Dashboard Helm Upgrade

The first and most obvious step is to choose a material/finish for your new dash….or you may prefer to stick with the original white gelcoat type finish. “Osprey” has had many an opening butchered in over the past 30 years so it was time I started with a blank canvass so I could choose the layout of what instruments I felt I needed.

Below is a picture of the original dash prior to the refurbishment….

Next is to remove all the instruments and wiring making sure you carefully label each wire and block connector, warning lights etc..(I used masking tape for this purpose writing on the function of each wire etc)

The picture below shows all the instruments removed…..

The next process is to make a template to cover the whole area to be refurbished….I used cardboard for this because of it’s ease to draw and cut to shape…..The picture below shows the template in place…..

At this stage I must mention that if like me you are using a plastic as the final finish then it is an absolute must to fix it to a 6mm ply backing before drilling out the holes for switches and gauges etc. The reason for this is that the plastic is so brittle it is almost impossible not to crack the material during drilling and sawing (2 failed previous attempts have taught me this lesson).. Also the new dash will have the required strength to support all you instrumentation.

The picture below shows the 6mm ply ready to be cut ……….

Once the ply is cut and trimmed to suit then use this as the template to cut the plastic as shown below…..

The next stage is to bond the plastic and the ply together….using a suitable adhesive ……and cover the plastic with masking tape to enable you to mark out what goes where…….See below

Once the plastic and ply are glued together you can then carefully cut out the openings as required using a fine toothed jigsaw blade and a hole saw for the gauges. as show below….

The next stage is to drill the holes through the new dashboard into the old one on the boat, then carefully remove the masking tape and protective backing and re-fit the existing instruments and any new ones. The wiring can be done from the helm but these often means extending most of them which I did anyway as I re positioned most of the instruments……The finished article is shown below…..

I have left space for an Oil pressure gauge and a Battery Volts indicator to be fitted above the radio at a later stage……