: Thinking of strip building a set of outriggers for my Georgian Bay. Has
: anyone done this? Does anyone know of a set of plans for pontoons or
: outriggers?

You really don't need plans for these things. if you are building with plywood you would make them with rather flat surfaces, but with strip - building techniques you just go for a very simple cylinder.

Your forms are circles, or semicircles, or something in between (I'll explain that in a minute). They are all the same size and shape, you can work with them on a strongback, a workbench, or use an internal 2x4 "strongback". The number of forms is up to you. I'd figure on having one every 18 inches. Since there are no compound curves on the design you should be able to strip it in one day, and if you strip it in the morning you can probably sand it that afternoon.

The bigger the diameter of your forms the bigger your pontoons will be. How big you need them is debatable, but just for a starting point, lets assume they are 1/2 the length ofyour boat, and 1/2 the beam. so, for an 18 foot kayak with a 22 inch beam, your pontoons would have a diameter of 11 inches and be 9 feet long. You can calculate the volume of this cylinder by figuring the area of the 11 inch circle (5.5 squared, times pi) divide that by 144 to get the answer in square feet ( or fractions thereof) and multiply that times 9 to get the volume in cubic feet. Multiply the volume by 60 to get the maximum displacement.

For this particular case, doing some quick scrathing on a napkin gives me a circle area of about 91 square inches, or 91/144's of a square foot. I'll "ball park" that as 90/150s, or 9/15ths or 3/5ths of a square foot. For a nine foot length I'd have 27/5ths, or 5 2/5 cubic feet. 5 cubic feet would weigh 300 pounds, and the remaining 2/5ths would be another 24, so the displacement of the pontoon would be around 325 pounds when submerged completely.

This thing would probably sit only an inch or two in the water. A 150 pound person could stand on it and submerge it only half its thickness, so why bother to build a complete tube? If you jsut build the bottom half and put a flat top on it you have most of the advantages. Or, going back to my previous comment about something in between, consider taking the disks and cutting off a 3 inch piece, giving you something like 3/4 of a circle with a flat side -- which could be the top.

As a round bottom hull the wetted area and drag would be very small. Forget the problems of stability, as it needs none -- it is tied to the main boat.

finish the ends by making them conical, and all the pieces should be identical. You don't need any forms for the ends, just something to hang the strips on while the glue hardens. a tick coming from the middle of the end forms will do.

Plan on leaving the forms inside. you can give them all a coat of epoxy resin before you start so they are sealed. You only need to sand, glass and varnish the outside. all bu the last strip will be full width -- use bead and cove for quick work, or run your square edged strips through a jointer/planer or a table saw to get a bit of a bevel on the edge. For an 11 inch diameter tube your circumference is about 35 inches. With 3/4 inch strips that would be about 45 strips. Since each strip meets the other at an angle, there would be 45 joints over the 360 degrees of the circle. Each joint consists of two pieces, meeting at 8 degrees, so the angle is split between them. Cutting a bevel of 4 degrees on the edge of each strip should fit them all together nicely.

Staple the first few strips on the forms, or use some brads. If youuse staples you'll nees to pull them later. If you use brads you can leave them in. Just recess the head so it doesn't snag when you start sanding.

after you have done 3/4 of the cylinder, lay on a strip without glue, and use a few brads to hold it in place. add 5 to 10 more strips and add another that has no glue on one edge. After the gule dries you'll be able to pull the brads and you'll have the cylinder open up along the unglued lines so you can paint the insides with resin to seal it. later you can drop that top back on and glue it in place before covering the thing with a layer of glass cloth. Only the outside needs the cloth as the inside is supported by your forms, which now serve as bulkheads. If you used staples (or went staple less) when building the tube, the resin you applied to the inside should have been sufficient to hold the bulkheads in place.

Complete the ends by fashioning cones. If you used 45 strips for the cylinder you will have 45 strips for each cone. They will taper from full width to a point. For a cone about 1 foot long you'll need strips that are about 14 inches long. You can set up your saw to cut all these in the taper shape, and then cut the 4 degree bevel on each edge and they'll all fit together just fine.

A shorter or smaller diameter pontoon is also possible. Decide how big you want it. For a test, why not jsut use a section of 4 inch pvc pipe for a while and see if that is big enough. If so, make your wood strip pontoon the same size. if not, try two or more pieces. when you get the correct displacement figured out, build a pontoon to that size.

Hope this helps.

PGJ