Stern, Pull Out Boat Bench

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Here is a cool job I just finished. It is a pull out boat bench for the stern of a private fishing boat. The bench has to stow, so the engines can be pulled out of the water. There is a danger that if the boat hits ground that the engines can come out quickly, it would probably knock you off the bench. This may also happen if you accidentally throw the engines into reverse. The engines can come up out of the water rather suddenly. We used to use this trick when racing through cuts, if we underestimated a turn. We would throw it into reverse, the engine would come out of the water, and the boat, would skim across the marsh. Sometimes over a hundred feet. What a job it is to get it back into the water. Lifting the boat, and moving it a foot at a time, in muddy marsh land. Ha-ha. Do not try this alone. Anyhow I went over to my friend at Mariah Metals and he bent up the pipes for this job. He has an electronic computer controlled, European bender, that does a really nice job of keeping the pipe round through the bend. http://www.mariahmetal.com/The owner and I talked about this design and we both came up with great ideas. So I drew up what I thought we talked about, e-mailed them to him and he loved it. The hinges have to allow for a two inch boat cushion when it is stowed away. When they are seated, in the bench position, on Teflon stops, they were even stronger then I thought they would be. I had to extend the hinges on one side to make them big enough, to go around the cushion, when it is in the upright position. I bought the standard butt hinges from Guden. They cost around fifteen dollars a piece. Stainless Steel, one eighth inch thick material. The pin is quarter inch thick. I live pretty close to the warehouse so I drove over and got them. But they sell by mail order too. http://www.guden.com/control-Home.aspxThese particular hinges do not come polished. So I had to weld them, grind them and polish them. I polished them with an orbiting disc sander, used in both disc sander mode, and in orbiting vibrating disc mode. I use bees wax when using the sander in spinning disc mode with no vibrating action.I used 60 grit 3" Rolock type 3M sanding discs in a high speed right angle pneumatic grinder. To get the surface pretty even.  I used 120 grit, in the pneumatic auto body sander, to take out the scratches from the sixty grit, Rolock discs. Then used 220 grit paper to remove the 120 grit marks in orbiting, vibrating mode. Then I used Eastwood's black emery, rouge. Followed by the white rouge. I did not even use the intermediate grey stainless rouge. The bow rail tubing comes with a polish on it. But it is a course finish. Not a true "A" mirror finish. I felt it best to match that finish. I used a small polishing wheel a four inch wheel, in an air drill to polish them. http://www.Eastwood.com I used Teflon shims underneath all the hinges to take up the space caused by the strange shape of the fiberglass panel.        Sincerely,             William McCormick
Reply:That is very nice William. I'ld like to see pics of the finished bench, if possible. Good work. City of L.A. Structural; Manual & Semi-Automatic;"Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place where gold is refined. Iron is taken from the earth, and copper is smelted from ore."Job 28:1,2Lincoln, Miller, Victor & ISV BibleDanny
Reply:Originally Posted by tanglediverThat is very nice William. I'ld like to see pics of the finished bench, if possible. Good work.