Well im back to ask all you helpful toon'ers for some advice. Although i havent posted pics yet, ive re-decked, re-carpeted, re-painted and re-worked my 24' toon and now im ready to top it off...literally. It had an aluminum top with metal on it which i didnt like, everybody says to get a bimini top but what i really want is an upper sun deck. I need pictures, diagrams, ideas, blueprints or a Genie that'll give out a free wish. I've got friends that can weld aluminum but they want some type of detailed pictures or plans to work from, which i dont have. It cant be that hard to do this...can it? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I think if would be worth a trip to a dealer to look at one built then go from there.
I work for a pontoon company and we came out with a top deck 4-5 years ago, there is alot involved and they need to be really strong.
Would send you pics of ours but I am pretty sure that would be frowned on and I like my job so you will have to do the leg work.
Try to find the aluminum tube too, you would need at least 160' of pretty good tube, 1 1/4'' at least adn ti won't be cheap.
Point being price out this entire project before you get into it too far, I think oyu will find it is gonna be pretty pricey.
As for the actual deck we outsource ours but it is a pretty elaborate piece, laminated foam filled aluminum frame with aluminum sheet top and bottom.
Not to pee on your parade but I have found if you can't get it down on paper you probably won't be able to build it either so break out a paper and pencil and start drawing ideas of your own, you will go through alot of paper but eventually you will get it and you work out alot of problems in the process.
I just finished doing exactly the project you describe for my 24' Manitou pontoon. I searched quite a bit and finally found a company that makes a kit. I purchased the kit, and no instructions were included and some parts were missing. They sent the missing parts and instructions but the instructions were not for my kit. Some of the bolts sent were the wrong size. I finally got it all together and the end result was good. The kids (and I) love jumping off the top and the shade is nice. Once assembled, the kit is more solid than what I have seen on production built upper decks. It totally changed our enjoyment of the boat. The total cost of our project was roughly $3000. In hindsight, we could probably have just tried to find another boat, but we also spent money replacing the main deck, carpeting, wiring, etc... so we figured we might just as well finish it up.
If you go this route and want to purchase the kit, let me know and I can get you specifics and share with you some of the issues we had to make your build easier than ours and you can learn from my experience.
So, can you tell me what was your source for the kit? I have a 32' boat and have visions of going this route also. What is the diameter of the support tubes? and the dimensions of the cross members? maybe I can start from scratch and fab my own!!
As I told Sharkscove, keep in mind the stresses involved and over build the life out of it, make sure you are attached to the deck on crossmembers and through bolt it on.
As with any major project like this draw it first and not just a sketch, a detailed measured drawing, if you can't get it on paper you probably won't be able to build it either.
They are alot of fun, I took out a company boat that was a top deck and it was pretty cool.
Something else to keep in mind is doing this will make your boat more prone to waves and wake with that much weigh that far above the deck btu the effect should be minimized on a 32'er.
Building an upper sun deck for my 24' toon
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