Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Just about to do my first full railing install (I did a partial on my last boat). Anyone have any advice on this?
Here's my game plan so far:
Probably going to mount hinges and latches beforehand, with rails standing on a flat surface, using shims and clamps. For the actual install, I am thinking of running the floor bolts from the doors outward so that at least the door gaps are perfectly straight regardless of any slight whoopdies elsewhere.
I will be loving my close-quarter right angle drill (shown earlier) for this. Of course I have floor spacers etc…and plenty of beer.

We bolted all the main parts together on the toon and then made final adjustments on it, made sure the doors where right, our hinges were still on, then we started in the back and worked our way foward using the spacers to move it up off the deck for drainage

HandymanHerb wrote:We bolted all the main parts together on the toon and then made final adjustments on it, made sure the doors where right, our hinges were still on, then we started in the back and worked our way foward using the spacers to move it up off the deck for drainage

Thanks for the advice, bro.
That is sort of what I started doing already. The rear half was drilled to the floor with no spacers a few weeks ago.
The front half with three doors hasn't been done yet. I just want to put hinges, latches etc... on first and keep the bulk of the metal off the boat. I can even predrill the bottom rail for the floor bolts with a bit of calcutrating.
Then fit the front half to the boat and drill the wood for the floor bolts, paying closest attention to the doors first and then working away from them.
Then remove everything, clean and reassemble with spacers. Even more fun with spacers-my rails get mounted on TOP of the rub rail but only part of the time, so I get the privilege of using two different thicknesses of spacers. Yay me

Herb, did you end up making any final 'adjustments' like ovaling out a hole or two?
I can see that being possible as bolts are tightened and slack gets 'multiplied'.

tuned wrote:

HandymanHerb wrote:We bolted all the main parts together on the toon and then made final adjustments on it, made sure the doors where right, our hinges were still on, then we started in the back and worked our way foward using the spacers to move it up off the deck for drainage

Thanks for the advice, bro.


Herb, did you end up making any final 'adjustments' like ovaling out a hole or two?
I can see that being possible as bolts are tightened and slack gets 'multiplied'.

Didn't have to adjustment drilling, maybe we were just lucky, the only holes we had to drill were through the floor, now we did have a few bolts that were hard to get to, but we got them in with minimal cussing

post some pics of the new fence, I got mine in on saturday but they sent me the wrong color, so hopefully they will be able to get the right ones out asap, luckily for me I sill had my "sold" boat so was able to go out this weekend

tuned wrote:Even more fun with spacers-my rails get mounted on TOP of the rub rail but only part of the time, so I get the privilege of using two different thicknesses of spacers. Yay me
.

Tuned,

Did you buy different thickness spacers or just cut some in half? I haven't looked through the spacers I have yet, but Mine will be mounting the same way. Sides will be on the rub rail and the front / rear will be on the deck itself.

Thanks and good luck with the install.

fergusmj wrote:

tuned wrote:Even more fun with spacers-my rails get mounted on TOP of the rub rail but only part of the time, so I get the privilege of using two different thicknesses of spacers. Yay me
.

Tuned,

Did you buy different thickness spacers or just cut some in half? I haven't looked through the spacers I have yet, but Mine will be mounting the same way. Sides will be on the rub rail and the front / rear will be on the deck itself.

Thanks and good luck with the install.

I survived the install, but just barely
I did indeed buy both 1/2" and 3/8" spacers to use as required. In addition, I actually used a saw on a couple and made several 'step-down' spacers that were half of each thickness. They worked great, but were a pain in the patookas.

Thanks for the info. Looking forward to pictures!