Asking advice on difficult mod - making new curved screen etc

jfm

jfm

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Anyone got any clever ideas about how to do what I am finding the most difficult of boat mods.

I want to make/have made a more vertical taller windscreen on the flybridge helm of Sq58. The standard low windscreen means 20-30kts wind in your face, tiring. I want it to look/feel like a centre console outboard boat, with a helm "desk" with a near-vertical screen, in heat-curved perspex, with a stainless steel hoop-bar across the top. So you're fully behind the screen when sitting, and look over it while standing.

Making the stainless steel is easy but getting the perspex/acrylic to fit neatly to the GRP moulding along the bottom is tricky. I want it to look completely pukka. I cannot just get a wider sheet of perspex and continue the angle of the current screen cos it is too raked-back. I might need someone who can thermo form a sheet of perspex into compound curves, eek. Doing 2 D curves is easy - I have done this using wooden formers and heat gun and got good results. Doing compound cusrves is a different ball game. Know anyone?

My other ideas are
(a) cast a female GRP mould off my existing boat (or off Fairline's mould if they will lend it to me now that they dont make Sq58s anymore), then cast a new male helm from that mould, then adapt the shape of that helm with filler, router, and other toolmaking etc, then make a new female mould off that modified helm, then mould a new finished helm desk. Big job, I dont have time, would subcontract out.
(b) Same technique as (a), but just make a filler strip piece that I fasten along the top of my dash, then fit the acrylic to that

There are lots of clever boat menders/restorers here, BurgundyBen, Firefly, and others. Any bright ideas?

Pics below. Please excuse the crude stainless bar added by me (using Paint) in the second pic!

dash2.jpg

dash-1.jpg
 
Vaccum forming seems the way to go. But the mould would cost a fortune for a one off.

My screen works well, but it's raked forwards.Saying that it works well, is not quite right. It throws the wind over the helm position, then deposits it on the folk on the rear seat. Course theres nearly never anyone on the rear seat, so no bother.

Just wondering, being as your boat is bigger. If your screen is depositing the wind in you face. Can that be altered??
 
I'd look at classic car restorers - I don't know the cost but I know there's people that will completely reproduce an out of production windscreen in laminated glass, even without an original as template sometimes.
 
I had exactly the same wind problem with mine.
I was just 2 inches too tall and stuck above the w/s.

I took a completely different approach to the solution and I lowered the helm seat 3 inches.

As long as there will be enough room for your knees this could be the more sensible option and you could even move your helm seat back a few inches to compensate ?

You could jig saw the centre of your seat mount , take 2-3 inches out and then re join, the majority of the join will be hidden inside the helm seat locker.

You could even remould the seat 2-3 inches less but I doubt it is required, a good cut and join will be almost invisible.
 
Have you looked at Lexan for the screen?
That is what is normally used for "perspex" screens. I replaced the screen on my Nimbus Nova recently and was expecting a screen curved to the shape. It arrived as a flat piece of Lexan and I had to bend it around the curve. It was scary and I was half expecting to hear a crack, but it worked fine with no heat being applied.
The same as this one here:

1.gr.jpg
 
There is a company called "taylor made" they have a base in ireland, talk to them they are very helpful, when I broke my screen on the mainship they gave the best advise ever on the phone for about an hour, really nice guys with lots of experince.

Tom
 
This might not be what you want in terms of visual impact but would it be possible to do something to the moulding in front of the console to push the air up over your head and give you a very cool look of having no screen at all, like this porker:

porsche-rs-spyder-04.jpg
 
[ QUOTE ]
crude stainless bar added by me

[/ QUOTE ]Could you post also the original with no s/s bar?
I have half an idea which I would try to photoshop, to see if it makes sense....
 
jfm,
....clever boat mender/restorer Firefly.... crumbs my waffle has done great things for my credibility... now it might be dashed as I can see the dilemma,
I can certainly see why you would want the screen higher....but the angle that the small screen that currently is fitted is too raked, so there needs to be a bend, but then the screen drops down either edge...I don't think that bend is going to be possible around the edges....and as for making a whole new helm station... wow.

But my brain tends to work on simple fixes. So have the bottom edge of the new larger / taller screen narrower than the rest of it so it is not dropping down at either edge. But then just up from the edge which is fixed to the help station, approx 100mm up, make the screen immediately wider after the initial bend and the extra width wrapping around slightly at the edges.... I might have to draw this... not sure how I can post it though. However if done right this could be made without the fabricators having access to the boat as the measurements would be fairly easy to calculate. By the looks of it the current small screen is recessed into the grp so if you are worried that around the edges that previously had screen it will leave a gap you could always get a couple of stainless or teak fillers made.. might look quite smart.

