Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Have a source for some .080 alum sheet . Getting it gratis which makes it all the better .
Anyone have experience or feedback on using .080 for under skin material ?

That should work fine! I used it to make anti splash, jack plate shields and transom plates when I blueprinted my first SHP for Manitou. Do yourself a future favor and used self drilling sheet metal screws instead of rivets, just in case you need to pop the sheets loose for future add-ons.

Thanks. Yea, will be using TEKS in place of rivets and also a bead of 3M UV 4000 .
I know I know, there some out there that claim TEKS are a bad idea. Well, if they wanna use rivets so be it. I'm using TEKS 410 stainless 1" #10.

[quote="Soonertoon"]Thanks. Yea, will be using TEKS in place of rivets and also a bead of 3M UV 4000 .
I know I know, there some out there that claim TEKS are a bad idea. Well, if they wanna use rivets so be it. I'm using TEKS 410 stainless 1" #10.[/quote]


Teks are perfect!!!

I ran flat head stainless screws on my first setup with .044 only lost 2 after 3 years but quite a few were loose. With my newest setup I use Aluminum rivets to hold on .090. The .044 worked ok on 24" centers but did develop a curve on the 2 rear most spans. .090 is complete overkill but the price was right at Bill's in Missouri for a 5x10 sheet when I picked up my Scratch n' dent tubes. I can't use tek style screws because my rack/trolley system at the lake holds the pontoon by the cross members and the screw heads would hang up on the carpeted bunks.

I ran with aluminum flashing for 2 or 3 years. Worked pretty well, but eventually oil-canned and tore.
Now experimenting with galvanized steel (it was relatively inexpensive).

I used 3/16" Magna-Loc aluminum large-head structural rivets as recommended by others on this forum. For a panel I might want to remove later, I drilled and tapped and then used #8 x 24 threaded SS screws with rubber washers and liquid thread locker. Panels were .063 aluminum. I butted the panels tightly to each other and did not overlap them. It's working great.

There are lots of diffrent approaches being used. I got all my ideas off this forum and am happy with the results. I considered using self-tapping screws but read about too many having them back out. The aluminum channels are typically not that thick and you need enough thread contact to keep the screws from vibrating loose and backing out. It's really easy to over tighten and strip the threads, too.

To each his own.

I used aluminum rivets and when I needed to remove the skin I drilled them out and replaced them with more rivets.... none have came loose.