[SteFlu]

Hi there,
I am searching for details of the cockpit seating of a Dufour 32- Integral, built in 1990. The teak seating needs to be replaced but there isn’t any service from Dufour in France nor any other branch in EU, any longer.
Maybe some users of this forum have experience or some details how “high” the teak slats are allowed ? The YT- videos in general tells one that the slats shall be glued onto a max 2 mm wooden plate, than filled with the filler material e.g. Sabatack® 750 XL and then one can “create the necessary geometry of the seatings” and replace on board.
Sounds easy…but the max height of such slats is necessary to build the seating, myself.
Thanks SteFlu
(Btw: I’m not able to go to my boat since I’m in a lockdown country and the boat is on the opposite side of the Lake in another country. )

Topic

[PaulK]

From photos & videos it looks like you could put in slats in a range of thicknesses and then plane or sand down the edge near the footwell so it went smoothly into the fiberglass edge of the seat. Once the edge is smooth, the height of the rest doesn’t matter much. You could also ask someone at the yard to go measure the thickness for you. You’d have to explain that they’d need to open the cockpit locker to see the end grain edge of the teak and measure that – and get a separate measurement for the wooden plate, if they can. Two mm sounds quite thin for a “plate”. It sounds more like a scrim or veneer, just to hold the slats (glued) in place so they’ll maintain their spacing on what might be a curved surface of the fiberglass cockpit seats. Keeping the slats glued to the “plate” and the plate glued to the seat may be tricky. The “plate” may end up getting ripped apart. Simply glueing the slats (carefully) to the seat individually might work better, though you’d have to work out their shapes beforehand.

[SteFlu]

Dear psk125

thanks for your valuable comment.
The people in the yard are not uncovering the boat from its winter cover. Too risky that the re-covering after the measuring is not perfect and there will be some damages left behind due to the icy conditions these days in Germany.
About the sanding down of the slats at their ends I did not thought about since today it perfectly fits (maybe due to the aging of slats in the fibre).
The veneer is advised if you cannot glue the slats directly into the fibre. So I like to do these works in my DIY- workshop at my home during the winter break and replace the new seating in Spring time once the marina (and the borders) are open again.
So, it’s a bit of a risky job but let’s see…
Thanks anyway for the time spent to think about my problem.
All the best and take care, Steffen

[PaulK]

It sounds like you will need to take the actual shape of the pieces from the boat itself, and will have to wait until you can get to the boat to trace what is there now and measure the thickness of the slats. Using the “scrim” or veneer to hold the pieces in their places relative to each other does make sense, but I worry about it splitting apart if the whole assembly is glued down with the scrim side down. What if the scrim was stapled or temporarily glued on top of the slats instead of underneath them? The scrim would still hold the slats in position while they were glued directly to the fiberglass, and could be removed once the slats were solidly attached.

[SteFlu]

Dear psk,

valid point.
Looks like I have to be patient and wait for open borders and better weather to get there and check personally.
In the meantime I thank you again for cracking your head about my problem.
Have a good winter and let’s hope the best to return a.s.a.p. to the marinas.
Cheers, Steffen

[Author]

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