Ray
Well-known member
About this time last summer I was sitting on a park bench enjoying a dry day when it dawned on me that right under my ass was the solution to three years of trying to deal with seating in a Black Brant that was not obnoxious in some way.
I have used pedestals mounted on plywood and those folddown plastic seats. Comfy but too big to move around when you wanted to get down into the boat. I also built boxes to store the gas can in and mounted a seat on top of that. Still in the way unless you are running the boat. Coolers, buckets, even the tried and true down on my knees were all used for seating. None of them were great ways to spend an hour running the boat to the places I liked to hunt.
So there I sat on the slats of the park bench stunned at the idea. On the way home I bought several 10 foot lengths of western red cedar firring strips. In the local home depot this is the clearest cedar I have ever seen. It is trim grade wood sold at a firring strip price.
Once home I quickly decided on the dimensions and started cutting the long pieces to match up with how wide I wanted the bench. Since the bench will sit on top of the coaming and the coaming is curved, I made the slats as long as the outside of the widest part of the open area plus the thickness of a slat plus 1/8 of an inch. This includes the thickness of the coaming on both sides. Measure twice and cut once.
I made the seat about 14 inches in width and used scraps to stack up to that measurement so that I would know how many slats I would need to cut to length.
I then had the left overs to divide into thirds and cut to about 9 inches long to use for the middle spacer pieces. The center row of spacer pieces is centered, but the outer rows of spacer pieces are about 12 inches from the inside end of the slats. I figured that most of the time my weight would be on the center portion of the bench so the short pieces didn't need to be too close to the ends.
To keep the bench from slipping off the coaming and dumping me into the bottom of the boat, I rabbited the end pieces and then screwed and glued a short piece of cedar to each end.
I used polyuethane glue to hold it all together.
The really cool thing about using the bench is that I can scoot it forward or back to get my weight where it needs to be to balance out the boat. I can also use it as a back rest for laying down in the boat. The only thing I am thinking of for this coming season is to split some garden hose and place that on the coaming to protect it.
While cutting the long slats I quickly realized that the bench would be stowable on the floor of the boat leaving the cockpit clear to be used by man and beast alike.
Sorry for not taking any picture of the build process, but below are some photos of the bench in place on the BB3 with some detail photos.
In place ontop of the coaming. I can stand on this and look over the marsh. Very little flex even with over 200 lbs in the middle.
Stowed on the floor. It will support my weight while standing on it.
Detail of one end while on coaming.
Detail of the under side of the end.
Detail of the spacer spacing and slats.
I have used pedestals mounted on plywood and those folddown plastic seats. Comfy but too big to move around when you wanted to get down into the boat. I also built boxes to store the gas can in and mounted a seat on top of that. Still in the way unless you are running the boat. Coolers, buckets, even the tried and true down on my knees were all used for seating. None of them were great ways to spend an hour running the boat to the places I liked to hunt.
So there I sat on the slats of the park bench stunned at the idea. On the way home I bought several 10 foot lengths of western red cedar firring strips. In the local home depot this is the clearest cedar I have ever seen. It is trim grade wood sold at a firring strip price.
Once home I quickly decided on the dimensions and started cutting the long pieces to match up with how wide I wanted the bench. Since the bench will sit on top of the coaming and the coaming is curved, I made the slats as long as the outside of the widest part of the open area plus the thickness of a slat plus 1/8 of an inch. This includes the thickness of the coaming on both sides. Measure twice and cut once.
I made the seat about 14 inches in width and used scraps to stack up to that measurement so that I would know how many slats I would need to cut to length.
I then had the left overs to divide into thirds and cut to about 9 inches long to use for the middle spacer pieces. The center row of spacer pieces is centered, but the outer rows of spacer pieces are about 12 inches from the inside end of the slats. I figured that most of the time my weight would be on the center portion of the bench so the short pieces didn't need to be too close to the ends.
To keep the bench from slipping off the coaming and dumping me into the bottom of the boat, I rabbited the end pieces and then screwed and glued a short piece of cedar to each end.
I used polyuethane glue to hold it all together.
The really cool thing about using the bench is that I can scoot it forward or back to get my weight where it needs to be to balance out the boat. I can also use it as a back rest for laying down in the boat. The only thing I am thinking of for this coming season is to split some garden hose and place that on the coaming to protect it.
While cutting the long slats I quickly realized that the bench would be stowable on the floor of the boat leaving the cockpit clear to be used by man and beast alike.
Sorry for not taking any picture of the build process, but below are some photos of the bench in place on the BB3 with some detail photos.
In place ontop of the coaming. I can stand on this and look over the marsh. Very little flex even with over 200 lbs in the middle.
Stowed on the floor. It will support my weight while standing on it.
Detail of one end while on coaming.
Detail of the under side of the end.
Detail of the spacer spacing and slats.