I imagined the stainless tubing/surround as more of this type of look, so not attached as that can lead to more design issues, but as a surround/protector of the screen...:
144928_p_t_640x480_image06.jpg


As for the acrylic moulding, as you say, it needs to be professional job, so companies like these in the uK;

talkingplastics;

or even better, but unfortunately in the states;Spartech
 
Maybe use a much bigger piece of perspex, and have the base of it where the beige pad is, half way down the front of the helm console. It would then be a much simpler 2D bend, but may be too much acreage of perspex, and also maybe a dirt trap between the inside bottom edge of the screen, and the front face of the helm console.
 
The pic is below Mapis, thanks

Thnaks for all the advice. I like the Lexan idea and yes I might try not to attach the s/s bar to the lexan panel. Thanks also for the idea of lowering the seat but I would need to drop it 10 inches and I dont want to do that - prefer to make a screen

dash3.jpg
 
Thnaks Firefly. Useful stuff. The acrylic in your pic looks very thick, like 10mm - nice. Thnaks also for the links.

Developing your idea, I think I should make a white triangle section, like a 2m long slightly flexy Toblerone bar. with a 50x50x50mm triangle section. Attach that tot he GRP helm where the perspex is currently attached, to make the screen angle more vertical. Then fair the ends of the Toblerone bar so it tapers/blends into nothing as the tight curve either side of the helm moulding is reached. Then attach the perspex to the Toblerone, so the Toblerone is sandwiched twixt perspex and helm GRP. I think the perspex wd be formed in 2D curvature, and the side bits would fold around like a classic centre console boat and would follow the line of the current GRP moulding. If I made the Toblerone bar first I could then make the screen template in cardboard then 2mm MDF I think. The Toblerone bar itself could be hidden on the instruments side by a s/s polished sheet trim piece, plasma cut from a template, or something

It would sort of look like this, and if it didn't I wouldn't have done anything irreversible

I'd do it in clear not blue tint, btw, and am happy to heat-form the two creases as I've done that before without difficulty (using acrylic). The stainless bar would be easy to have made once I'd got this far. The best material for the toblerone bar might be solid Nylon bar/rod, avaialbe easily in sizes like 80mm diameter quite cheaply, in colours black and natural. Eg from www.metals4u.co.uk. I'd make the toblerone section by running it down a milling machine, easy peasy.

dash3-1.jpg
 
I agree - the curved screen on Princess works well and indeed shoots the air over the helm.

This is exactly the same technique that is used on ocean vessel bridge wings when you can walk out at ships speed into a full gale and not get your steaming bonnet blown off.


jfms idea of the centre consol screen would look dead neat methinks as the helm station is too far aft from the front 'dogger' screen for the princess type / ht to work.
Not sure
 
[ QUOTE ]
jfms....helm station is too far aft from the front 'dogger' screen for the princess type / ht to work.
Not sure

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly mjf. I have the dogger screen already, but there's a sunpad behind it and then the helm. Folks on the sunpad are wind free, but then the wind whacks the helmsman!
 
Thats what I was trying to explain, even though your head is above the screen, there is no wind., however, further back, there is twice as much.

Maybe jfm has a Hairgonomiks problem. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Anyway last I knew, he wanted it in 3D. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
Good idea, anything to make the bend easier. Indeed the Toblerone bar idea would work nicely, (just a suggestion, could this be made in teak?...would it be nicer if it was? ).

With your solution it once again makes the fabrication of the screen a much simpler affair. Very good.

As a finishing touch I would be tempted to get the stainless tubing at the top horizontal section where it can be used as a steadying handrail, covered in suede... but then I am a bit of a tart.
 
Aarumph!
The awful pic below is not really what I had in mind, but I forgot that I'm reinstalling the home pc at the mo, so I don't have the proper tools available. And MS paint drives me nuts in less than a minute.
Anyway, the idea was a fwd raked s/s bar, running down along the whole lateral part of the console (where it should be attached).
the upper profile of the bar should be obviously rounded at the corners, and slightly rounded also on the whole length, to follow the console curve. Both these points are obviously NOT shown in the pic below.
The perspex should follow the same shape, becoming (at its bottom) a sort of prolongation of the existing dashboard (where dials are placed). At the upper part, I'm in doubt between having the perspex connected to the s/s bar, or leaving a couple of inches between the windscreen and the bar, which this way would be also useful as a handrail.
The existing screen should obviously be removed.
I'm not sure if the compass would still fit, but you could replace it with a proper one like the KVH Azimuth 1000, which is low enough to not interfere with the perspex.
Advantages:
- relatively simple;
- the fwd rake would be very effective for its function, probably allowing a lower windscreen compared to a vertical one, to achieve the same result;
- maybe (not sure, difficult to judge from the pic) feasible with no perspex curving at all. Or just a slight 2D curve at worst;
- with a bit of luck, if the console fwd angle is the same of the bigger windscreen surrounding the whole f/b, it could even appear as a very nice original design.

Sq58windshield.jpg
 
Thanks mapis. Lots of nice lateral thinking on here. That is food for thought, I'll make a mock up and see how it looks. It might get caught by a lot of sun glare? And actually I want to get some curvature into the perspex becuase it is too flexy if flat, but I might be able to make it slightly curved with your design. Thanks!
 
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