# Cutting part of bench out of jon boat



## No Mas (Jul 9, 2003)

I have a 14ft jon boat and was thinking of cutting out about a foot and a half section of the middle bench. The thought was to create a little walk through to get to the front or back of the boat without having to climb over the seat. Plus it would create two nice seats when plug fishing. 

If this was to be done, would it weaken the strength of the boat much? Has anyone every tried this or heard of it? 

Thanks for any help, 

Tom


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## BUGBOAT (Oct 25, 2005)

Is the boat riveted or welded? I just bought a 17ft jon boat. I knew the person I bought it from. He puchased it new. The boat has 2 seats and a front platform. The midldle seat was cut out from the factory, as you described. You could walk through the middle of this boat. The back seat is the helm, and has a counsel with a steering wheel. This is a riveted boat. 
The previous owner said it never leaked when new. He did observe when running under power,in a slight chop, that the boat seemed to flex in the middle. Soon, the boat started leaking through the rivets. He then bolted in supports between the two sides of the middle seat. He made a storage area in between. If your boat is a welded hull, it might be different. But if it is riveted I would leave it alone. Just my .02. Bugboat.


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## FishTales (Feb 13, 2002)

Crestliner with Split Bench Seating
Here's a picture of the seating arrangement, but as mentioned in the above post, the Crestliner has a welded hull, no rivets at all.
Rich


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## frenchriver1 (Jul 5, 2005)

I believe the construction in the boat shown in the pic is such that it works in that kind of hull, but the hull of a john boat is substantially different and I can understand why the hull would appear to flex if you remove the center seat integrity... IF it's built to be separate, that's fine, but do-it-yourselfing isn't the smartest thing in the world in this case...


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## Randle (Nov 6, 2000)

I took the seat out of my 16 foot Jon boat and rivoted two storage boxes to the bottom. I placed swivel seats on top of these. I can give you more specifics if you are interested. This works great for me because it is much easier to get around in the boat and I have very nice seat/storage areas. Here is a link to see a picture. My boat is about the 5th picture down. http://fishferris.shanksconsulting.com/


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