60"s-70's Engine room vent louver alternative

[bostonhatteras]

I tried for years to come up with a functional, attractive and relatively damage proof alternative to the fiberglass fish gills louvers on the side of our boats. This is my interpretation. Aside from the shaping of the stainless steel cloth and the laser cutting of the stainless sheet, all was done by me. The embossed stainless cloth had a custom dap created to make the shape. All stainless is 316 but I still rinse the hell out of it. No insects have tried to make a nest inside thus far. There is bronze screen at another location in the assembly as well. I tried to get T-Rex Custom Grills in CA to make this but they considered it too much a niche and the production run too small, anything under a couple thousand they said isn't worth their time.

[bostonhatteras]

Here's what i had to work with. The rusted out rivets let LOTS of water into the engine room during a rain, washing or underway. The foam molds are standard foam glued into the approx shape with polyurethane adhesive and shaped on the jointer. epoxy laminated fiberglass cloth was wrapped to approx 1/8"+ thickness. The gigantic oblong hole is exactly the way it was installed from the factory, a giant oblong hole. The engine room blower also dumped into this box, diamond shaped hole, only to be directed right back into the engine room! I've since created an independent engine room blower outlet . I had a movie of the air box but thats not an accepted format for the site

[bostonhatteras]

More prep

[bostonhatteras]

Prepaint. The flange inside is fiberglass plate supplied by mcmaster carr and it is the mounting flange for the stainless covers. it has a decently large epoxy fillet behind to ensure it stays in place.

[bostonhatteras]

Painted and pre-install They were fully painted in the shop then sanded with 320, installed and painted again with the hull so all the screws were painted too. You can see the bronze screen epoxied to the top of the air tubes.

[Captain Ralph]

Wow!!

[SEVEN]

Damn sexy.

[dar636]

Wow times 3. Shop envy too!!

[bostonhatteras]

Thanks guys Glad you like them.

[whoover]

Very nice work, we all love to see projects.

Walt Hoover