Replacing a Ski Locker in Your Boat: Must-Know Tips!
Jared 00:08
Alright, Joe asked, he's looking to put a ski locker into his boat. The dimensions are 16 inches by 40.
Wondering if half inch star board will work for that. What are your thoughts, Matt?
Matt 00:18
My initial thoughts are no, I wouldn't typically use half inch material for that. The ski locker lids that we
Manufacture the aluminum frame, ski locker lids, they're tooled for three quarter inch material, the
three quarter is going to be a little bit stronger, won't flex it quite as much, but offers more rigidity,
more support.
Andrew 00:35
What are the dimensions of our standard ski locker lids?
Matt 00:37
So our standard lids are smaller than what this customer is looking for. They're 36 by 12 and 42 by 12.
Okay, so a little bit longer on one side. This one was 16 inches.
Jared 00:50
It’s 16 inches wide by 40 inches long. So definitely wider, longer.. In some cases, I look back at our
ski lockers. And we've added stiffeners to help kind of help, you know, brace that area underneath like a
powder coated u-channel that goes to the back of it, right? You know, looking at our, you know, a
couple of ski lockers that you mentioned, we don't have a stiffener on the back of that. But its three
quarter inch material on the dims.
Matt 01:12
Right, what you gain out of that is, since the width is so much shorter, you do get a structural
rigidity out of the hinge itself, right, the hinges closed, so you're not as far away from that 12 inch
dimension plus that 12 inch dimension is it's, I think it's the cutout dimension of those frames. So you
know, your lid might be just a little bit larger than that, but it's still pretty close and getting a good
amount of support out of it.
Andrew 01:35
So it's almost the width that that is more of an exacerbating factor for length because you're absolutely
right, the hinge mounts to the aluminum frame, which that right there runs the length for the most part
of the lid. That's a good point. I hadn't thought about that.
Jared 01:49
So this guy calls in you're kind of tell him, Hey, don't go with a half inch, probably look at some of the
different tooling that he's got, where it's going back into...
Matt 01:57
Before I even go there, I'm probably looking for photos. And I'd say hey, let's get some eyes on this, or
we're talking apples and apples. You know, we're not just talking hypotheticals at this point. But you
know, say for example, he has some fiberglass tooling that's designed for half inch material, he may
have had something that's maybe a little bit more rigid than Starboard. Starboard is rigid, but over a
long distance can become flexible.
Andrew 02:18
Could have been a fiberglass lid or could have been teak, or some other wood. Yeah,
Matt 02:23
Yeah you know, the old teak ones, for sure. Sometimes those are those are the easier ones to replace,
because we can just get them in here, duplicate them with Starboard and send them back in some case
with a stiffener in some case, some without.
Jared 02:32
And a lot of times on those you're sending a frame or you're not sending a frame with it.
Matt 02:36
A lot of that depends on the application. How good is the existing frame versus what can we provide?
Andrew 02:41
But we sell plenty that are without a frame. Right. I mean, if it sets into a recess, you know, yeah, but,
you know, in some cases, like it can be mentioned if the tooling was designed for half inch, but you're
not recommending half inch, I guess we would we would do what we probably mill around the outside
of the frame so that it sits down flush. You can't of course, you can't just put a three quarter inch thick ski
lid in a half inch recess or it's going to sit stick up,
Matt 03:05
Right, kick Hazard yeah for sure. So yeah, well, we'll mill around the perimeter you know, a quarter
inch in so you still have the rigidity of three quarter inch material, but it still sits flush with the deck.
Andrew 03:15
And or we could add a u-channel stiffener. Awesome.
Matt 03:19
Yeah, the only other challenge that we run into with ski locker lids are, there's some injection molded ones or
thermoform plastics that that have a an inner like frame that drops into a cut out the cutout is actually
flat, but it's tooled into the deck. So the radius is, is fiberglass, and nice clean powder, like gel coated
fiberglass. And the challenge is the radius is a lot smaller than what we bend our aluminum frames to,
you know, we're not welding our light extrusion because it's anodized and that can that can mess up the
process for the anodization without.
So what the challenge is, the customer either needs to cut those corners square, so we can offer a
square corner deck hatch, in which case we're not using light extrusion, it's a powder coated heavy
frame at that point. The other option is trying to make something out of Starboard but would actually
cover over the cutout rather than sit into it.
Jared 04:13
Is oversizing the frame and matching our radius is an option as well.
Andrew 04:19
That is you'd have to open the hole in both directions at that point.
Matt 04:21
For sure. Now, ski locker lids are uniquely challenging because you really can't open the width up a lot of
times they're in between your dual console, right or in between the seats so you can only add to your
length. Now you can add your length and make larger radius corners, that's a possibility. But if you have
any other obstructions in the way or if the person that we're talking to just doesn't feel comfortable
taking on a project of that scope, then we have additional challenge.
Andrew 04:44
That is a lot more involved for once you start talking about open up opening up your hole that's a
whole different skill level. So I think the long and short of it is it varies a little bit on the install
application but in general, you know for a deck hatch that size, you know, half inch would not be
recommended.
Jared 05:00
Yeah cool