The Trailer Pads are Done (almost)

Several posts back we talked about making the new brackets and pads for the trailer we are refurbishing for this boat.  The plywood pads were painted and prepped, and then we used 1/4" stainless carriage (or step) bolts and stainless nylock nuts to bolt the brackets to the pads.  Here is what they looked like with the hardware on.

After that, we discussed a couple of options for padding.  One was the double D rubber dock fender molding http://www.taylormadeproducts.com/dockprod.html, and while nice, the price on this material just wasn't going to work.  Next option was to use some of the trailer bunk board material, which once again seemed like it would work just fine, but was a bit pricey for what you get.  After thinking about it some, we decided to use some indoor/outdoor BeauLieu Perfection Gray carpet from Home Depot (SKU #591529).  At ~$0.60/sq ft, the price was just right. While it isn't the softest material, it should work fine for the boat, at least for now.  Ended up using a hot glue gun to glue it down, just along the edges.  We didn't want any water to get trapped behind the carpet being held there by glue beads.

Used some clamps to make sure we were getting good tight adhesion to the edges of the pads.  Here are a couple of the final pads with the carpet glued on.  So the Trailer Pad and Bracket project is almost complete.  Just have to go out and mount them to the trailer posts.