Page 1 of 1

Tabernacle Fiberglass

PostPosted: Mon May 20, 2019 8:33 am
by riverron
I am getting ready to build my Tabernacle and would like for it to be removable. Did everyone fiberglass all sides of the tabernacle or even wrap fiberglass around the sides to tie the pieces together? Use tape on inside? The manual doesn't state, but I know it has been mentioned on here that all areas will be fiberglassed and I think wrapping glass around to tie the sides together would offer some extra strength. Just looking to see what others did.

thanks

Re: Tabernacle Fiberglass

PostPosted: Mon May 20, 2019 8:30 pm
by Wayne G
Ron,

I damaged my 1st tabernacle by letting the mast drop from about 60 degrees. When the mast hit the gallows the reaction at the tabernacle forced the pivot pin up and through the top of the tabernacle.
A87625AC-A84C-4E68-B26D-D3124E4CB1CD.jpeg
A87625AC-A84C-4E68-B26D-D3124E4CB1CD.jpeg (121.2 KiB) Viewed 2729 times

Because my tabernacle is bolted on it was relatively straight forward to replace with a new one. For the replacement I used 1” oak for the sides and did fiberglass the outsides ( I headed John Harris’s warning not to increase the back board from 3/4”).

Just for information, I also used .050” brass plate inside the tabernacle and in the cabin between the bolt washers and the wood to prevent the tightened bolts from compressing and marring the wood.

Re: Tabernacle Fiberglass

PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2019 6:41 am
by riverron
Thanks Wayne! Sorry to hear about your issue, but glad it was resolved with not too much trouble. I guess we all need to be aware of what can happen.

I haven’t cut things out, so I may rethink using the piece of oak I bought for the backer board instead of the boards in the kit. I like your idea of the brass plate. It will give it a nice look too.


Thanks

Re: Tabernacle Fiberglass

PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2019 2:37 pm
by ddemasie
When I was building my tabernacle, I thought about what it would look like if I added an Akoume plywood layer to the outside of the each side of the tabernacle.

I happened to have 2 nice pieces of leftover Akoume that fit pretty well, so I trimmed them down, added them to the port and starboard sides, and epoxied them on.

After I finished that, I also had enough fiberglass to wrap the 3 closed sides of the tabernacle - so I went ahead and did that too.

It seems to me that it had to add a lot of strength to the entire tabernacle assembly though I have no proof that it actually did.

What I was really going for was the look of the tabernacle to match the rest of the boat, and it does. Allowed me to finish it with a clear varnish that looks so great with the mahogany plywood.

Re: Tabernacle Fiberglass

PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2019 7:25 pm
by riverron
Thanks Dennis for the suggestion. Adding 1/4” plywood to the 3/4” pieces I have may be stronger than the using the single oak piece.

Thanks