I cannot find any badges, plates, or markings to indicate it more precisely.
Steering and throttle controls were included.
It looks like it's been taken pretty good care of, and someone loved it enough to color match it's trailer to it so it would look snazzy. There were some title problems, no one had put the title in their own name for years, so I had to trace it back to an elderly couple who had owned the boat years ago, and barely remembered it (how could you forget a boat that looked like that!?) and they remembered it being red. The paint coming off the hood looks like dark blue and red underneath.
Oct 10, 07
It took a few weekends, but today I finally moved the mustang out of the garage, and moved the boat in. Poor mustang! In spite of all the junk in the garage, there's still going to be lots of room to move around it and work on it.
October 12
Last night I crawled around in the boat and everything looked pretty good to start with. It was my first real good look-around. I also tipped the trailer way up and drained out all the water that had accumulated in the bilge - yuk! Now I see why boats have bilge pumps! It was probably holding a gallon in there.
My to-do list so far (not in order of importance) for the boat - not including the motor
Carpet needs to go.
The trim holding down the carpet is rusted, so it needs to be replaced. The plywood under the carpet feels solid, but I won't know for sure until I see it.
Too many cleats! There are 8 cleats and two chocks, which seems like overkill to me. That's enough to tie down a macy's parade balloon! This is a 14 foot boat! The two located halfway up the fins are particularly offensive. It might be an easy place to tie off, but the whole point of a boat with gigantic fins is to admire the fins without a cleat distracting from their good looks. I also want to replace the mismatched cleats with matching, vintage-looking chrome hardware. I saw some great torpedo-shaped cleats on eBay which would be perfect.
Replace the 'flashlight' style bow and stern lights. I already have a vintage bow light coming from ebay. Of course that will include installing a 12v battery and electrical system, but I assume I'll need that for the motor anyway.
New vintage-looking rubrail (that's assuming the rail on it can't be saved and polished - I'll salvage it if I can).
Fill the holes from the removed hardware. I really haven't found any other damage to the deck or hull.
New front seats, and add a back bench seat.
Clean up the transom, check for condition, repair if necessary (yes, I realize that's a really big important step).
Paint. I want to do a roll-on paint I can do in the garage. Preferably something I won't have to worry about killing me. I've inhaled/contacted enough toxic chemicals for one lifetime.
Possible Paint colors: (it's crude, but you get the idea)
The hull HAS to be white. I'm leaning towards yellow for the deck.
Of course, this list is just there because I think tinkering is fun, and I want it to really look good when it hits the water (and when it's sitting at home and my friends see it). The more I look at it the more I think someone really loved this boat and took care of it. I think, if my engine runs like the PO says it will, I could put the two together, drop it in the lake tomorrow, pull the ripcord on the engine, and be motoring around. It's really in very serviceable condition. I just want to leave my mark on it.
December 26, 07
Well, time for reality to set in. I have enjoyed looking at it while it sat in the garage, but I need to get to WORK on it if I want it in the water in the spring (and I really do). With the rush of Christmas work finally behind us, I tore into it and began exploring to see what I've got.
The front seats came out, the trim and carpet came up (and went right into the trash), and the floor underneath looks surprisingly good. But it still needs to come up so I can investigate the stringers. Darol told me to check out the stringers and the transom first, take care of the structural, then work on everything else.
I started poking around the transom. First I pried off the big metal shield that was wrapped over the top edge. Then I just started literally poking my scraper here and there to see what happened. Some spots sounded hollow. There was some flexing under the fiberglass. I kept poking until I had a hole, and then started tearing it away. There were some other metal shields screwed down, but they came right out with a little prying - because the wood under them was wet and rotten. The whole thing is rotten. It's a total loss. It's like a big sponge.
Looks pretty good on the outside, but looking down at it you can see it's a mess. Any wood that tears apart by hand needs to be replaced. I wouldn't want to have left it this way and found my restored Evinrude tearing off the transom while we're traveling down the road one day. So no regrets - it has to be replaced. I can't complain, I'm still into the boat for almost nothing at this point. For what it's worth, I still think the previous owners took pretty good care of this boat, it just has the ravages of time to contend with. It is pretty old, after all!
I also discovered a spot of original paint under one of the metal plates. It was metallic copper. Fun, I could kind of see going that way again. I need to do more sanding on the deck, but I see some spots of black under the current blue paint. Maybe it had a two-tone thing going on? It would be cool to go back to original. Maybe paint it copper then do some nice pin striping accents. What did they do in 1961? Where's my Barris book?
Well, it's nice to dream about paint but from the look of that transom I have a lot of work ahead of me before I get there.
To properly repair the transom you have to split the boat's deck from the hull. The seam is along the trim line down the side. Here is the view of that trim line from the inside. You can see the rivets coming through from the exterior. I can't see where the separation line is exactly.
December 29, 07
Dave came out and helped me drill out enough rivets to get one section of the side trim off. It took about an hour. I found that the deck and hull apparently are butted together and are glassed. Here are some pictures of the outside with the trim removed.
The upper trim strip is just decorative, so it doesn't need to be removed.
The holes are where the trim rivets were.
