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Locating Hull Ribs


Idle Days

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I’m charged with installing a washing machine in our boat. To do so I will have to drill a 22mm hole through the hull side for the drain outlet.  I need to avoid drilling through a hull rib and therefore need to locate their positions. The only way I can think of finding the position of these ribs, without removing panelling, is to use a stud finder on the inside lining and hope that I can find one sensitive enough for the task.  Has anyone a better idea before I splash out on yet more kit?

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take a chance ...........................      you've got a much better than evens chance of missing a hull stiffener.

 

the side stiffeners usually meet up with the bottom stiffeners - perhaps you have some knowledge of some of the locations, and the spacing?

 

 

......................  of course sod's law says that logic doesn't apply and you will hit the stiffener web head on   :o

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14 minutes ago, Idle Days said:

The only way I can think of finding the position of these ribs, without removing panelling, is to use a stud finder on the inside lining

A stud finder will find the timber battens to which the timber lining is attached, but is unlikely to find the steel frames to which these are attached. But you can probably find the timber battens by looking carefully for the lining fixing nails/screws or just by tapping to find the area that sounds least hollow.

 

The trouble is that while most shell builders use vertical stiffeners which coincide with the transverse frames across the bottom, a few use horizontal stiffeners, and you may not know which you have.

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Conversely, on a cold morning without the heating having been  on, put a kettle on and allow it to boil for a few minutes. The condensation on the sides and roof will occur first on the stiffening struts.

N

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On 05/05/2021 at 08:35, BEngo said:

Conversely, on a cold morning without the heating having been  on, put a kettle on and allow it to boil for a few minutes. The condensation on the sides and roof will occur first on the stiffening struts.

N

I located my roof ‘ribs’ by looking across the outside of the roof of the unheated boat on a frosty sunny morning, the frost melts last above the cold struts.  Bit late in the year for this method though.  I did mark inside the finger tip rails so now I know where they are.

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