What should I do to get new foam in under these seats?Pics

Hello,

As you can see in these pics, what looks to be the original foam under these seats has just fallen out.

What should I do to get foam back under them?

Take seats off?

ya unbolt the seats and slide the wood out, put new foam and replace seat board.

Thank you so very much.

The boat is 100 miles from me and I did not have the time to investigate how the foam is mounted underneath the seats, as you can see, it has fallen out from under the seat. I had no idea that the seats could be unbolted, I thought they were riveted into place.

Now, should I just buy a log of the blue syrofoam that is used for docks?, cut it to fit?

I'm sure your seats are riveted, unless they've been removed in the past and the rivets replaced with SS nuts and bolts.

It looks like the side plates of your seats (front and back) have been removed, why someone would do this I don't know. You can make new ones out of 1/2" plywood, sealed with exterior grade Spar urethane. Fasten them to your bench and use some aluminum angle on your port and starboard sides to fasten them to your boat.

You're going to need a rivet tool (gun) and 100 or so closed end blind rivets to attach the seats back to the boat and the angles to the hull. If you have an aluminum boat a rivet gun and an assortment of rivets are very handy to have.

You can buy the gun and rivets here:
https://www.rivetsonline.com/rivets-en/blind-rivets-en.html

Be sure to use the closed end blind rivets because they're waterproof and very strong. The 3/16" diameter rivets should be fine for your boat.

As for the foam, you can use the pink or blue rigid insulation from Lowes or Home Depot. Buy the 2" thick stuff and cut it to size.

Thanks jigngrub.

So the side plates, if I understand, there were aluminum sheets that fit under the seats to help hold those foam blocks underneath the seats and for some odd reason, someone must have taken them out?

I'm pretty sure the seats are still riveted in. I thought they might have been carraige bolted but I doubt anyone has taken those seats off.

With the 2" rigid sheets of foam, would I have to cut and layer that stuff to build up to the correct size?

Thundra said:

Thanks jigngrub.


With the 2" rigid sheets of foam, would I have to cut and layer that stuff to build up to the correct size?

Click to expand...

Yes you wil, like a stack of rectangular pancakes. But the stuff cuts easy, real easy.

Welcome to Tinboats!

It looks like the seat "pans"(metal to hold foam in place), were galvanized steel rather than alum., based on all the rust showing. They may have rotted where the screws that held them in place were and let the foam drop down. You could replace them with plywood, aluminum, or try to salvage the existing pcs if You don't want to put much money in it. The best way would be to bend up new pans out of .063 alum. sheet with a lip bent on both top & bottom egdes to increase rigidity since they also provide support for the seat board itself. I'm not good with the "Paint" screen on the computor, so envision 2 pcs. of metal bent with 1" lips at both top and bottom to form a "c" channel, with the distance between the bends the same as the thickness of the foam under the seat. The "c"s would face each other under the seat, next attach theses to the seat bottom and fill with the cut pcs. of foam. Next rivet a couple of 2" strips across the bottoms of the pans to keep them from spreading apart over time and to help retain the foam. Slide the seats back into the brackets on the sides of the hull and fasten in place.
The boat looks like an old Starcraft I once had the had the same problem, and that's the way the seats were done in it. Good Luck and Great Fishing

You guys are all truly excellent, thank you for all the suggestions and advice, I totally appreciate it as I know next to nothing on how to even begin with this boat. I am handy though.

I will probably be heading down to the boat sometime this weekend and I'll see what I can get started with and maybe will even put the boat in my truck and bring it home so I can take my time on weeknights and work on it a little at a time. I'd really like to get the foam back under the seats for safety.

I took a closer look this past Saturday and the seats are all held in with bolts and there were no holes for any rivets along the seats at all meaning there were NO sheets of metal to hold the foam blocks in place at all.

It looks like the foam was attached to a board and then the board slips in underneath the seat in 2 channels (Why I took no pictures this Saturday is beyond me), and then the board is through bolted, twice in each end then once with a bigger carriage bolt that also goes through the gunwale-strap too.

I think I'm going to have to find the right thickness/sized wood plank, attach the foam to the plank and then bolt it all back up again that way.

I would definitely want some kind of protective panels over the foam to keep them from getting damaged from just regular use. You could probably get by with using some aluminum flashing material (think gutters, roofs, etc.) to protect the foam.

I took all the seats out as they were all just bolted in with S/S nuts/bolts.




The seats with all the wood/foam off the bottoms of them;