Buy a Fender Board?

[thinwater]

I know it seems like a dumb question, but a dock mate wants to buy fender boards (no tools at all). I thought sure they would be easy to find, but he's coming up dry.

Surely someone sells then for too much money?

[GordMay]

➥ Build Your Own Fender Boards - Web Only Article

➥ Taylor Made Fender Board Guard

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by GordMay

➥ Build Your Own Fender Boards - Web Only Article

➥ Taylor Made Fender Board Guard

Thanks, but...

a. Yes, building a board is dead simple.

b. I have no idea what the Taylor Made things are really for. (only work on 2x4, which are too small for many boats)(too small to reach the hulls)

I've seen some pretty varnished teak boards (a complete waste IMHO); I can't believe you can't buy them, considering how much useless frumpery the chancelleries carry.

[Kalinka1]

OK $100.00/ft plus shipping. 2"x6"x8' but seriously any lumber yard $20.00 maybe.

[S/V Alchemy]

Uh, they are planks with four 3/4" holes at the corners. Nylon bushings if you want to get fancy. By design, they get chewed up. Why buy when you can salvage?

[rognvald]

Thinwater,
Tell him to buy treated lumber at a proper lumber yard. They will gladly drill two holes for the docklines. As Kalinka said--$20.00 or less. Good luck and safe sailing.

[Capt_Flrp]

For quite a while I used a 6 foot long 2X4 with some rubber pads on each end. Between the boat and the board, I tied 2 inflatable fenders (being cheap, I bought 6" diameter from boating area of Wally World) near each end. As someone mentioned, I put holes on the end to tie the board to the boat, I centered the board on the piling of our slip and, with the rub rail as a vertical stop, the board would move up and down the piling without rolling or riding up/down. After a year or so, I may wish to renew all pieces, but was quite successful.

[thinwater]

Obviously you are ALL CORRECT, which is what makes this so funny!Last summer I helped a poor beginner make one out of something from the trash can, when he found himself pinned against a transient bulkhead taking a pounding. We used a pallet (it was all we could find, and it worked great--hard to store).

Still with all the gold-platers out there, it seems strange. I guess they have a staff carpenter.

[grantmc]

Building a fender board is a really simple boat project. And as others have said 200x50x3000+ crappy old softwoord is fine (we use pine here in NZ), with a couple of short bits of old rope. (By the way, when is the US going to join the 21st century and ditch its antiquated English measurement system? )

But they are awesome for nasty wharves covered in shell fish, and any other crud that can stick out from a jetty.

I carry mine on the boat all the time, just tied to the life lines, and use it quite frequently.

[CSY Man]

I much prefer fender "rollers" big PVC pipes with end-caps and holes drilled through them for the lines.
When the boat rocks and rolls at the dock or Seawall, the fender rollers roll up and down, less friction and easier to store than a board.

[Capt_Flrp]

(By the way, when is the US going to join the 21st century and ditch its antiquated English measurement system? )

Don't you know we are, by a law passed by our congress, going to change to an all metric system in/by, I think it is 1975?
I remember when this was passed and most of us started carrying 2 toolboxes because our cars were half and half.
When coming down the rivers from Michigan to Florida, we met someone that was using a wood with carpet padding furniture dolly tied to the side of their boat, wheels away from the boat, to run up and down the lock walls. If I were to be tied against a wall for any length of time in an area subject to tides, I would do the same. They used a single dolly near the widest part of the beam, and fenders on each end in case the boat pivoted. I might well consider a pair.

[grantmc]

Originally Posted by Capt_Flrp

Don't you know we are, by a law passed by our congress, going to change to an all metric system in/by, I think it is 1975?
I remember when this was passed and most of us started carrying 2 toolboxes because our cars were half and half.

I never knew that. Under Gerald Ford?

Originally Posted by Capt_Flrp

When coming down the rivers from Michigan to Florida, we met someone that was using a wood with carpet padding furniture dolly tied to the side of their boat, wheels away from the boat, to run up and down the lock walls. If I were to be tied against a wall for any length of time in an area subject to tides, I would do the same. They used a single dolly near the widest part of the beam, and fenders on each end in case the boat pivoted. I might well consider a pair.

That sounds very cool. I also liked the plastic pipe idea earlier in the thread. I have to confess that a flat board doesn't handle wave surges.

[Rockyscience]

Originally Posted by grantmc

I never knew that. Under Gerald Ford?

That sounds very cool. I also liked the plastic pipe idea earlier in the thread. I have to confess that a flat board doesn't handle wave surges.

We are getting there Mates- Inch by inch good dolly idea.

[J Clark H356]

Go to Lowes and buy 5 foot long 3 inch PVC, two end caps and some 1/2 inch nylon rope. Glue the end caps on, drill 5/8 inch holes through the PVC and you are done. No problem to store, lightweight, and rolls up and down piles.Simpliest and best solution.

[hellosailor]

Building a fender board:
First, buy a quarter acre property.
Next, obtain one acorn and carefully plant it in the middle of that property.
Feed, water, tend, the growing oak tree. Harvest any deer that approach it.
Once the tree has reached a suitable height and girth, call a sawyer or lumberyard and ask them to harvest the tree and return a fenderboard to you.


See? No tools needed at all, just some twenty years worth of patience.