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Posts: 129
Location: Glenmoore PA | I'm looking for some advice on modifying my boat. I have a 14.5 ft deep v tinny and I want to remove the bench seats and add in a floor and a casting deck. I would like to also add a front trolling motor and a compartment for the battery. Any advice on resources available on the the web or pictures of projects that anybody has done? This might be a silly question to some but how do I remove the bench seats?
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 boat1.jpg (122KB - 250 downloads)
boatseat.jpg (77KB - 237 downloads)
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Posts: 433
Location: Cedarburg, Wisconsin | Not sure how to go about removing things safely. But I will say this. Had a fishing friend that did the same thing to his rig about 35 years ago when we used to chase the walleyes. Did a bangup job, beautiful plywood floor and deck. Only problem was his 25 HP couldn't get the boat on plane anymore if there was someone else but him in the boat. Little too heavy? No, a lot too heavy! Watch the weight you put in the boat carefully to avoid a funny story of your own. Won't be funny right away but it'll be a side splitter years from now. |
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Location: Northern Wisconsin | tinboats.net has a lot of information, I would check over there as well. |
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| The seat are riveted to a bracket that is riveted to the hull. The best way to go about it, in my opinion, is to leave the front bench where it's at, and build a front and rear deck around it. I did that with my 14'r, except i left the portion in front of the bench open so a second person could still sit there. It worked out great for me! With the middle bench, i would get the drill out, drill out every rivet holding the bench to the brackets, and remove the bench. Here's where you need to make a decision. Leave the brackets where they are, maybe mount some nifty cup holders or tool holders to them. Or, drill the rivets out of the bracket, remove it, and use other rivets to fill the holes.
Not to nag, but just to warn you. Almost all of your floatation foam is going to be under the benches. If you capsize, your boat WILL be on the bottom of the lake, instead of floating just under the surface. It's a lot more expensive to recover a boat off the lake bed, and if you have to call local authorities to be rescued, you WILL have to recover the boat. Just something to think about.
feel free to email me and i can send you some pics of the casting deck i built.
[email protected] |
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| As for the floor, find large pieces of cardboard and use that to make templates. Lay the templates out on the ply wood, cut it out. Fabricate some stringers to brace the floor against the hull. Attach the stringers to the plywood, and drop it into the boat. I wouldn't attempt to attach it to the hull. Messing with rivets and drilling holes in your hull is a good way to wreck a good boat. Also if you come across the weight problem, you will always be able to just pull the floor out with no damage to the boat.
Just my $.02 |
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Posts: 410
Location: one foot over the line | Also keep in mind that those seats are also structural. remove them and things will wiggle more. Taint no big deal tho, I've removed some in the past and just reinforced certain areas with more aluminum. sure was nice having the extra room. |
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Posts: 410
Location: one foot over the line | An aluminum floor will be alot lighter than plywood. Depending on how high your ribs are, the different thicknesses of the pink construction foam-board that homebuilders use for insulation which can be found at home depot type stores and some gorilla glue, placed in between those ribs and glued, then the alum. floor riveted to the tops of those ribs works awesome and also adds flotation back to your boat and on a 14 footer would probably weigh about 10lbs. |
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| You ve gotten alot of good advice, Im wrapping up a similar project. I wouldnt remove the front or bact seats because that will take away from the structural integrity. Also you would be left with more holes to fill. To remove any rivets you drill them out and can either replace them with larger rivets or stainless machine screws. As was previously stated would decks are very heavy so if at all possible use sheet aluminum but it is expensive. If you do go with plywood it is Very important to either use marine grade or to coat treated plywood ( I coated mine in truck bed liner) because the chemicals in treated lumber eat at aluminum over time. If you remove the flotation foam I would replace it either scrap foam or new pourable foam. As far as trolling motor mount I made one for my boat out of scrap aluminum by riveting it to the top of the gunnel from the outside, as well as tying it into a support bracket. it was farily simple to do and seems durable enough. Hopefully this helps, keep in mind like any boat project it'll take a whole lot more work than it looks like. |
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Posts: 129
Location: Glenmoore PA | Thanks for the all the advice guys, much appreciated! |
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