How to brace a jon boat after bench removal

This is my Sea Nymph Traveler 14' trout slayer. I took out my wood floors because they were too heavy and removed the middle bench to open up some floor space. I have almost driven myself crazy trying to find aluminum hat channel to use as stringers. I need to add a couple for support in place of the bench that I removed. Once I can find some suitable stringer material, I am going to lay foam between them and then lay an aluminum floor. Has anyone came across any of this? Where can I buy it? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Where are you located?

I generally brake form the channels whenever making floor ribs.

In many cases, the boat manufacturer is going to have proprietary dies for their particular hat section. That means they have absolute rights to that die, so no one else could get a run of that shape without investing in new dies. And, being boat manufacturers, and not aluminum distributors, it isn't worth their time to sell specialty shapes, so finding replacements is tough.

That being said, there are 'some' available hat sections. I've seen them, in very small quantities, as the demand is next to nothing, in the stock at your 'average' steel distributor/retailer in coastal Alaska. That being said, back on this side of the country, I haven't been able to find a distributor (or retailer, for that matter), that has access to that shape.

Your best bet is to find someone to brake them out of sheet. I would recommend making the channel quite a bit wider than the original, unless you know the shops capability. To get the common 1.5 wide by 1.5 tall, the shop will need gooseneck punches on their press brake, and for some reason, a lot of shops don't own those, or you'd be paying a higher amount for a tooling change, as they don't keep the gooseneck punch on the machine for day to day operation.

By making the width wider (say 3-4"), any shop with a press brake can bend them with conventional punches, and your common 8 way lower die. Furthermore, you are only making the rib stronger than what was there originally.

Hope this helps.

Bassboy1, thanks for the info. I am located close to Little Rock Arkansas. They don't need to be exactly the same as the ones that are already on there. I was just hoping to find something similar that would work. A straight piece of aluminum hat channel would work as long as I could heat it and bend the angles. When I took the bench out I was assuming that something like that wouldn't be too hard to find. Apparantly I was wrong in that assumption. Any Ideas on what else I could use to brace it that would still be lightweight? I have a steel sign post that is hat channel but it is really heavy.

Any other ideas on how to brace this thing after taking the middle bench out? I'm sure that it would be structurally sound enough to take out on the water, but the flex that it has will definitely make my rivets start leaking if I dont brace it. I would also hate to run up on a stup without some braces.

You may also try a scrap yard.
My local scrap yard always has beat up Jon's in there.
If you have a similar scrap yard they may let you rob some ribs out of a boat.
They typically sell aluminum by the pound for scrap prices.
This may be a long shot but you might get lucky.
Just an idea!

I agree with Txtightliner. If that isn't an option, how about just finding some plain aluminum channel which is certainly more common and have it cut and welded in.

You say your in Little Rock.Seems like more Alu.boats are built in Ar. than any place.Have you contacted some of those Manufacters,, If you can weld alu get a piece of channel put on work bench C down get 2 pieces of angle alu. put one on either side of channel and weld..Homemade Hat channel..probably a bit more expensive but It can be way stronger.depending on material used..Looks like a wide span Stronger might be better..My 2C.cva34

Try Google "aluminum hat channel" there's lots there

Thanks for the tips yall. I'm off to find me a scrapyard. If I can't find anything, I'm gonna look into buying some aluminum brazing rods. There was a guy at our annual big buck classic that was giving a demonstration on how good that stuff works. I'll practice on a few pieces first but it looked pretty easy. Has anyone had any luck with that stuff? Then I could do something like cva34 was talking about.

metallhead79 said:

Thanks for the tips yall. I'm off to find me a scrapyard. If I can't find anything, I'm gonna look into buying some aluminum brazing rods. There was a guy at our annual big buck classic that was giving a demonstration on how good that stuff works. I'll practice on a few pieces first but it looked pretty easy. Has anyone had any luck with that stuff? Then I could do something like cva34 was talking about.

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I doubt you are going to have much luck with the brazing rods. About the only success stories I've heard of that were all at boat shoes, or other outdoor expos.

However, you could use the same method cva34 mentioned, just with pop rivets. Once you lay the pieces up like he mentioned, you'll have one leg of the angle up against the flange of the channel, and can simply rivet them together. It will likely be more expensive, and definitely a lot heavier than getting a shop to brake out some hat sections, but will certainly get the job done, and won't be lacking in the strength department.

What about using some channel, or square tube, with a piece of flat aluminum stock welded to the bottom? It wouldn't exactly be a 'hat channel' but the flat stock would give you a flange to be able to attach to the boat, and the tube or channel would act as the structural member, where you could tie your floor in to that.

See them ideas keep comeing in .And like them.."Theres More than one Way to Skin a Cat"...The Only ? I stll have is how do you intend to install That rib when you get it made/found..Weld or Rivet..cva34

I'm going to order some muggy weld or alumaweld and practice up a little to see if that will work. If not, I will be riveting it in.

I have used Alumaweld and it was a little more challenging than what you would think. It may work well for an Aluminum coke can like you see at boat shows, but I gave up trying to plug some easy holes I had in one of my benches.

To use it, I'd recommend Mapp gas instead of propane since it will get hotter and you have to scrape the heated surface with the Alumaweld rod to get it to start to melt.

I hope it works for you, I just didn't have the patience for it. Rivets have worked faster, stronger, and cheaper for me.