Thread: Anyone ever build their own pontoon?

I know the feeling. Sitting in an empty studio control room researching 180+degree field of view lenses for roof mounted weather camera.

Had all the bills paid this morning by 6am..... need to look into pontoons too.

Med students are all on Christmas break.

Cheers
Doug

I'd been exploring more options, instead of a solid (well, laminate pieces into a block) EPS float, building a EPS shell, covering it with 1/4" Lauan, and using Fiberglass (cheaper) to waterproof things.

Be a weight savings of 24 pounds per float (cf/ft of EPS weighs 3 pounds according to what I read), but offset by the eight of the Lauan (18 pounds per sheet), and would require a bit more than a sheet to enclose the EPS, so weight-savings wouldn't be much. It would however offer a bit more defense to dings.

Cost of 1.5"x 48"x96" EPS is just over $20/sheet, so you'd save around $120 on EPS.

Fiberglass Resin and cloth would be cheaper as well, no exact costs but probably in excess of $100 there as well.

So weight savings, not so much a factor, cost savings, a definite plus.

Just for discussions sake here's the differences "in color"

EPS Block, with deck mounting integrated, as well as keel runner (which could just as easily be a length of PVC Pipe).



PVC Keel (also reconfigured the deck mount set-up, just playing around). The bolts (stainless) would let the deck-mount bracketry slip over them, and the same plastic knobs could be used to hold things together.



And the "hollow" one, with Lauan Skin. The bottom "V" could be an "add-on" (as shown, independent of the float), or left-off as it wasn't taken into account on flotation numbers.

Here's a pretty interesting find:

Home Page

What's really neat is the storage inside the floats.

Looks like the tops of the floats have taken it tough, most likely thin material to save weight.

Not exactly sure what it is where it states "Hull Weight 65 Pounds"?

Regardless, some interesting ideas there.

Here's another:

Popular Mechanics - Google Books

And there's 3-4 pages on this one (just to be sure you don't miss them).

Granted, a bit "dated", but it worked then, no reason it wouldn't now.

Hey Neon- I remembered the below book from about 20 yrs ago...if you haven't already come across it, I thought some of it may be helpful in your planning:

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/educati...atbuilders.pdf


I had gotten a copy of that book while a friend and I built a couple of canoes featured in Popular Mechanics, here:

Popular Mechanics - Google Books

It's fun looking at those old Popular Mechanics, they go back a whole lot of years thanks to Google.

Not exactly sure what it is where it states "Hull Weight 65 Pounds"?

Do you suppose that refers to each pontoon?

[QUOTE
Looks like the tops of the floats have taken it tough, most likely thin material to save weight.][/QUOTE]

I wondered about those too. Looks like indentations for some purpose, they are too uniform in spacing.

soldered over pop rivets?

I'd have to guess each pontoon at 65 pounds, but more info would have been nice, including total weight capacity. At both weighing 130 pounds (if each weighs 65 pounds) that leaves 120 pounds for the deck and supports. I'll check-out links.

5052 alloy is a generic/easily formed alloy of aluminum, I'm sure there were thin supports added inside the floats, and they've probably been sat on a few times, and just from being handled beat the thin skin down between the supports (which you can actually see their locations), and for that length of pontoons, at 65 pounds for one, it had to be thin material. Some pics the top of the floats look "flat", and others they look concave, may have just been taken with a bit of time-laps between, or even a totally different boat?

Almost looks like a blind rivet (like they were hammered-on), but hard to say (guess), could just be plug welded through hole drilled in skin, and welded to inner supports.

I think I found just the goodie for you NM

>>>Pack Small.... Play Big<<<

Cheers
Doug

Pretty cool, I'd actually run across similar "pods" that slide together in a similar fashion, I believe they're for docks/platforms. Downside is, after watching video, it's not enough of a benefit over a kayak for me. Low to the water, not sure how well I could walk on it (if at all), and the 16'er is only rated at 450 pounds (not enough for me). I didn't see a price on his website....which generally leaves me to believe it's omitted so not to scare anyone off. If you run across a price, I'd be curious, just for the heck of it.