Re: Footbrace mounting st

Posted by LeeG on Apr 19, 2005

You can do the same with ss T-nuts but instead of reducing valuable footroom further by mounting them in thick wood,(footbraces cut down foot room enough already),mount the t-nut in a small pile of glass thickened with cabosil. You'll have to drill out the holes in the yakimas to make it fit. I haven't done any destructive testing with it but it's held up in a few boats. I've mounted the footrails so they touch the bulkhead. Here's the sequence, bend the tangs down on the t-nuts so it's a flat flange. Cut a few 2" diameter pieces of 6oz glass cloth(5?) or 3" 9oz tape(3?). Push the t-nut through the small stack of glasscloth/tape. Put hull on side(easier before deck goes on), sand area where nuts will go, put some silicone sealant on screw threads, cut 4" square/round piece of plastic sheeting with hole for t-nut in the middle, push plastic over t-nut and onto glass pad, mix up mustard thickness epoxy/cabosil, holding t-nut on plastic sheeting side slather up fiberglass, attach t-nut to yakima rail with screw but don't tight down too tight only enough to get the lubed screw down far enough to prevent epoxy from going up into the t-nut, make sure not to allow silicone to get onto anything being glued. The plastic sheet keeps the epoxy off of the rail,,you have to drill out the tapped hole in the yakima rail to fit the 1/4" t-nut. On top of the exposed t-nut put down a couple pieces (2" round) of tape so that the t-nut has glass between it and the hull. Now that the rail has two t-nuts with glass/plastic/epoxy on them you place that mess onto the sanded patches, put a pound weight on the rail,,if you've put too much epoxy in the glass (not possible!) and squish the excess epoxy up against the rail. Not for structural reasons it's just that if you put too much epoxy in the mess it'll smear out everywhere making sharp edges so this is a way to reduce sanding concrete hard epoxy. If it turns out you wan't to reposition a bulkhead or put in blocks of foam for whole foot support the 1/2" tall t-nuts won't provide much obstruction. The only hard part is finding 1/4" screws that will fit far enough in the t-nut. I think a 3/4" pan head (carriage?) screw only goes down a few turns and a 1" requires a few washers.

In Response to: Re: Footbrace mounting st by Brett on Apr 19, 2005

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