spacers

[dreadnought]

morning all, i managed to upload a photo of my engine for my last thread(raw to keel)hope this helps with the conversion, and many thanks for the positive comments its a big help.

what does the forum think of using spacers between the ballast and the base plate, i,ll be using 600mmx600mm slabs,cheers for now

 

[stagedamager]

I lifted mine slightly to avoid moisture traps. Just in case.

[Phil Ambrose]

Agreed, spacers are good.

Phil

[bottle]

Ditto.

[Murflynn]

if you can use large intact slabs it would be foolish not to use spacers, such as lengths of electric cable.

 

if, like some boats (eg Liverpool Boats), you use broken slabs then there is not much benefit. I never understood why they didn't adjust the bottom stiffener spacing to suit the slab size, or vice versa.

[Bee]

A couple of coats of paint first, I used water tank paint just because I had a big tin and raise the slabs up to avoid nasty damp spots, maybe broke ceramic tiles or something?

[Jess--]

Pipe clips (designed to clip up 15mm pipe) laid flat are ideal to put in as spacers, minimal surface contact and usually strong enough to not deform under the weight of the ballast (cheap from builders merchants too)

[Guest]

I have seen people use the cross shaped plastic tile spacers. Seemed like a good cheap solution to me?

[John V]

Yup......space.......the final frontier

[blackrose]

if, like some boats (eg Liverpool Boats), you use broken slabs then there is not much benefit. I never understood why they didn't adjust the bottom stiffener spacing to suit the slab size, or vice versa.

 

Because the baseplate stiffener spacing is determined by boat building standards and required stiffness, not by concrete paving slab sizes, and conversely I imagine concrete slab sizes are based paving standards, not boats?

 

There's probably just not adequate demand to make concrete paving slabs specifically for boats. Or nobody's thought of it?

 

I disagree that broken slabs wouldn't benefit from being lifted on spacers. I've had water under broken slabs and it can stay there for quite a while.

I have seen people use the cross shaped plastic tile spacers. Seemed like a good cheap solution to me?

 

Not really thick enough are they? It's better than nothing I suppose, but I'd want at least 5mm spacing.

Edited June 27, 2015 by blackrose

[Murflynn]

 

Because the baseplate stiffener spacing is determined by boat building standards and required stiffness, not by concrete paving slab sizes, and conversely I imagine concrete slab sizes are based paving standards, not boats?

 

There's probably just not adequate demand to make concrete paving slabs specifically for boats. Or nobody's thought of it?

 

I disagree that broken slabs wouldn't benefit from being lifted on spacers. I've had water under broken slabs and it can stay there for quite a while.

 

 

My broken slabs (10ft widebeam 2005) varied from 12" x 12" to fragments including a lot of 'crumbs'.

They could have used 18" slabs or 500mm slabs, but chose to use 24" commonly used slabs and break them up. Or maybe they bought broken slabs cheap.

Actually there is no reason why the 24" spacing could not have been extended to 26", all they had to do was run a check calculation and use the appropriate angle section for the slightly increased spacing.