Boob tube

Jason on s/v hello world does another superb fiberglass fabrication job:

Christy and I haven't owned a TV since we've been together. That isn't really the hardship that it sounds like. We watch Netflix. We have DVD's. We have digital movies, etc. We haven't extracted ourselves from visual pop culture, we just view it through a computer and more recently an iPad.

Now all that has changed. Mostly because I'm tired of staring at a laptop screen only incrementally larger than a phone. We have a great space for a TV/monitor inside of the housing for our fold-up table where our bar currently resides. And if mounted on an articulating arm mount, we can use in a couple different configurations, and then tuck it neatly and safely inside behind the fold up table for when we're in a seaway.

We had two problems to contend with in this arrangement:

• I don't want to drill holes in our bulkhead to mount this TV. If this one craps out and we have to buy a new one, we will likely have to move the mount and drill more holes. Do not like.
• However, even more importantly, Christy did not want to lose her bar. We store bottles of booze in the space I want to mount the TV/monitor and by god - we are not going to diminish Hello World's booze carrying capacity.

In the end, we came up with a solution that makes everyone happy. No bottles of booze were harmed (or even re-located) in this project. No holes were drilled in the bulkhead. And I have a shiny big TV/monitor.


In order to solve the no-holes-in-the-bulkhead problem, I built a fiberglass mounting bracket to be hung from one of the shelves inside the table housing. I made the bracket out of high strength G10 fiberglass with loads of thickened epoxy and some extra layers of fiberglass to tie it all together. Even though the TV only weighs 8 pounds, when fully extended, it will put a fair amount of leverage on this piece.


Mounting the bracket.


The TV in place on the articulating arm.


The arm mounted off the bracket hung off the shelf.


Watching a little Arrested Development.


The TV turned sideways.

The older we get, the more we learn just how hard core we're not. I really love having this TV. Probably more than I should.

(Can't wait to see what kind of search term hits we get based on that blog post title.)