There was a Shipshape boating episode broadcast on DIYNET recently. The topic was installing a stereo in John's Whaler. <br /><br />He used two parts that I want for my installation. I can't find them on any of the usual sites. I deleted the episode from my Tivo, so I don't know the vendor names. The DIYnet web site has no vendor info.<br /><br />The first item is a really nice surface mount splash cover. It wasn't the commonly available Polyplanar one. It was much nicer.<br /><br />The second item is the rack or tray that he used to support the stereo. The tray mounts behind the panel and supports the stereo. It was a really nice metal one that cradled the stereo. It was bolted to the panel.<br /><br />Does anyone have any leads? <br /><br />I already spent a few hours going to all the sponsors websites listed on the Shipshape TV website. No joy. There is no email address on the site.<br /><br />I have tried WestMarine, Google and Yahoo searches, and eBay. Still no joy.<br /><br />The dash on my boat is a slab of 3/4" mahogany epoxied to 3 layers of marine ply. It is almost 3" thick. The whole topsides of the boat are as overbuilt as the dash. The hole for the stereo is cut. The small mounting frame that comes with the stereo doesn't work well. The dash is too thick.<br /><br />Boat info -<br /><br />I found the sister ship on eBay, but I didn't buy it as it was already complete and had an older two stroke on it. I live in California. Older two strokes are banned from many places, with more to come. I contacted the seller. He had my boat for sale, but not on eBay. She was never completed. I got to finish her up as I wanted. <br /><br />The description of the sister ship that was on ebay is as follows - <br /><br />Begin >>> <br /><br />The Story of this fantastic Custom boat..... <br />In the mid eighty's I had a idea to built wooden decks on fiberglass hulls. Over a couple of years I built two proto types and worked with a patent attorney on getting a patent for my idea. I got my patent #5085162 in the early ninety's and gave up the business I had built representing contract furniture companies. I hired a helper and proceeded to start to build the boats.<br />My idea was, that there was a lot of beauty in the old wooden mahogany runabouts of the 30's ,40's 50's and 60's but people did not want the maintenance involved with wood. I thought if I were to take a fiberglass hull and put a mahogany deck on it, the boat would have all the advantages of a maintenance free fiberglass hull and have the beauty of a mahogany deck and interior. The best of both worlds. <br />In 1992 I bought five fiberglass hulls from Olympic Boat Company in Monroe WA. I had these hulls built specifically for me with a built up flange around the hull to attach my wooden deck to. The basic hull is 17'7'' long. These hulls also had added stiffening (balsa core) added to them to make them stronger. I also had custom 27 gallon fuel tanks built into the hulls. Flotation was also built into the hulls.<br />The decks were built separate from the boat and added later. The decks were built utilizing multiple layers of marine plywood all epoxyed together. The 1/2" Mahogany planking was all cut and fit individually with a inlay of Alaskan Yellow cedar fit between each plank. All planks and inlays were bedded in epoxy and also stainless steel screwed to the marine plywood deck. The screw 's were covered with mahogany bungs. The deck's total thickness is 1 5/8", it is built very stout. Then the entire deck was faired (sanded) and the finished deck was covered with 4 oz and or 6oz fiberglass cloth all covered with multiple coats of epoxy and again faired between each coat. The finish on the deck is multiple coats of Z-Spar varnish. The boats length is 18', beam 7'6'' , weight 1565 lbs <br /><br /><<< end <br /><br /><br />Mine has white cedar "racing stripes" against the mahogany and a ski pole. She is very pretty. Not perfect, but very nice. I plan to take her to Tahoe for the wooden boat show in August. I may make the iBoats get together at Havasu on April 1. Pictures are available at<br /><br /> http://community.webshots.com/user/rthomassen101 <br /><br />I had a Suzuki DF140 installed. It does about 45mph per handheld GPS and has a pretty good holeshot.
