Spring Project(s) 74 20SF

[SeaPlusPlus]

Thanks for the replies guys, I sure hope she turns out as nice as I picture it in my head.

I think I'm going to go with 3/8" plate drilled and taped by S-S Marine, when they install my t-top. Took the console over to them yesterday and they marked the places where they wanted the center of the plates to be. I will be installing (4) 6" x 12" x 3/8" plate, which is probably overkill but it will spread the load across the floor more and give some error room for the location of the feet of the t-top.

Over the past few evenings after work I've been cleaning up the bottom layer of glass and removing all the wet wood from under the lip at the edges. After lots of chiseling, scraping, and shop-vacing the bottom was ready to work with.

Yesterday over lunch I picked up 2 sheets of 3/8" Marine Ply.



When I got off work I marked and cut the wood to fit the sections that I cut out. Test fitting:





After making sure everything fit the floor needed to be strengthened up. It was very weak in some places along the edges where it had de-laminated from the old coring, and also some places were the top layer of glass had been cut out, some of the bottom layer came with it, taking the bottom layer down to the roven. The weak areas were toughened up a bit with a layer of 6oz cloth and the entire deck was painted with a thin layer of epoxy to beef it up a bit.





In front of where the in deck livewell was the bottom layer of glass was very weak, it seemed that it was not laminated anymore at all near the back of the lip and you could flap it around. To resolve this we cut new coring strips to go under the lip and then cut a piece of 6oz cloth which was big enough to cover the entire area from the gas tank hatch to the live well. This was cut a little long (so it hung a little bit into the livewell. We covered the strips of coring with resin and then put them on top of the glass and then taped them under the lip so that the glass was forced back under the lip wrapped around the coring. This should laminate the bottom layer of glass back to the top lip again and strengthen this whole area up substantially.





Pick of the wetted out/glassed deck:



Didn't get any pictures of it but the longer sections of coring were glued together with a piece of 6oz cloth so that they can be installed as 1 piece. Making gluing down the coring a 3 piece installation, vs 5.

Also got some new toys yesterday for the console. Had a Lowrance HDS-5 that I flush mounted on the dash, found charter captin in NC selling his 1 year old HDS-5x for $350 ($549 new) on TheHullTruth after he upgraded to HDS-7's. Came with everything that came in the original box. Now I can do full chartplotter on the HDS-5 and full sonar on the HDS-5x flush mounted on the new dash.





Hunting down some 3/8" plate now, hoping to get the deck wrapped up this weekend.

[Beach]

Pretty schweeeet project...Nice electronics...gonna be a dash full for sure...ummm do you ever make up your bed?

[MasterBaiter]

With all the work he is doing, he probably doesn't have time to sleep.

[SeaPlusPlus]

With all the work he is doing, he probably doesn't have time to sleep.

Haha Beach is my dad, just giving me a hard time Can see him in the 3rd pic down on my last post.

Speaking of that picture, I just realized where that other hammer went! Wondering where it went off to.

[copout]

Coming along nicely! You're killing me with electronic envy. I think your father was asking about doughnut t-top opinionson another forum? Was that him & if so are you headed that way? Keep up the boat porn...

[SeaPlusPlus]

Haha yeah didn't see that post but it was probably him, headed that way. Getting the top fabricated with a fold-able doughnut on top for cobia spotting. Not running the second set of controls up there just yet, maybe something in the future.

Gonna look something along the lines of this minus the control box.



Got the plate today. Dad found a 3/8" scrap sheet for $1 per lb. Getting it cut tomorrow and closing up the deck this weekend. That top is gonna be rock solid bolted down to the plate.

[SBD]

When you make your stainless plates consider also making the aluminum base plates for your t-top. With both in hand it will be very easy to get your hole alignment perfect. You can also just buy 1/4 or 3/16 stainless and weld nuts on the back instead of threading them. The just overdrill the wood under the nuts so it will drop in flush. If you bed them make sure to put bolts in holes!