While walking the docks at a nearby marina a fiberglass dinghy showed off a unique way to make a neat rub bumper at the sheer. This dinghy was purchased in an unfinished form – bare hull. The owner then purchased a number of feet of large diameter braided line, at least an inch thick. First he cut to length (using a heat blade to sear the nylon ends closed) two separate pieces one to go along the inside; the other to go along the outside of the sheer edge around the boat. You can just see the vertical glass edge in the photo below.
He then whipped the ends of the outside lines and left the inside bare. Then each line was clamped along the sheer, side by side after drilling a hole in the glass every 1 1 / 2 “. The next step he used fisherman braided seine twine and a big sewing needle to secure the large braided line to the hull edge, with a side to side horizontal stitch. Then he used a baseball stitch and sewed through the tops of the braided nylon to bring the line together and cover the exposed glass hull edge. You might want to lay a bead of adhesive (MMM 5200 or the like) along the exposed glass edge to lower the chance of water getting into the laminate, prior to stitching it closed.
This method is inexpensive to buy into, but some what labor intensive. The finished product is practically bullet proof, and the seine twine, as well as the large nylon braid, gets harder with age.
Attachment: SheerBumper.jpg (Downloaded 64 times) Last edited on Wed Apr 27th, 2005 01:07 am by Thom V |
