Need to pick your brains
Need to pick your brains
I need to get some feedback and ideas from you all on my dash. I've thought about it quite a bit and researched materials, after deciding to not remove it to replace it. It comes down to covering it with something and I've had some thoughts but haven't settled on anything. The thickness is 3/4" now, and can't go over 1" thick in order to accommodate the mounting of the system check tach. The max. height in the center is 6-1/4" and it's about 52" wide.
All it's going to have mounted is the steering wheel, tach, a light switch, a bilge pump switch and a 12v outlet.
Here are some thoughts I've had:
1) Cover with same burgundy marine vinyl as my control board. A couple drawbacks I see to that are that I can't wrap the vinyl with out removing the board, which I won't do, so that leaves just gluing it down. Not sure how permanent that would be, esp. at the edges. I also have a concern about the vinyl fading in the sun.
2) I've thought about laminating something 1/4" thick or less over it. I don't want to spend an arm and a leg on this. I've looked at 1/4" thick hardwood plywood at Lowe's, but of course it is interior grade, not sure how it would hold up long term. I would cover it with many coats of spar varnish.
I've also found an online source for thin boards that I can cut to the right size, for maybe $15-20, but since it would be oversize shipping, I don't want to get killed on that. I think that could easily double the cost, and they don't give shipping estimates. I haven't been able to locate anything similar locally.
Site is:
http://www.thinboards.com/ThinBoardsFrames.aspx
I think it could work to glue on the 1/8" or even 1/4" thick stock though. Again, how do you think that would hold up, coated with spar varnish? They have a large variety of species to choose from.
I've more of less ruled out lexan or plastics because of the cost, and I've never worked with those and don't have the tools, and not sure how I would attach it to the existing board anyway.
Any ideas? I've been mulling this over and trying to think out of the box, looking for a durable and relatively cheap solution. I want to do it right the first time and not have to be messing with it in a year or two. So far, still thinking....Thanks.
