Fastening choices - floor replacement in aluminum boat.

[ShoestringMariner]

I’m tossing up ideas on how to clad my plywood floor with nautolex and I’m seeing 2 choices;

Option a) clad/wrap each board with nautolex and rivet through with a series of large flange rivets everywhere. It’s going to be a busy look but easiest to pull off.

Pros; not easily done but I can remove panels to do rivet repairs, ply edges are protected and waterproof.
Cons; busy look with all the rivet patterns, crevices between panels collect junk.

Option b) Rivet floor down and cover with nautolex for a clean look.

Pros; clean look, no crevices

Cons; insure how to terminate nautolex at edges (can I fold down around board edges?) board joints need to be filled and sanded so it doesn’t show through(?), large flange rivets might show through or wear through nautolex? I cannot remove panels if issues below.

What do you guys think?
I want this to look really pro

 

[Dbrown_rn]

Curious as to what you ended up choosing? I am literally in the same thought process right now as I am starting to replace the plywood floor in my 1990 Sea Nymph GLS 195. I can't decide. Not sure how it was from factory because precious owner had already replaced and literally just stapled carpet to boards with wrapping edges or running up the sides. Just terminated at board edge and looked really poor.

 

[ShoestringMariner]

Funny you should ask this question now. Almost a year later I’m in the midst of carrying this part of project out. I’m going to clad my boards individually, wrapping the edges. Currently varnishing the boards. Next week or this weekend, I’ll be posting photos in my (appropriately titled) build thread here; https://forums.iboats.com/threads/s...esto-mod-let-the-long-slow-road-begin.721077/

And I think wrapping them is important to help keep water from wicking in. I used the OTF penetrating wood preservative (homemade recipe found online) and the sheet end grain literally sucked it up before my eyes. Imagine how much water those exposed edges drink up.

 

[Dbrown_rn]

Funny you should ask this question now. Almost a year later I’m in the midst of carrying this part of project out. I’m going to clad my boards individually, wrapping the edges. Currently varnishing the boards. Next week or this weekend, I’ll be posting photos in my (appropriately titled) build thread here; https://forums.iboats.com/threads/s...esto-mod-let-the-long-slow-road-begin.721077/

And I think wrapping them is important to help keep water from wicking in. I used the OTF penetrating wood preservative (homemade recipe found online) and the sheet end grain literally sucked it up before my eyes. Imagine how much water those exposed edges drink up.

Thanks for the quick info ! Following your other link now. I think individually wrapping as you describes would be best. This way, as you said each panel can be wrapped and edges protected. Also, if something happened in one bad spot for some reason, the whole floor wouldn’t need to be pulled up to replace.
I think we will just need to be aware of where butt joints of panels are so that there is a channel to the bilge bellow so when water works it’s way between the cracks it gets to the keel of the boat and doesn’t soak into foam.

 

[ShoestringMariner]

Thanks for the quick info ! Following your other link now. I think individually wrapping as you describes would be best. This way, as you said each panel can be wrapped and edges protected. Also, if something happened in one bad spot for some reason, the whole floor wouldn’t need to be pulled up to replace.
I think we will just need to be aware of where butt joints of panels are so that there is a channel to the bilge bellow so when water works it’s way between the cracks it gets to the keel of the boat and doesn’t soak into foam.

I’m not sure if the sea nymph has an aluminum strip that joins the two panel boards like StarCraft does. My boat will have a rod/ski locker with a liner pan with holes to drain to the bilge. I assume that’s where most of the water will go, or any water that doesn’t just flow to the back bilge area anyway.

I replaced all my water logged foam with Styrofoam SM or also known as XPS rigid foam I think. We’ve been 200 to 300 pounds of deadweight.

Not quite sure what to do with the tricky stuff up in the bowel area. That’s going to be hard to clad over the edges. What I might do is clad the edges separately, then clad the top but leave it long around the outer edges. The edges at the side of the boat that is. This way the excess material should cover the gap at the edges and any water that gets underneath is protected by the edge cladding. I have to do some level of edge cladding on the curves cutouts and notches anyway due to the vinyl cuts in these areas won’t cover the wood in the fold over areas.
Still not sure on this because there’s a joint where water could make its way in underneath the top vinyl and the plywood. Still rethinking this.