Glen-L.com

That is amazing. Thanks for sharing with us.

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John Amundsen
Monte Carlo
Winter Haven, FL

Maybe it will be done by G6 and maybe not.

Hope this is not too late,,, I work 16 hour days on M&T so I did not check the site. I would not leave any over hang on the sides. I really like for the joint to former a real nice corner with the edges of the plate just barely lapped on top of each other. Leave a nice almost fillet weld type joint there. Gives great pen and ties the two plates together very well. Looking good so far

Thanks! I apprecate the information.

My brother was questioning me today on my thinking of adding skegs to the bottom. He has a drift boat and thinks I will lose a lot of control rowing if I put the skegs on. I am soliciting feedback for anyone who would like to share their thoughts on this topic? I know I can always add them on later but will I want to after I get it all done and painted up?

I’m going to be adding my side stiffeners this week also. I’m planning on locating them 3-4” up from the bottom of the side plate since I’m adding a tackle tray to the inside of the side plate. Does that sound right or should I move it tight to the bottom or up higher?

I wish my trailer was ready. I would like to take this down to a lake and float it to see if I have any leaks in my welds before I start my interior work.

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Charles Brammer

If you have the boat ready for the drain plug you could fill the boat a few inches deep with water and check it that way. However be sure you have the bottom well supportive.. As for skags on the bottom, I would put either a 1 1/2" angle turned upside down on each side of the equally spaced from the centerline, or I would use 2" channel and turn it over too. With almost a total flat bottom with no skag the boat will be hard to keep from sliding bad in turns if the boat is on plane.

I think I mentioned earlier about having built a lot of river style boats and all of them flat bottom on the back end. I built a couple for folks who were adamant they did not want skags on the bottom. After a few trips each owner brought the boat and wanted skags put on.

If funny you commented on filling it with water. My friend at work who is helping me with some tig welding suggested the same thing tonight. But we both thought we should wait until the drain plug arrives.

I ended up making some skegs. They are 42" long and i'm going to locate them at the very rear of the boat about 8" in from the outside of the hull. That will keep them about 14" away from the side of the tunnel hull and give me a good area for the trailer bunks to support the boat. I just need to weld on the skegs and side stiffeners on and I can flip it

Mcmbuilder, When I go to put on the side stiffeners I’m going to follow the water line about 1” up from where the bottom plate and side plate meets. There is a lot of contour along that line near the bow. Should I use a torch to soften up the aluminum angle to bend it as I follow the contour up at the bow or just force it? How did you do your river boats?

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Charles Brammer

I used 2"X2"X3/16 angle for my side rails. I actually place mine about 8" from the top of the sides. I ended the rails about 4-5 from the front so I avioded the hard turn as the boat narrowed in the front. I actually drilled holes from the inside on 6" spacing and did the welding from the inside. This made a lot nicer finish on the sides.

I would not use a torch to help with the bending, rather I would try to use clamps and pull the rails into the side of the boat.

I got my boat flipped today! After I took out the wood forms today and loved what I saw. Until I started looking at it head on and saw a slight twist in the boat. The bow of the boat is 1” higher on the starboard side than it is on the port. Any idea’s how to get this twist out? Or should I trim the starboard side down so that visually it looks balanced (even though it’s not)?

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Charles Brammer

Charles; I think that if you get the twist out of the hull, it should stay that way when you get the deck work welded in place. Is it a little flexible? I've successfully straightened a unibody car chassis using this method (very primitive I agree, but cheap and effective )
Get 2 posts...maybe a 4 x 4 or a cedar pole..,put it between one corner of the transom and the ceiling. Do the same on the opposite side at the bow. Then using a floor jack and protective blocking, jack the other corner up ( bow or stern...don't think it matters ) to take out the twist. IF it works, ( be carefull and watch for buckling..you may not get a warning!) you will probably have to go past plane to get a final result at rest.

Good luck; Doug

Slug,

Thanks for confirming what I need to do. I don’t think your system of over twisting the opposite direction to take the twist out of the boat isn't that primitive. I’m not able to follow your system since I’m working in a building with 25’ ceilings. So I’m going back to using weight and time to try to take the twist out and will let it set all night (see photo). Hopefully Friday when I take the bundles of tubing off it will not spring back completely. The next step if this doesn’t work is to cut the weld on the starboard side (the side plates are pushed together on that side where I welded them together) and re-weld it with the weight in it to help hold the shape.

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Charles Brammer

I ran into this problem on a few of my builds. Believe it or not you could build another boat doing everything the same and not have the same issue. Then again using way too much heat can cause it too. Either way it is not an impossible condition to deal with. Overweighting it to the opposite direction is not necessary although that is one way to do it. You can use weights and get it back to level. When you do leave the weights in place until you get all the interior braces put in place and welded. That will hold the boat in shape. If you do go the over weighting in the opposite direction be sure you bring it back to level before you weld any braces in place.

I'm not exactly sure what type of interior braces your referring to? Are the interior braces your referring to more specialized in hold the longitudinals in place?

If it springs back beyond level (which I think it will) then my next step was going to be cutting the weld out of the starboard side plate and reweld it while holding it level. The side plate is pushing together there when I straighten it out. After than is done I was going to move forward on welding the 1x2 1/8" wall tubing to the top of the side plates as I had planned on from the start. That should help even out the tension when the weight is removed.

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Charles Brammer

A cross member might be a better description. I would consider anything which attaches each side and the floor together a cross member. A front deck would be a good example of this. If you have the boat twisted past the level point and attach a cross member then your boat will be out of level in the opposite direction of where it was when you turned it over. That is why I do not like weighting it past the level position. However that is just my preference.

After looking at your pics again I am not sure you will be able to correct this w/o cutting the weld loose and re welding. That is some pretty significant warpage.

Do you think I would need to cut and re- weld both the side & bottom plate?

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Charles Brammer

If the bottom is already welded to the longitudual lengths then I think you may have to cut if loose from those to. I know you put it together upside down and welded it out that way,,,, but are you sure you the boat level when you started welding? The warpage looks pretty significant if it is not just a camera angle making it appear so.

It could be a bad camera angle. When I took the photos I didn't have the boat level to the ground. We had just flipped it and I had set some blocks down to protect the bottom. The twist starts between the 4th and 5th frame (near where to 4 sections of bottom plate intersect). When the boat was upside down the twist wasn't there. But could this be from me not setting it up correctly in the forms? Maybe, I cant stay I did a perfect job laying it up (it was my 1st time). But all the frames were cut to accept the longitudinals before I attached them to the forms and when I went to lay the longitudinals into the pre-cut slots everything lined up perfect. So I'm inclined to think its weld distortion from the bottom plates.

The starboard bow was 1" higher than the port side prior to putting in the weight. I pulled the weight out of it this morning and it was down to 3/4" of twist. I am able to get it back to level using weight but getting it to stay there is the trick. I placed weight back in the boat to give it the weekend --- to see it I could get another 3/8-1/2" out of it. The twist is so far up in the bow of the boat I can't get the counter twist applied just where I want it---between the two front frames. I'm having to support the port side of the boat from the transoms to the 3rd frame only. The trailer comes in next week for the boat and using that I should be able to move it to a better location to apply more counter twist to the hull in just the right area.

Im going to take it down to the water and float it before I consider cutting into any of the longitudinals. Once its in the water it shouldn't be visible and on plane that little amount of twist would all be out of the water and not effect performance (vs. 20-30 hours of rework and I hate rework). I'm sure some of the wood boat builders are shaking their heads at me now

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Charles Brammer