Making a boat

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benfearon147

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Hello,

I have lots of pallet wood at home and I've figured I could try and craft a small boat out of it (literally as basic and as small as they get), once completed what would I coat and paint it with to make it waterprood and so that the paint doesn't flake/peel etc. ?

Any answers appreciated,
thanks!
 
No idea, but decide what you want, make the 'bits' from the plan and (perhaps) ronseal the wood. As Wansworth said, caulking and sealing are all part of the manufacture of the boat, and will vary from design to design. If you buy plans which might give you a clearer idea of what you want as your result, then it'll be easier to advise, but actually, there's a load of ways to get it right, so good luck!
 
Looking at the pallets I have the wood seems to be very brittle not the best but say a little flat bottomed punt without any curved surfaces could be possible maybe two layers glued so no joins to caulk.I can see the idea of using the wood it you have it but personally I would go for a pram or punt using 6 mm ply and use the pallet wood for strengthening or runners.
 
Yes. Pallet wood is awful to work and can be very dense. A punt from such made of it would weigh a ton. Light ply and epoxy stitch and glue is the way forward.
 
Have a look at the Wooden Boat Forum and search for 'Lumberyard Skiff' It might help with ideas. One of your problems is the short lengths in pallets make it difficult to frame up a decent length of boat. So perhaps find a few longer bits and use the pallet wood where the length doesn't matter.
As for sealing joints, mastic? Or maybe a PU mastic glue.
 
About the best use for old pallets is as firewood. That's why it's used to make pallets, it's no use for anything else. Full of knots, twisted grain and nailholes too. If I were you, I wouldn't start from here.
 
...and pallets are held together with nasty barbed staples and wire nails. Find some doors, wardrobes and other old furniture but not chipboard!
 
When I was a very young chap we made a boat from the roof of an old car - cutting the posts with a hacksaw was the most difficult part but should be a piece of pie [or whatever you're having yourself] with an angle grinder. We used it on a local pond with umbrellas as sails.
 
Catalina36 said:
About the best use for old pallets is as firewood. That's why it's used to make pallets, it's no use for anything else. Full of knots, twisted grain and nailholes too. If I were you, I wouldn't start from here.
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Sometimes.. Neighbour dumped a tractor trailer load of pallets outside for firewood. The farm is being cleared for sale. So I started cutting them up. In there were some long ones made of half decent maranti, so broke those down and saved the wood.
 
Years ago I found some pallets from the Far East that came over made from a hard redwood similar to Iroko. I was at the dump getting rid of stuff and came away with more than I took. Those pallets made a lovely wheelhouse frame on a boat i was building so certainly some pallets are good timber.

No reason you cannot saw up the pallet timbers and scarf them together with a good powdered resin glue like Cascamite which has gap-filling qualities too. Why make a box - build a proper boat using your pallet wood for frames BUT I suggest like the other poster said that you get some thin Far Eastern WBP plywood to skin it. That way you can make a pretty little hard-chine dinghy maybe 10 or 12 feet long. You would need 5 long members for gunwales and chines and hog, If you used 2 more as carlins to hold side-decks you could make it frame-less as they would stop on fore and aft deck beams so you'd get a little fore-deck and after deck which with the side decks to keep the boats shape. Gluing stringers to hull between hog and chines and between chines and gunwale stiffen the panels and give fixing for thwarts.

The transom frame and one temporary frame is used to spring the gunwales and chines round to the stem timber. Make the long members about 25-30mm thick, saw them in half from the frame to the stem, spring open, add resin glue and spring them round to the stem and clamp them together - when the glue sets they'll keep the shape.

I envy you - I long to build another boat out here but alas - too old now!
 
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Wansworth said:
Just get right along and make that boat,else be too late?
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I wanted my own boat way back when I was 11, Father said 'So build it' Sketched a little pram (think Optamist) on an envelope (really!) and I set too.
Had more fun with that little sailing boat than any other. Huge fun.
 
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