Thoughts on seat Pedestal

Hey everyone,

I have a question and hopefully someone knows an answer to get me moving in the right direction.
I have an old 82 Terry Bass Boat that i am restoring but have ran into a problem. The current drivers seat that acted as a live well, is a mess so i want to replace the whole thing. Im not going to use the live well there so no concern about saving it. My main question is, I want to put the seat back but not sure what to use as a base. I've heard that a Pedestal mount would work but a lot of people say the wobble a lot. I have even considered making a box that opens for storage and mount the seat on top of but it just looks tacky. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas, or suggestions on this and I hope i was able to explain my issue. Haha.

Thanks in advance.
Lee

 

Welcome to the forum.

Most boats of that vintage will have a "soft sole", so screwing down a pedestal base will likely result in a wobbling thing. If the sole is solid, simply add a plywood plate to the deck, under the pedestal. This would be glued and screwed to the sole, providing more "meat" for the pedestal fasteners to grab a hold of. If the sole is soft, well you likely have even bigger issues under it (read crying, itching and replacing the sole and stringers).

 

I did exactly what Paul (PAR) described a few years ago. All you need is a table saw, router and sander.

Say the diameter of the pedestal base is 9 inches. You can make up a 12" square plate out of hardwood (I used Philippine Mahogany).

The pedestal might call for, say 5/16 fasteners. I used machine screws of an appropriate length and t-nuts to secure the pedestal to the plate.

Once you have the plate married to the pedestal base, put a little packing tape over the bottom of the t-nuts (to keep the epoxy out) and glue the wooden plate to the sole, with thickened epoxy.

These have worked out great for me, very solid and no holes in the substrate to worry about. I'll post a link ot the t-nuts I used below.

BTW, welcome to the forum and good luck!

http://www.albanycountyfasteners.com/T-Nuts-304-Stainless-Steel-p/124000.htm

 

There are a lot of pedestal boat seats in use but as other have mentioned, if you can reinforce the area to where the base is attached, you could go this way. But pedestals can tend to be wobbly so you are taking a bit of a chance.
If the boat were mine, I would build an isosceles trapezoid base and turn the volume under your seat into a storage unit of some type. Drawers for fishing gear, sunglasses, or single door for larger items, rain gear, footware etc

You will get a firmer base and turn some unusable volume (if you use a pedestal) under the seat into a prime storage space

 

Thanks for the fast replies.
Im going to try and reinforce the pedestal and see how it is. I currently have the original seat that also served as a live well but it is almost destroyed and dint want to use it. But ill try to upload a picture of the final product and see what y'all think. Thanks again!!