A neat wood floor project.....

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PSG-1

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Here's some pictures of a wood floor I put in my girlfriend's War Eagle about 2 years ago.

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It was done with 1x4" Norwegian Pine. All the boards were stained, and then coated with tung oil on both sides before installation. Underneath the boards, between each set of ribs in the floor, I added 1 1/2" polystyrene foam board.

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The boards were attached to the ribs with self tapping hex head SS screws, counterbored holes, then the holes plugged with short pieces of wood dowel after installing the screws.

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Then I used some wooden quarter round molding around all the edges, just to dress it up some more.
Anywhere I couldn't fit any trim, I used clear "lexel" sealant.

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The seams between the boards were so tight, water wouldn't even flow through them. But the main objective was getting rid of the trip hazard by covering the exposed ribs.

I could have used plywood, but often when plywood gets wet, the edges distort or even de-laminate. An aluminum floor could have been fabricated, but that would be at least 300 dollars in just materials. So, I think this was the best method, not to mention the best looking method. Heck, this floor looks good enough to put in a house!
 
Forget the deck, where did you find a girlfriend that comes with a boat?

Inquiring minds want to know. :lol: :lol:
 
Well, she's always had boats, ever since I met her.

Her boat before this was a 16 foot Crestliner. I bought that boat for 500 dollars, from my doctor, he's brought numerous things to my shop to be welded over the years. His son had beat the heck out of that boat, and they had all the insides of it gutted, all the paneling and foam had been pulled out of the hull.

We put everything back together, and as we were putting it back together, I told my girlfriend that it needed foam under the floors and in the sides. She disagreed with that. Well, about a year later, we had a heavy rain, and the boat sank at the dock. And when I say "sank" I mean all the way, to the bottom. That was a PITA, getting that boat back up. Not long after it sank, she decided to get rid of it, and get the War Eagle.
 
Very very very nice work. My only concern would be exchanging a tripping hazard for a slipping hazard. Will you need to apply any anti-slip strips for when it gets wet? The black ones would look nice.
 
That is a sexy floor....very nice. I had actually wondered if anyone had done this, thinking it would look nice. And I had the thought, this is essentially how floors were done in ships and sailboats for years, so it can't be too bad of a method.

I am curious of combating the slipping hazard...I just may have to do this on my 14' valco.
 
PATRIOT2 said:
Very very very nice work. My only concern would be exchanging a tripping hazard for a slipping hazard. Will you need to apply any anti-slip strips for when it gets wet? The black ones would look nice.


We never had an issue with it being slippery, but then again, we were aware of that potential, and were always cautious when moving about in that boat. That said, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to put some anti-skid material on the surface of the boards. They make a granular material that you apply to coatings on garage floors, this would probably work if you sprinkled it onto the coating of tung oil before it dried. Of course, good old coarse grade sand (like pool filter sand) would probably work just as well.

Much to my dismay, my girlfriend got rid of that boat several months ago, but I completely understand why. That Tracker 40 HP ran like a POS from day one, and she had finally gotten fed up with it. We went through the carbs, we changed the head gasket, tried everything, but it had a horrible sputter at high speed. And being that I have a 16 foot Triton with a 50 merc, as well as my Aluma-Jet, I let her adopt the Triton as her boat whenever she needs a boat to go out in the creek, as I use my jetboat a lot more than I do the Triton.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, I talked to someone who bought that War Eagle, he runs an auto repair shop. He told me that they checked over the engine, and had come to find out that the magnets in the flywheel had come apart, and that's what was causing the issue with the timing/firing. Dang it! Something simple, that I overlooked. Anyhow, when I saw the boat, I noticed that the floor was still in there, not quite as pretty as when we first installed it, but still holding up nicely.
 
Jdholmes said:
That is a sexy floor....very nice. I had actually wondered if anyone had done this, thinking it would look nice. And I had the thought, this is essentially how floors were done in ships and sailboats for years, so it can't be too bad of a method.

I am curious of combating the slipping hazard...I just may have to do this on my 14' valco.



Thanks for the compliments!

And you're right, this is pretty much how decks were done in ships for a long time, heck, even the hulls were built like this, they used a packing called oakum between the seams to seal them water tight.
 
JBooth said:
That's the best looking floor I've seen in a flat boat. Great Job! =D>

Once again, thanks for the compliments! Definitely came out better than if I had decided to use plywood.

The biggest PITA was notching the outside boards to fit around the vertical ribs. The rest was pretty easy, though.
 
Ya know, I never bothered to do a price comparison when we did that project, but I know that marine grade plywood ain't cheap! And it's hard to find a piece of plywood at Home Depot or Lowe's that isn't wopped, de-laminating, or some other issue. You'd think for what you pay, it would be better. but I digress.

If memory serves me correctly, I want to say the 8 foot 1x4 boards were only about 5 dollars a piece. So, I'm thinking the material cost was roughly equivalent to what it would have been for plywood. But the beauty of the slat design is that if any part of it gets cracked, warped, waterlogged, etc, it's a simple matter of replacing that one board. Also, if you booger up on a cut or a notch, it's just one board to do over, not a whole sheet of plywood.
 
This is the style I'd use. It's a little harder to find than the mineral coated tape but it's easier on bare feet and cleans up easier as well. If you contact 3M they will even send free samples.
 

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I think I would just mix some grit with the surface coat. Adding tape would take too much away from the look. Just my opinion.
 
Jdholmes said:
That is a sexy floor....very nice. I had actually wondered if anyone had done this, thinking it would look nice. And I had the thought, this is essentially how floors were done in ships and sailboats for years, so it can't be too bad of a method.

I am curious of combating the slipping hazard...I just may have to do this on my 14' valco.


I had heard that prior to being boarded for conflict, bucanneers would dump bucket-fulls of sand on the decks. The sand would provide footing and absorb blood on the slickened decks. Not suggesting you dump sand in your boat. Just some random, trival thought which ran through my head while reading this post. Oh...cool floor. Cooler Girlfriend. :wink:
 
That was a good looking deck. I wouldn't have worried about messing up the appearance of it with the non-slip junk, if you wear gum rubber deck/boating shoes you'd be fine.

The only thing I see that I'd have done different would have been putting a bilge drain in it in the center at the back for rain and splash water drainage.

PSG-1 said:
Jdholmes said:
I think I would just mix some grit with the surface coat. Adding tape would take too much away from the look. Just my opinion.


I agree with that, adding tape would detract from the overall look.

Grit won't stick to Tung oil like it does urethane or epoxy... it's an oil.
 
Yes, after installing that floor, the seams were so tight, it held water, so, we did end up cutting a rectangular slot, and covering it with heavy gauge stainless mesh for a drain in the rear center of the floor.

TRUE tung oil is an oil, but the polymerated grade of tung oil is a little different. It's like polyurethane, but the difference is that polymerated tung oil allows any air bubbles to rise to the top, and not get caught in the finish like polyurethane does.

But if you want the ultimate surface finish that would be almost bulletproof, and would also adhere to a non skid additive, would be the 2-part clear resin finish, like you sometimes see used on wood tables in restaurants.
 

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