[leebo95]

I bought an old 16 ft Alum boat and it has a home made floor and center console I want to replace. I have looked through a bunch of other threads but did not find my specifics in there. My question is would it be good or bad to foam between hull and plywood for floatation? Spray in or sheet foam? How to attach floor to boat? Old floor seems to just be sitting there wedged under seats. I was thinkning place a metal lip and rivit to the hull. Any feedback???THanks,Lee

[jtexas]

Foam will add weight, interfere with drainage, and eventually get waterlogged under the floor. Do you have doubts about the adequacy of the existing foam?

[leebo95]

I dont even know if there is any foam in there. All I have seen is plywood and 2x4's Right now it is buried under a foot of snow.Lee

[tashasdaddy]

Leebo, the first consideration is to find the plate usually on the stearn, it states, max HP, max persons, max lbs. the max lbs. is the weight of the motor, any thing you add to the boat as improvements, battery, fuel and fuel cans, flooring. all the gear. now how much weight do you have left for people. some boats with the gear and 2 200lb men are over loaded.

[Always Broke]

Hey there Leebo95, You may want to check out the local marina for a good quality epoxy for attaching your deck. Make sure it is water proof, sticks to wood and aluminum, I would look for something with a thick consistency so it stays where you put it. DonÂ’t use a resin based glue such as the stuff used to fiberglass things with, been there, done that, donÂ’t work. Maybe putting short 2x2Â’s so you donÂ’t have to bend a long piece to follow the contour of your boat then attaching your deck to them, just a thoughtÂ… YouÂ’ll want to leave an empty cavity down the center under the deck for drainage purposes. Foam will help support your deck and stiffen the boat but I have run into water logged foam in the past, I found this place that claims their foam is closed cell and will resist water absorption and also gives some pointers on installing their foam http://www.clarkcraft.com/foamit.php3 hereÂ’s a link about flotation that may help you figure how much flotation you will need http://www.glen-l.com/weblettr/weble...flotation.html . I was also was considering something that may be a little off the wall for the next time I have to replace a deck and flotation, balls. Kind of like ping pong balls, you can get them in all shames and sizes, gas, oil resistant,light, and water proof. Has anyone tried this before? There seems to be a lot of companies making them if you do a web search, hereÂ’s one for example http://plasticballs.com/ . Hope this helped you out some. PS if you decide to use glue you'll either have to find a heated garage or wait until the weather warms up, glue and snow don't mix well

[leebo95]

Thanks for all repiles and the websites. As the project goes on I will let you know how it turns out.Lee