Re: Swim platform..... on a fishin' boooat
what did you make that out of?
Plus you can reel in them big striper standing on it.:thumb:
I'm just hoping a big striper doesn't get fouled up in all the stuff hanging off the transom, that I can't see anymore...
Make sure not to let anyone swim off your fishing platform :facepalm:
No details? Come on man. Well, at least ya gave us a pix
LOL, I tell everyone my daughter spells the word "fishing"... s-w-i-m-m-i-n-g :lol:
OK, for the nitty gritty. (no pics on the build, I'm the worst at taking pics while I'm all grubby and working away...)
I made the fishing platform brackets out of a couple sections of sandwiched 1/4" thick aluminum angle that attach to the boat, a piece of 5/16" aluminum plate angling out, then 1/8" aluminum angles to hold the platform to the plate aluminum. If that makes sense... The plate slips in between 2 sandwiched angles (then bolted) so it's removable. 1/2" bolts to the transom, 3/8" bolts attaching the transom angles to the plate, 5/16" bolts attaching the platform angles to the plate, 1/4 bolts into the platform Working with the thick aluminum wasn't bad, but I did need to buy a $50 aluminum blade to cut it on the table saw and miter saw. I ran into a couple issues working with the aluminum:
1- A cheap Ebay $30 aluminum cutting blade will loose 1/2 it's teeth cuttin plate aluminum (buy $50 blade).
2- A 10 year vertical belt sander belt will shred trying to eat through 1/4" aluminum (order replacement belts)
3-
Aluminum angle isn't always a perfect 90* angle (supplier replaced a piece that was really tweaked).
I was thinking of using $30 off the shelf swim platform brackets, which would have certainly been one heck of a lot easier, but I don't think they would have been strong enough as I only wanted to use 2 brackets. I fish in gnarly conditions and know this thing is going to get pounded, so I wanted to make it strong.
The platform is made from 1 sheet of 1/2" 5'ply exterior plywood, cut down and the 3 pieces of plywood laminated together to get a thickness of around 1.5" thick. Before laminating on the top piece of ply, I drilled all the attachment holes, let slow curing epoxy seal all the holes, then epoxied 1/4" T-nuts into each hole,,, then the top piece of plywood was laminated on. Sawed off the angled sides, a little bit of routering and I was ready to epoxy the thing.
Epoxying wasn't too bad, but the slow curing epoxy from US composites takes a long time to cure, even in 100* temps. I saturated top and bottom with epoxy, next day a layer of 1.5 oz cloth on top, next day a layer of cloth on bottom. Then I got the bright idea of wrapping the edge with 2" cloth tape, which would have worked well, but the cloth tape didn't like to lay down around the radius's, and I was fighting it. I hit the whole thing with another coat of epoxy, then sanded it. I found that the top and bottom were perfect, but the edges had all sorts of
pin holes from the cloth tape that didn't lay down properly. Ended up scrubbing the pin holes clear, coated the edges with 30 minute epoxy, then a heat gun to pop all the bubbles,,, 4 coats to give me enough material to work with. (Needless to say I should have just laid another layer of cloth on top and bottom instead of trying to tape the edges, it would have been quicker). Sanded everything with 80 grit, 150 grit, 220 grit, then primed it. It was a 2-part automotive primer and that stuff is really tough, lots of sanding,,, 100, 150, 220, 320, 500.....
I had tan and blue Nason 2K automotive paint left over from repainting the transom, but not much tan, so I decided to 2-tone the platform. It was weird painting the blue as I was painting it upside-down, and on a bench that made access to 1 end difficult,,, hence 1 run/sag on the top edge. (Can't see in pic, need to buff it out...) Zool gave me a a tip on dry-spraying anti-slip through a paint gun which worked out very well. I taped off the tan section, sprayed: blue - anti-slip - blue - anti-slip -tan- anti-slip - tan - tan. I'm really glad I decided to shoot the 2 coats of blue first as I ran out of tan right at the end, used all the left-over automotive paint that I had.
All that was left was bolting everything together, standard,,, goober it up with 5200 and let my son have the pleasure of cleaning up all the excess 5200...
I didn't want the ladder rattling around ("fishing boat") so I bought some big clear tubing, blew it up with my air compressor for a day, then slipped over the tubes of the ladder to keep it from rattling around.
I have a Troll-a-Matic trolling plate on the boat that can be a pain at times when I'm not trolling, blocks the prop when trying to reverse. Soooo, I made a bracket (not on yet) to attach a line to the trolling plate, to keep it up at a 45* angle. Probably make the line out of some old spectra fishing line, 25-50 wraps, what ever looks sufficient to keep the line from breaking while in reverse...
