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Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags
By:Bill Hamm
Date: 5/11/2011, 1:53 am
In Response To: Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags (Paul G. Jacobson)

: No. I haven't needed float bags in my canoe. The cheapest
: commercial roll-top dry bags work fine to keep my gear dry on
: trips. You could try something like that for floatbags in a SOF,
: but they are not going to fit as well as ones which are tailored
: to size.

: In his book on canvas covered boats George Putz suggests using
: pieces of precoated scrap material for patches. he suggests
: using rubber cement as a contact cement. The boy Scout design
: for folding kayaks uses contact cement for holding the canvas
: and plywood parts together. They report success with these
: materials being in the water, and on trips for a week. That
: should be more than enough time to get off the water!

: As for wrapping the boat to get a size: That is a pretty
: conventional sewing idea. They make human-shaped sewing
: mannequins for fitting dresses and blouses, and the process with
: boats is much simpler, although we want something smaller than
: the form (the boat) which the fabric is wrapped around. So wrap
: it, and sew it smaller.

: A small leak is fine. why do you ned them to be totally air tight.
: These are not balloons. if they have a slow leak and lose a
: gallon of air in an hour then should you capsize you have an
: hour to bail that last gallon out of your boat. If a perfect
: floatbag would keep 100 liters of water out of the boat, and a
: leaky one only keeps 96 out, then the difference is trivial.

: Put them in a bit slack and they will still displace water which
: gets into the boat. Inflating them to any level of pressure
: could cause them to expand too much on a hot day.

: If you have the material then this could be a fast way to make
: them. If you don't have heat seal nylon you can get a
: heat-fusible material like heat 'n' bond at Walmart or any
: sewing store. Platt Monfort uses that stuff for attaching the
: polyester material to the wood on his Geodesic Airolite boat
: designs. Works fine for him. Again, you can seal the polyester
: with whatever you used to seal the boat's skin. see
: www.gaboats.com for info on this.

: Good luck with your floatbags.

: PGJ

Btw, Platt passed away several years ago, the company is still there, not the man.

Bill H.

Messages In This Thread

Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags
Robert -- 5/5/2011, 3:55 pm
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags
Ken Blanton -- 5/5/2011, 6:40 pm
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags
john faas -- 5/5/2011, 10:26 pm
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags
Ken Blanton -- 5/6/2011, 5:35 am
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags
StephenHJ -- 5/6/2011, 1:01 pm
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags
Paul G. Jacobson -- 5/7/2011, 5:35 pm
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags
Jeff Horton -- 5/8/2011, 9:13 am
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags
Bill Hamm -- 5/8/2011, 1:42 pm
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags
Mike Savage -- 5/8/2011, 3:21 pm
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags
Paul G. Jacobson -- 5/10/2011, 2:48 am
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags *PIC*
Tom Yost -- 5/10/2011, 12:22 pm
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags
Bill Hamm -- 5/11/2011, 1:51 am
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags
Bill Hamm -- 5/11/2011, 1:53 am
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags:small leak
Foster -- 5/11/2011, 11:24 am
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags:small leak
Paul G. Jacobson -- 5/14/2011, 9:52 pm
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags:small leak
Bill Hamm -- 5/15/2011, 12:32 am
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags:small leak
Bill Hamm -- 5/15/2011, 12:34 am
Re: Skin-on-Frame: Flotation bags
Corona -- 5/11/2011, 12:32 pm