Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I've been working on replacing the bunks on my pontoon trailer with new 2x6 untreated spruce boards primed and sealed with 10 year deck stain. I don't want to carpet them, nor do I want to use bare boards. I chose to add sliders the entire length of the boards and went with HDPE because it 's super slick, especially when wet, making it easy to crank the 'toon onto the trailer. I'm unsure of how the HDPE will behave in 95+ degree NC heat and sun for 8 hours. Someone advised me to cut 1 1/2" slots every 24" so the strips can expand and contract without pulling against the screws. My bunks are 4 x 16' which means I need 8 96” sliders to cover all 4 bunks. I screwed them to the boards with ¼ SS panhead screws and nylock nuts, loose enough for the strips to slide freely. The heads are counter sunk, and wide enough not to be pulled thru the 1/4" slot. There is a single anchor screw in the leading end of each slider to keep the slider from moving out from under the pontoon as I load it back on the trailer. Any other advise? or issues I need to watch for?

...and from the opposing rear, the loading end.

too narrow slicks?? seems like the weight of the boat will be odd, with the force of the slicks pressing into the sides of the logs, instead of distributing weight evenly ???

im not an engineer, but i played one once, while pushing around a toy thomas the train.

You're likely to see that pretty new wood damaged from the point where the nosecone comes into contact with the wood until it slides up the bunks high enough to settle into the bunks themselves. I also can't say from here but you may or could have placed your slides where they may or may not be effective at all. As a general rule the pontoons more or less settle into center of wood of the bunks where you're set up to support the upper outside edges, which actually may or could be right only loading the boat will tell.

One other point off PlaynDoc, he may have a point HDPE is a pretty dense tough product. You may want to put a router with a radius bit to the inside corners to prevent or reduce the potential of them reflecting creases from the sharp edge of the material.

NC heat will not be a problem. I am in Jacksonville, NC and it gets plenty hot. I had those same type on another boat I had and no problems from the heat. But I would think about adding them to the inside of your boards also. As stated by someone else having them just at the top will have uneven pressure on the toons. They will not set even on the boards. That may cause a stress problem and damage the toons. That would be my thoughts. With my new toon the trailer came with the black cover over the bunk boards. That works very while also.

Looking at that set up you would be supporting your tubes on those two narrow strips which would put stress on your tubes. I would suggest putting another strip on the insides of the wood bunks and that would spread out the load.

I used the same stuff. only I covered the the entire width of the 2x6, have no problem with Nebraska heat,

its good and slippy and dosnt heart my bottom paint

So everyone seems to think it would be a good idea to add another strip on the inside of each bunk. I plan to do that.
Moregooder, how much expansion if any, do you see on your strips while the trailer is sitting in the parking area and the boat is in the water? Does 8 hours of direct sun change them any? Did you mount your strips to wood boards?

0 expansion. I mounted into pine wood boards that i sealed before I mounted the HDPE, I simply counter sunk SS screws every 16" staggering them on the 2x6. before I run the screw in I inject paint into the hole with a large bore vet needle to really seal things up (will that work, don't know, cant heart). In short I made no allowance for expansion and are boat is in the water for 9 months and the trailer sits in the Nebraska sun all that time without any problems ( 3years now)