Frayed_Knot
Seaman Apprentice
- Joined
- May 17, 2011
- Messages
- 46
Re: Post a picture of your Crestliner
Hey Nathan
Never really thought about an aluminum floor - went with the wood mostly because I have the tools to work with wood and don't have access to equipment or the know-how, for that matter, to fabricate a metal floor. Wood seems to be the norm for resto projects - http://forums.iboats.com/forumdisplay.php?f=22 probably because its easy. I would imagine if you can get the material at decent price (guessing it will be expensive though) and have no issues fabricating the floor panels, the aluminum would last you a long, long time - every work boat or commercial boat I have ever seen has a metal deck. There is likely a reason for that ... not always the most comfortable surface to stand on for long hours though. I am going to put the Nautelix vinyl down ... not sure how much cushioning I will lose, not having the carpet, but I would think it will be worth it. As you know the carpet wears out and looks bad pretty quick but my main concern is that it holds so much water next to the wood floor. When you start on it, you should start a thread with pictures on making the aluminum floor, would like to see that being done. How thick of aluminum plate do you think you will need to keep the floor from being too springy? What sort of spacing for the supports underneath? Will the aluminum floor make the boat a lot noisier? wonder what sort of sound deadening the wood provides?
Wish I had some completed projects pictures, but not there yet... been out of town a lot for work and working late when I am home. Hopefully soon I will have some pictures to put up... was thinking about starting a thread in the resto forum once I get a chance to start back at it.... figured I am going to have lots of questions when the reassembly begins. Right now the only accomplishment so far is that the floor panels have been epoxied. the image of the floor above was just from when I laid them out to see if they fit after cutting all of them.
The boat is a walk-thru. Pulling the consoles was pretty simple. taking up the old floor was a pain in places - had to drill out a lot of the old decking screws. some weren't stainless and rusted pretty bad and some of the stainless were siezed-up pretty good to where I stripped the heads off with the electric driver.
Hey Nathan
Never really thought about an aluminum floor - went with the wood mostly because I have the tools to work with wood and don't have access to equipment or the know-how, for that matter, to fabricate a metal floor. Wood seems to be the norm for resto projects - http://forums.iboats.com/forumdisplay.php?f=22 probably because its easy. I would imagine if you can get the material at decent price (guessing it will be expensive though) and have no issues fabricating the floor panels, the aluminum would last you a long, long time - every work boat or commercial boat I have ever seen has a metal deck. There is likely a reason for that ... not always the most comfortable surface to stand on for long hours though. I am going to put the Nautelix vinyl down ... not sure how much cushioning I will lose, not having the carpet, but I would think it will be worth it. As you know the carpet wears out and looks bad pretty quick but my main concern is that it holds so much water next to the wood floor. When you start on it, you should start a thread with pictures on making the aluminum floor, would like to see that being done. How thick of aluminum plate do you think you will need to keep the floor from being too springy? What sort of spacing for the supports underneath? Will the aluminum floor make the boat a lot noisier? wonder what sort of sound deadening the wood provides?
Wish I had some completed projects pictures, but not there yet... been out of town a lot for work and working late when I am home. Hopefully soon I will have some pictures to put up... was thinking about starting a thread in the resto forum once I get a chance to start back at it.... figured I am going to have lots of questions when the reassembly begins. Right now the only accomplishment so far is that the floor panels have been epoxied. the image of the floor above was just from when I laid them out to see if they fit after cutting all of them.
The boat is a walk-thru. Pulling the consoles was pretty simple. taking up the old floor was a pain in places - had to drill out a lot of the old decking screws. some weren't stainless and rusted pretty bad and some of the stainless were siezed-up pretty good to where I stripped the heads off with the electric driver.
