Now my 'makeover' of Grimalkin is nearing completion I am thinking about screwing back the bits I took off long ago... ( if I can remember where all the bits went).
One of the things I promised myself was new flaps, love the idea of using a yellow reflective number plate blank for the flap itself but what do I do for hinges??
I have also seen Mylar proposed as a material - but thats all floppy ? how does that work?
Is there a supplier of a 'package' of bits anyone could recomend please?
Jeremy
Personal Plates on a 12! Now that is pimping!!
I think most of the chandlers do kits. On my last boat which had flaps I recall using very thin perspex and gluing it along the hinged edge with slot gasket glue or similar. Didn't bother with hinges.
Thin flexible perspex attached with double sided tape is all you need. When in use, the water pressure is sufficient to make them flex enough for it to flow from the inside of the boat to where it should be.
Kevin
Another alternative is to use webbing fixed with contact adhesive as a "hinge". This means no screwholes.
[face=Times New Roman]Mylar works well as long as the holes aren’t too big. Get some sail window material and sail repair tape (to stick it on) from a sail maker.[/face]
We have transom flaps made from 2mm polycarbonate sheet (from Ebay). "Hinge" arrangement is two 4mm holes through flap and transom on vertical edge adjacent to rudder threaded with a loop of 3mm shockcord tied inside the transom tight enough to hold flap in position against hull but loose enough to allow flap to open when pressure of water on inside. Shockcord from the centre of the flap to the floor then keeps the flaps closed until needed. Works very well
Also have very thin perspex sheet - have one big flap for Crusader - avoids problem of water coming in when launching backwards! Its very light and hinged off mylar sail tape across the rear bar. Guess would work the same for flaps. I still have some left from the sheet I scrounged from a local packaging company! Let me know the approx sizes and I think i can send you off a couple of squares in an A4 envelope. No need for any shock cord and stuff like that - my current piece lasted a couple of seasons - cheap as chips.
I went one lighter than Kean and used a cut down Leitz plastic wallet (yellow if I remember rightly as this was the departments colour!) held on with Duck tape. Did the job perfectly.
Looks like anything goes! Rod Andrew - who bought my Pipedream which was then fitted with v thin plastic flaps, preferred something that kept the water out when he was kneeling at the stern fitting the rudder. He used rigid perspex and rebated the transom so they fitted flush. He also fitted some plastic sealing strip to prevent water ingress. A very neat job - see photos attached
And just when you think you leave all this behind with DB Boats you find they have them fitted to stop the water escaping to fast!!
My flap is not rigid perspex but i think polycarbonate type food / packaging stuff - stiffer than the wallet type material but probably just as light. Sail tape deffo makes a good / light / cheap hinge.
I get mine from Tony Blackburn at Sail Sports. Tel.01392 420043 mb.07960 957732(http://www.national12.org/blahdocs/Smilies/wink.png)
Thanks for all those replies - very impressed with the pipedream rear end - but no more woodwork for a while !
I think it is Tony Blackmore......... at sailsport areally helpful guy and competitive prices
http://www.sail-sport.com/ (http://www.sail-sport.com/)
There is an easy way making transom flaps from glass cloth and epoxy very rigid and transparent in case someone wants to solidify anything in there say the sail number or the boats name etc. Same way we can produce carbon flaps or even kevlar flaps. I use two pieces of square say 10" by 6" of 1/6" thickness glass or crystal. Polish one only surface of each with car wax and let it dry. Cut six pieces of similar dimensions 4 oz.glass cloth and lay it nicely on the waxed surface of one of the Crystals. Use a spatula ( old credit card is excellent) and apply 24 hour to set epoxy resin. After removing the excess resin apply a very thin coat of the same resin removed equally all over the cloth. Take the other piece of glass or crystal and put it on the wet glass cloth waxed side down. Then add some weight on top.I use old Pb batteries one will do the trick in this case and let dry in a warm place. I wait 36 hours usually and then remove gently the glass surfaces one by one. The result will be 2 mm epoxy surface ready to be cut with a jigsaw to the exact shape.Fine sand the edges and use the hinges of the previous set of flaps. As the flaps are completely transparent it is easy to use a middle layer of glass cloth where making a stencil of the name of the boat or the sail number and laying it between the forth and the fifth layer of glass.This extra layer of glass cloth could be 1 oz in order to produce a better surface for the stencil and ofcourse you can only spray it with colour.Any colour will do I use acryllic paint and it works fine.
Flaps that leak while you have business at the blunt end - like hanging a rudder - are irksome. The old ones on 3244 did cos they may have warped with age and/or storage.
I used polycarboate sheeting (plastic glass) from B&Q to fashion replacements for 3244. They turned out good and stiff and make a good seal. I cut them to shape using a powered jigsaw - BUT (!!) I do recall the exercise of cutting was not plain sailing; the material itself is not easy to work with a jigsaw. It could be better to work with if sandwiched between some scraps of ply.
My cut edges were a bit crude but I had a course file that tidied them up and then finished them off by offering up to a belt sander. Hinges were sinply reclaimed from the old flaps. They're simply a flat hinge (plastic with stainless pin) with a shim fixed to one half and the flap fixed to the other. Work well.
Just about every idea has been posted but I can add that I have made two ideal flaps from the bottom and the lid of a redundant video cassette box. The plastic is almost impossible to saw without it splitting but an hour or so with a Stanley trimming knife and you have two good-sized flaps - just a little sanding down required at the edges. N3535.
P&B do a thin perspex sheet just large enough to cut 2 flaps from. We used sail repair tape as a hinge at first but it tended to come unstuck after a while and we lost a flap. The best "sticky tape" hinge we found was polythene tunnel repair tape - like strong wide selotape but UV resistant so it does not degrade in sunlight like selotape does. No need to purchase a whole roll if you know a friendly nurseryman or strawberry grower!
I made mine from one piece bought from p & b 2mm perspex I think you can get it much cheaper off ebay but I was in a hurry at the time it is held on by rudder pintles and they are about the biggest transom flaps you will see becaiuse I have a pretty open transom although not many people get to see it! I nned shock cord because they flap about in the wind but you will probably not need it. As for water coming the flaps when you put the rudder on unlesss you are sailing somewhere like hykem and got a fixed rudder, put the rudder on before you get in even if I don't i normaly get more water in from my shoes anyway. If not it soon comes in over the side!!!!!