Forum Discussion

steiny93's avatar
steiny93
Explorer
Sep 30, 2015

adding mounting board to exterior of rv?

Just purchased a new Ice Castle fish house; the style with the fiberglass exterior so pretty much the same as a regular rv.

We added 12 volt drops high on the exterior so that we can install led light bars on the outside of the fish house.

My question
How can I adhere synthetic boards on the exterior walls of the fish house so I can attach the light bars? I'm thinking of doing it the same way you see transducers and pickups mounted on the back of boats; where they have the synthetic board attached to the hull then they screw the attachments into the board.

Anyone have any ideas?
I'm thinking of using adhesive and a couple of stainless screws for safety. thoughts?
  • DrewE's avatar
    DrewE
    Explorer II
    Oct 01, 2015
    Make sure the 5200 will stick to the UHMW plastic. Practically all adhesives do not stick well (or at all) to it. Notice that Stern Saver uses some top-secret patent pending custom (apparently two-part) adhesive.
  • steiny93's avatar
    steiny93
    Explorer
    Oct 01, 2015
    I think I have a plan

    going to go with something similar to a stern saver http://bassanglerhq.com/blog/gear/first-ever-glue-on-transducer-mount

    So 3M 5200 adhesive and some uhmw with a few drilled out cups to hold the adhesive. Then do stainless hardware through the uhmw from the backside to another block of uhmw which i'll go through the backside of to hold the light bars. Then if the light bars fail or need to be replaced or whatever and I can't get the same footprint I can just toss the top uhmw plate and start over.
  • steiny93's avatar
    steiny93
    Explorer
    Oct 01, 2015
    Artum Snowbird wrote:
    You could get some ceramic magnets and glue those onto the wall with Sikaflex, and onto the base of the lights. Would not need very big ones at all. Then just clip the magnets together when you need the lights on the wall.


    that's a good idea but I'm looking for a permanent attach for the light bars
  • steiny93's avatar
    steiny93
    Explorer
    Oct 01, 2015
    DrewE wrote:
    Epoxy will stick to fiberglass permanently; some sort of thickener would be helpful here to improve gap filling ability. Check whether it would adhere to whatever synthetic board you wish to attach if you use it, as not all epoxies stick to all plastics very well.

    For many of the LED lights I've seen, simple foam double-stick tape would be more than sufficient to hold them in place. There are different grades of such tape, some intended for exterior mounting of stuff. LEDs themselves are not heavy.


    I hear yah on the double-stick tape; the concern I have is that we will be using this in -40 degree temps and these fish houses get banged around a lot when being dragged around on ski's. I'm worried that when you have 50" light bars they will flex up and down on rough ice and between the cold and the movement could come free if only secured with tape.
  • DrewE's avatar
    DrewE
    Explorer II
    Sep 30, 2015
    Epoxy will stick to fiberglass permanently; some sort of thickener would be helpful here to improve gap filling ability. Check whether it would adhere to whatever synthetic board you wish to attach if you use it, as not all epoxies stick to all plastics very well.

    For many of the LED lights I've seen, simple foam double-stick tape would be more than sufficient to hold them in place. There are different grades of such tape, some intended for exterior mounting of stuff. LEDs themselves are not heavy.
  • Artum_Snowbird's avatar
    Artum_Snowbird
    Explorer
    Sep 30, 2015
    You could get some ceramic magnets and glue those onto the wall with Sikaflex, and onto the base of the lights. Would not need very big ones at all. Then just clip the magnets together when you need the lights on the wall.

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