Show off your boat/trailer rigging ideas
I've seen some pretty cool custom fab jobs over the years and I thought it could be beneficial to show them off and perhaps help someone else out of a jam.
Here's one of mine :
The problem is that a Tempress (or similar) style rod holder base does not match up with the typical drift boat gunnel rail. The Tempress bolt pattern is too wide.
Often these rod holder bases get installed using two of the four bolt holes, either across the bottom or catty-corner. It works, but hey, it looks cheesy.
My solution is to fab an adapter plate that picks up the Tempress four-bolt pattern and adapts that to the gunnel rail.
The pics are of an install on a pre-Uni-Rail Willie that I did several years ago. I was relocating 2 of them and thought that I would take some pics and share.
Here's the sequence :
1. Prep the rod holder base with a chamfer bit to receive a 10-24 stainless oval head screw. You could skip this step and go with a pan head, but it looks a little nicer with an oval head that is chamfered in. You may be able to find some Torx drive or Allen drive screws for the extra-fancy look.
2. Cut some 3/16" aluminum plate to match the footprint of the rod holder base. I put in some extra handwork and got the edges accurate and gleaming. Aluminum is fun to work with. See pic #4
1/4" plate would work but it's a little out of scale for this application.
3. Drill and tap the adapter plate with a 10-24 tap at the four locations.
4. Drill and chamfer two holes, evenly spaced for 5/16" -18 flat head, stainless screws.
5. Screw the rod holder base to the adapter plate and flush cut the projecting 10-24 screws. Disassemble and not a bad idea to match-mark the screws.
6. Lightly clamp the adapter plate to the gunnel rail in the desired rod holder location. Cheat the adapter plate down so the the top of the plate is a smidge lower the the rubber gunnel cover. See pic #2
7. Mark the gunnel cover and cut or punch the gunnel cover to clear out for the 5/16 screws. I used a 3/8" grommet punch and with the cover partially removed, I backed up the punch with the edge of a 2x4.
8. Snap the gunnel cover back on, mark and prickpunch the aluminum handrail for the 5/16" screws. I used a 21/64" bit which was the next size up from 5/16" in my index to give myself a little play.
9. Bolt the adapter plate on. I used flat washers, Nylock nuts and I cut and ground the excess bolt projection. See pic #3
10. Now mount your prepped rod holder base to the adapter plate and you're done.
With Uni-Rail you would want to shift your 5/16" fasteners to the bottom side of the fin and verify clearances before drilling.
Willie uses a 1/2" x 1-1/2" channel for DB handrails.
Most others are 1/4" x 1-1/2" flat bar. With these, you could drill and tap the flat bar for the 5/16" fasteners and eliminate the nuts and washers.
I would either use thread caps or cut/file the 5/16" bolts so that they are flush.
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