22 interior wall ideas

pbahn

New member
Has anyone covered their interior walls. The factory fiberglass is not giving us the love we're looking for. Considering padded marine vinyl. Anyone been there done that? Looking for ideas :)
 
pbahn":eb40khky said:
Has anyone covered their interior walls. The factory fiberglass is not giving us the love we're looking for. Considering padded marine vinyl. Anyone been there done that? Looking for ideas :)

There have been some owners that have lined their boat with various things. The Venture line has a lining inside the boat.

One thing that appeals to a lot of owners is the utilitarian nature of the C-Dory boats. There is no fancy interior finishing and all the wiring is right there. You can clean the boat interior with a hose if you want.

As a compromise to a lining but also a way to improve the interior appearance is simply painting the interior. I painted mine a very light green tint (to go with the rest of the boat color scheme). This brightened up the interior quite a bit compared to the original finish. I used Home Depot exterior paint. I think this is a better solution for my use of the boat than putting in a liner. If necessary, the paint can be touched up easily.

Disconnecting things, moving wires, and masking the interior to paint it is a multiday job.

Some images http://www.c-brats.com/modules.php?...ame=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php
 
Chuck and Penny on Two Bears had a nice interior put in. Perhaps they'll respond if they are still watching C-Brats. I believe they sold their boat a while back. I think the interior was something like a car would have, but I could be wrong.
 
We have a Venture series C-Dory without the vinyl liner. It was an option but we preferred the spray in stipple as in the 22 or 25 Cruiser for reasons mentioned above.
 
I purchased a roll of a fuzzy felt-like material to replace the liner on my last boat. It was a downeast lobster boat that was used as a workboat and the interior wasn't in great shape. I never got into the job as it would have been too time consuming to complete. At any rate the purpose of the fuzzy material is to wick the moisture from the hull and air dry the moisture out and it works well especially if you add a fan to the mix. A large number of boat mfrs use this method.
 
I painted the inside and added ceramic microspheres for some insulation. I dont' fully understand how they work, but they do a surprising job of mitigating cold or hot temps from outside the hull. There are quite a few on the market these days.
 
It's not my intent to rain on anyone's parade, but I do get annoyed when companies try to market paint that insulates. It doesn't. It's a marketing scam.
https://www.jlconline.com/how-to/insula ... int-work_o

Water vapor in the air will condense and form droplets on a surface that's cold enough. Paint, including paint that contains so-called hollow ceramic spheres, will not change the surface temperature of the interior of a boat. A fabric liner, however, will slightly do so because it traps a small amount of air. An infrared thermometer can instantly show this.

If conditions aren't too extreme, the resultant higher temperature of the surface temperature of the liner is often enough to prevent condensation from forming on the outer surface of the liner. The temperature of the surface of the fiberglass BEHIND the fabric liner remains the same, however. So if moist air travels through the liner and reaches that surface it will condense and get the back side of the fabric liner wet. In that case, some of the moisture can wick back up to the warmer outer surface of the liner and evaporate. If the outer surface of the fabric is impermeable to water vapor (vinyl, for example), then moist air cannot reach the colder surface and no condensation will occur.
 
Our previous boat had foam backed vinyl on the interior sides. OK when new, but with time and heat the foam deteriorated and turned to dust. And couldn't be re-secured.

I was lucky and found some white slightly textured closed cell foam.

At first I was using solvent based contact cement...what you would find at the hardware store. But the fumes! I used a fan to blow fresh air in, but it was still dangerous.

Then I found a 3M water based contact cement. Back then (about 1996) it was about 2 1/2 times more expensive, but had almost double the coverage, so not bad. But the odor was almost pleasant.

My only reason for posting is to say there are safer products to use for attaching fabrics and other headliners. I just looked on the 3M website and saw many water based adhesives, more than what I found years ago
 
ggray":33hcsdej said:
... At first I was using solvent based contact cement...what you would find at the hardware store. But the fumes! I used a fan to blow fresh air in, but it was still dangerous. ...

Yes, that "new car smell" is just the volatile chemicals used in the materials they make the interior from.
 
Back
Top