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Katoh, what sized holes are you filling? The headache with MIG is the porosity. Even if you had a thick plate and were working down hand, you'd have to 'stir' the puddle for long enough to allow the gas formed from the corrosion cells' lining to bubble out of the puddle. Your description seems like ...

gentlemen, filling holes/pits/recesses/excavations with MIG is tiring because the weld is 'over before it starts'. MIG is not the tool for this job, TIG is the tool, but if you insist on trying this type of repair with MIG, I'd suggest run on or run off plates. Essentially a piece of plate with a ho...

Woo, I misunderstood your previous post. I believe the main design intent is to get through rough water and tow boom, I thought you were saying you were going to ocean tow or rough water tow, (? !!) but now I understand and wholly & completely agree with your explanation/clarification. I don't c...

Woo, thumping alloy boats as a test for soundness? this can be done but not by tapping outside the hull as you do looking for watersoaked patches in the hulls of plastic&fiber boats. You're not going to discover, well not very likely as exfoliation is pretty rare, any sheet unsoundness like comp...

Ouch! my knuckles ! that smarts Jetty----- OK back to the original question(s). Woo, first you'd look at the welding, if it is not uniform, even, consistent with 'fused' edges then the boat is not welded reliably. Fused edges are a very clean and even transition between the top or toe (edges of) the...

Woo, I'll remark about one aspect of your reply, not to you as much as to the Forum overall. If we look at the absurd designs of the Stabicraft boats its clear someone is hung up on farm equipment not boats . Those 'craft' are so unutterably homely its almost a misuse of English to use the term boat...

Woo, the assumption of recovering the bucks/cost seems to conflict with the idea that this boat has been unsold for a long time? (it seems to me) The shape is very 'eccentric' and kind of like 'iced tea' or house siding. First you plant tea and harvest it when green, then dry it brown, only to add h...

goatram, when aluminum is 'milled' into sheet that is the 50 series alloy plates and sheet material (generally the industry calls 3/16" or 0.187" thick material the break between plate 1/4" and thinner 0.160" a sheet some folks make that call at 0.125" 1/8") they are su...

dawgaholic, some of the best indications of the longer lasting boat are the welds- they work as 'indicators' of quality at one level. If you look at a Pacific, a hull from Response Marine, a Munson, or many of the other longer term builders you'll see they have welds of high quality. Some companies ...

Welder, yes the fittings were done on a positioner and foot pedal to get the uniform feed welds, the SS is a water cooler box/tank for the TIG torch and the drill is 0.065" dia. tip drill for size reference the pulsed TIG weld was so small I had to put two pair of cheaters in the hood to even s...

When I got back to the mail I found some comments here and that made me look at the original post again. I think I skipped something and would like to point it out. We're all speculating on this sled hull but my speculation about the alloy went up to almost assure everyone its 5052. If you look alon...

dawg, many fresh water inboard sleds are built of 5052 alloy which is softer, lower tensile (tears more easily) and is cheaper than 5086 or 5083 'saltwater' aluminum. 5052 will work fine in salt water but its not quite as corrosion resistant as 5086 or 5083 (the latter most common Down Under) but al...

Boy that boat sure is built to a homely work standard! That 'thing' needs to take a vicious hit, it should be cut up for scrap! Of course, it's good to hire the "physically challenged" as they need work too, but hiring them as welders many not be the best future for your boat building comp...

3F8, last winter a skipper approached me to help with his radar, lights and antennas because he top loads his cabin with kayaks or gear. He wanted a very specific radar mount so the dome would clear the top load, the kayaks would not interfere when loaded and he'd also have a place for radio antenna...

Matt, the amount of welding drops proportionally as the vessel/boat/project grows. If you had one tower to do that you'd done before so the planning was done it would have some percentage of welding. But if you had a hundred towers the logistics, planning, coordination, transport planning, supplies,...

Matt,

Having done a couple of 40 scows (one piece- not modular) and built boats for a few years as well, my estimation is that welding is around 3-4% of this project.

Cheers,
Kevin Morin

Matt, here are a few concept sketches to work from http://i383.photobucket.com/albums/oo273/kevinmorin_photo/Modular%20Barge/modularbarge_concept_1a.jpg first all three sections are the same size so the resulting barge is uniform top and bottom and length. These boxes would probably float in a few i...

Matt, a 5' sea for the barge connections implies some decent engineering! The 'boxes' themselves are not too challenging, but I'd do some looking for an existing professional design office that has done modular barges in alloy. The reason is that if you build the barge and something goes wrong, the ...

Matt, 1/4" is pretty much overkill so it will work, but is an unneeded expense. Designing the three barge modules is not all that hard but should be done by someone with some experience with modular, pin together barges or docks. The interlock system and the loading of equipment need to be know...

Michael, Adding aluminum plate over the original hull material is not generally good practice unless some fairly strict quality control is used in the weld testing of the covered plates. The reason for the patches would be important to understand but if the boat is patched we can begin to guess that...

Mill scale or mill finish either term can be used to describe the coating that comes from the mill on aluminum sheet. Its shiny and is not (chemically the same as) the aluminum and if not removed will cause (facilitate/participate/enable/interact) corrosion of the underlying aluminum. Look up "...

Randy;

fish first, photos next.

Kevin

Ken210, don't know which Bay Weld you have but the bottom shape and resulting performance will be significantly different over the boat shown (link above). The forefoot and reverse chine treatment normally seen on all Bayweld's I've seen is a much different bottom over the shallow V and swept chine ...

Randy, the other box will work fine for the added stiffeners, but they will fill more volume that you may need for the rest of the parts to stiffen up that area. Being wider than the plate they will distribute the loads to both edges, and that is good so the 2x6 of the transom will have 4" of w...

Netman, sorry to post confusion. I view the rect. tube (that I thought was a channel) as too thin for the torque load of this engine on the boat. Therefore I'd add some more stiffening to the center section. All outboard exert net force or thrust forward to the hull but they also have plenty of forc...