A broken seat befell me during a recent journey on the Buffalo in Arkansas; fortunately about a mile from the take out so my constant kneeling was of short duration.
In preparing to install a new one it occurred to me that, since the seat is out, it is time to consider other seat related improvements. That would include losing some weight, but that's darn hard work.
Thanks to Mike McCrea for sharing this idea with me. The original drops were the standard drilled out dowel, cut to the correct length. The replacement drops are structurally much more beefy than the simple dowel. I used oak for added strength, willing to pay the weight penalty. The individual nature of the drops makes it far easier to install than the truss designs that span the seat from front to back.
Another mishap had me making 8 drops rather than 4. My first tracing of the pattern was for a 1 inch drop. I laid out lines for 4 on the piece of oak, cut the first one, laid it against the dowel and found myself 1/2 inch short. What is that saying about measure twice, cut once? Oh well, it just made sense to cut the other 3 and then trace and cut the four 1.5 inch drops on the other side.
There is minimal waste if you flip the template when you trace the outline.
Photo shows one coat of spar urethane, sanded and ready for coat 2. And I have a set of 1 inch drops ready to deploy.
In preparing to install a new one it occurred to me that, since the seat is out, it is time to consider other seat related improvements. That would include losing some weight, but that's darn hard work.
Thanks to Mike McCrea for sharing this idea with me. The original drops were the standard drilled out dowel, cut to the correct length. The replacement drops are structurally much more beefy than the simple dowel. I used oak for added strength, willing to pay the weight penalty. The individual nature of the drops makes it far easier to install than the truss designs that span the seat from front to back.
Another mishap had me making 8 drops rather than 4. My first tracing of the pattern was for a 1 inch drop. I laid out lines for 4 on the piece of oak, cut the first one, laid it against the dowel and found myself 1/2 inch short. What is that saying about measure twice, cut once? Oh well, it just made sense to cut the other 3 and then trace and cut the four 1.5 inch drops on the other side.
There is minimal waste if you flip the template when you trace the outline.
Photo shows one coat of spar urethane, sanded and ready for coat 2. And I have a set of 1 inch drops ready to deploy.
