Metal fab work

[Flukeman]

I pulled the carpet off my gunwales and found this connection. I wanted to just paint the gunwales, but thought this metal fit poses a cut hazard and looks like crap. The console on the other side provides protection over there. I tried to find some boat trim to cover the edge with no luck. Even looked at 180 pages of this forum for some clues, but no luck yet.

Any ideas other than carpet for a fix on this poor craftsmanship?

Thanks in advance

 

[gogittum]

Please tell us that's someone's sloppy add-on. Surely it didn't come from the factory like that ?? A wider area picture would help, but just going by this one, I'd drill those pop rivets out and re-do the whole thing properly.....maybe improve the design while you're at it.

 

[Flukeman]

It is on a Blue Fin and came that way from factory. The boat is built like a brick $$$$ house, so i was surprised. The boat was originally covered by carpet and had two consoles. So it was covered up and protected from hands. I got rid of the one console to open up floor plan. I also did not want more carpet. I live on a lake and have 3 boats to maintain, looking for this one to be easy care.

I never thought about having new pieces cut and reinstalling them. I was trying to find old Starcraft inner trim or some type of replacement.

Thanks for the idea.

 

[Jim]

To be honest, I’ve seen worse come from a factory.


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[Flukeman]

After looking at 200 pages of posts and gathering ideas from the community, I may have a solution. Why could I not just take some JB Weld to clean up and reshape that edge before painting. I saw a few posts where people made repairs of much more volume than what that would take?

 

[gogittum]

JB Weld is tough and very handy, but it's some brittle, too. The overlapping ends of metal will flex and the JB will likely crack....but when painted, depending on the color, they would likely be far less intrusive than the unsightly mess you have now. Sure would be nice to have a couple more pictures to work with.

 

[Flukeman]

View attachment 1

Here are a couple more pics. I did notice today that the edges across the gunwale are actually very smooth. No cut hazard there. The edges along the inside edge were never sanded and are sharp. I was only going to use JB Weld to blend in the edge of the mismatched area

Thanks

 

[poorthang]

i would add a few more rivets to suck it up tighter, then paint it with epoxy. you dont need to mount a filet board over that spot do ya? :idea:

 

[gogittum]

Man, what a mess....and to think the factory sent it out like that. I don't see any easy or practical cure for that. As said, fair it with epoxy and paint it. The hairline cracks wouldn't be nearly as noticeable. (and it might not crack) Maybe radius that sharp corner.....??

 

[Flukeman]

I looked at it some more today and really think I can remove the rivets from those two front pieces. Then I believe there is enough width two move that edge over. I would just pull it away from rub rail a little.

What do you guys think?