Alright I'm going to hang it out there

[Phil]

I just posted photos of a creek boat I built last year in the gallery. $350 & 50 hours shop time. It was built strictly for fishing local creeks, dragging thru some of the worst snags you could imagine, up banks, over rock ledges, etc...It weighs 60#'s is 12' long x 3' wide, is a bit tender initially but well founded with it's secondary stability & is super tough. After a year of hard use it has become really comf'y and a joy to explore and fish with. 4#er's all day long and dry storage for overnighters. 8)

So what are your guesses as to the material/ building process/ original design inspiration?

Phil

[Barry Pyeatt]

Where did you post them Phil? :?:

[Phil]

In the (Phil) gallery but they seem to be unapproved as of yet.

[Stump]

yup, takes a little time but they will come through sooner or later. you can just post 'um with the post.... :twisted: :wink:

[Phil]

Okay Stump since it's snowing and in the 30's here brrrr..... and

the line @ customs takes so long to get thru here

[Stump]

Nice little boat. Perfect for the jobs you require it to do!

How far do you have to go to get to the water?

Looks like a dory hull with a taste of kayak?

[Phil]

1-2 mi. driving depending on which creek. No kayak mixed in, although it does a good job keeping up with them using a double paddle.

[Barry Pyeatt]

I remember seeing a creek boat like that in NW Arkansas a few years back. Interesting little boat. Didn't weight much at all. Owner used it for fishing and hunting as well as some other persuits that he wouldn't go into. He claimed it was a little tender and took some gettin' used to but could really scoot along with a double ended paddle.

His brother lived in Southwestern Arkansas in the marshes and had a few of them that they built over the years. Didn't ask about where they got the design. Bottoms were nearly flat, no rocker to speak of at all. His had two flotation compartments in it that doubled as a secure storage ares as well. He didnt' have nearly that nice a seat in his though. His was more like the old moulded fiberglass seat with the legs removed and a swivel base added to it. Simple locking peg to hold the seat in a fixed position.

[Phil]

Alright so no one's going to play the guessing game aye. It's built of 1/4" thk. HDPE Marine plastic a knock off brand of Kingstarboard. I welded the pieces together using welding rod ( the black lines you see on the boat) and a plastic welder that looks like a soldering iron w/ an air attachment for temp. control. Pretty cool process and scary as I had no idea whether or not it would work. I got the idea from seeing the drift boats in the PNW using UHMW as protective bottoms. I thought why not just use it for the whole boat? So I put my $ where my brain fart was and it worked

[Guest Oyster]

And I am called a nutcase in building boats. But I need a close up shot for these black lines.

[Charlie Jones]

LOL- yeah- me too

[capt jake]

A plastic welded boat! WOW, who'd a thunk? Pretty cool.

[Phil]

Hey Oyster and Charlie. Thanks for all the great info ya'll post on this site! Glad to see your interest this technique could be used for so many things! I can't get a detail shot to load :evil:

[Phil]

Cooler one side bait well the other

[Guest Oyster]

Thats pretty cool. I must confess that I will experiement with some of this material for sure.

[capt jake]

Cooler one Very Happy side bait well the other

I hope you don't mix them up. :shock:

That is a pretty ingenious method of building.

[Phil]

A few things to keep in mind:

Make sure you get UV stabilized (carbon black added)

Use the light wt. (air entrained) the normal wt. material is super dense and super heavy. The light wt. does have minute(sp?) voids but a sharp plane, thanks to Bob Smalser, almost hones or burnishes it.

The technology comes from building fume hoods for metal plating, chemical laboratory ventilation etc... as HDPE is resistant to almost all chemicals. I've got a lot of resources I would be happy to share. The welders are all over I used Laramy out of Vermont. Your welding rods have to match your material exactly, including UV stab. You can even make your own from the mat. your working with.

[Charlie Jones]

KEWL!!! I can just picture me and my fly rod sitting in one of those seats fighting a big redfish.

. BUT I don't really think they'd work well here in our waters- bit rough and wide open at times. I guess I'll stick with my plans to build a Birder from Graham.

[Phil]

Yup Charlie I agree that boat is definitely not for open water. I just wanted to turn ya'll on to a different material/construction method. Like I said it can be used for anything! My next boat will be BS1088 okoume with a Meranti bottom, but it will be for the river not the creek. I couldn't imagine what this boat would look like had it been plywood :shock: . Look at all the products offered by WestM for example out of HDPE and the majority are screwed together :roll: , anyway like they say "open mines are falling hazards" open minds are, well open minds!

[Guest Oyster]

FWIW, Interesting tool. I see some potential in forming some parts, not really associated with boats that fit on this board, though, from a fellow on another website, that uses this type of product for many custom parts. .

http://arizonatools.com/catalog/browse/3190-3197/detail/8034/

The hardest part to plastic welding is identifying the type of plastic, because you've got to match the rod to the material. By industry standard, ALL molded parts will have a round stamp on the underside identifying the plastic material used (PE for polyethene, ABS, PVC or TPE etcetra). If you can find the stamp, welding is a five minute job, start to finish. If you can't find the stamp, that's when the Mini-Weld manual or video comes in. They'll tell you precisely how to determine the material type by its color, texture, application, and scratch resistance. Beleive us when we tell you that welding any kind of plastic is the easiest thing you'll ever do.