Narrowing a console for my 20SF

[strick]

Very nice work with detailed description of how you accomplished this difficult task. The stock CC's are in my opinion are a bit too wide and I was considering doing the exact same thing for the 20 MA I'm redoing. The only thing I would have done different was grind down the outside as well and glass that seam...you may find the putty cracking over time as the boat gets more and more use.

strick

[Jared]

Originally Posted by strick

Very nice work with detailed description of how you accomplished this difficult task. The stock CC's are in my opinion are a bit too wide and I was considering doing the exact same thing for the 20 MA I'm redoing. The only thing I would have done different was grind down the outside as well and glass that seam...you may find the putty cracking over time as the boat gets more and more use.

strick

I agree on going ahead and grinding and putting at least a ply of glass on the outside to tie it all together. Even after going through all this I was still somewhat intimidated by the fairing and final finishing that I wanted to preserve as much of the original gel coat as possible. Now that it?s done I see I was overthinking that. If I had to do it all over again, I would do it how you are saying.

[uncleboo]

Outstanding!

[Jared]

Now for the story of time and money. This is what I think is lacking on most build posts that I think will be an eye opener to people who are thinking of undertaking similar projects. No tool costs included since I didn?t buy any specifically for this project, but take that into account if you will need to add tools. Again I?m just a guy hacking away at a boat in my backyard, could someone more skilled do it faster and cheaper, I have no doubt.

$350 - New console and entry door, Craigslist
$150 - Fiberglass cloth, resin, filler, and core material. Mixing cups/sticks/brushes (made a much larger buy for the whole boat project, this is an estimate based off of the quantities used)
$40 - sanding discs, sand paper (get 3m/norton/mirka good quality abrasives, they last way longer than the HD or lowes stuff)
$40 - Aluminum & rivets
$150 - filler, primer, paint, acetone, brushes/roller naps

$730 - Total cost of the console to the point of being ready to cut holes and mount accessories. Sold the original console for $400, so was into this for roughly $330 out of pocket.

Time - mocking up, layout cuts and cut it in half - 4 hours
Sanding and prepping for reattaching back together + attempting to get as much fiberglass snow out of my garage as possible - 6 hours
Glassing together, bonding in core, glassing again - 6 hours over a few nights
Filling, fairing, priming, and painting - 10 hours over several nights.

26 hours of time roughly. If you put even a small price on your time this can get expensive quick, but if you valued your time there?s plenty of turn key boats other than a seacraft you could buy. If I had to pay a shop to do this, it would have been done much quicker but the cost would have been out of reach for me.

[hillcharl]

Man that turned out great! Thanks for the T & M breakdown.

[KNZ911]

Great write up Jared. Do you have any pics of how you attached the console to the sole? Looks like you avoided screwing into the deck on the outside.

[Jared]

Originally Posted by KNZ911

Great write up Jared. Do you have any pics of how you attached the console to the sole? Looks like you avoided screwing into the deck on the outside.

The only picture I have of this is when I was still pulling wires and routing everything, but you get the gist of it. Since none of the joints where the console meets the floor is 90 degrees, more like 80 or so, I welded up some brackets out of 2" x 1/8" aluminum flat stock and bolted the console to the floor from the inside. I didn't want to see/trip over a 1 1/2-2" wide flange and bolt heads on the outside of the console so using this method all you see is a radius of 5200 where the floor and console come together.

There are backing plates under the floor where the console is bolted down. Where the bolts went through sections of the floor that had core material in them instead of solid glass I used a Dremel and removed about a 1" circle of the top skin and core material, leaving the bottom skin in tact. Then I filled this with thickened epoxy to create a hard point and redrilled the bolt holes so tightening down the console didn't just squish the core and eventually come loose. I used 5200 between both faces of the aluminum angle where it touches the fiberglass.

The big pie plate is an access point for where the sending unit in the gas tank is located. With a goal of not seeing any of these plates on the deck I planned for this to end up under the console when I was building the tank. The small pie plate is an afterthought, my arms weren't long enough to reach all the bolts to tighten down the console from the big opening.

[jorgeinmiami]

I did the same with my console. But I purchased the aluminum l shaped brackets at Home Depot, drilled the holes and bolted down to th floor and the console. Still have to caulk it but it?s looks good

[KNZ911]

That description and pic will serve nicely. Thanks..

[WillyC]

Very nice work and great write up. I'll add an alternative to using aluminium angle stock to bolt the console to the floor is fiberglass angle stock. I purchased some from McMaster Carr and it worked great.