New member....questions?

[thylton]

I have been lurking for several weeks so figured it was time to introduce myself and ask a guestion. I am 61 yrs. old and live in Sulphur, La. Enjoy hiking, photography, bird watching, and playing with the two grand kids. Building a small boat has always been on my bucket list so figured I better get at it. Have done guite a bit of wook working and small building projects so am sure the actual building, while a challenge, should not be to much of a problem. My problem is that I am rather large (6'0" 330lb.). I know there are canoes that would work but would rather build a pirgoue first. Are there any pirgoue plans available to handle that much weight? One of the reasons for building is for exercise, as well as wanting to explore the bayous and swamps of south Louisiana. Any advice will be appreciated.

 

[tx river rat]

I think you will find a lot of perows that will handle that kind of weight on Matts websit.
I weight 225 and carry over a hundred lbs of gear with no problem at all.
The hotair perow I built has been paddled by me and soninlaw both weighing over 200 lbs.
My only suggestion is go at least 15 ft long, it helps in stability ,floating depth and tracking.
Ron

 

[thylton]

Thank Ron, I'll check out Matts' site. I've seen hotair perow mentioned several times, could you tell me something above it. Is it your own design?
Tony

 

[crkdltr]

thylton,

Greetings! I've just recently finished building Matt's 14-29 Pirogue. It's really straight forward. I'm 5'10" and 270 lbs myself and so long as I am sitting on the bottom of the boat (and with more seat time to get used to it) everything is stable for the most part. Here's a video my wife took of my testing it just last weekend for the first time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNWaT4STInc It will give you an idea of how it sits in the water and how it will behave. Keep in mind also I have never sat or operated a paddle boat of any kind (kayak, canoe or what have you) so I am very much a novice in building and operating it.

I think Matt's "Swamp Girl" Pirouge might be a little more stable and supportive to larger paddlers. His Pirogue 500 might work better as well as it's beam is 36" and it can support up to 575 lbs according to his product details.

[Swamp Girl] http://www.jemwatercraft.com/proddetail.php?prod=SG

[Pirogue 500] http://jemwatercraft.com/proddetail.php?prod=Pirogue500

 

[seedtick]

don't worry a lot about building a ve4ry large pirogue, you'll get comfortable with whatever you build

i've posted this before, but here's a 14 footer with a 24" bottom carrying at least 600 lb, of course this isn't their first time in a boat

 

[tx river rat]

here are a couple links to the hotair,it was designed out of my head which is full of hot air ,the reason for the name,Matts
design is very simular
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3860

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3993

Ron

 

[thylton]

Thanks for the info. What do y'all think of the UJ pirogue built 15'. Would like to build my first boat without having to deal with fillets.
Tony

 

[islandpiper]

hey buddy, i am here in Ponchatoula and have built three pirogues and a bunch of other small boats. Keith and Seedtick are in Denham Springs and have built hundreds. You can call any of us for info and advice, or take a day and drive up, you are not that far. you should have been here for the Rendezvous, could have answered all your questions.....and everybody here was welcome.

stay in touch. piper

 

[crkdltr]

Thanks for the info. What do y'all think of the UJ pirogue built 15'. Would like to build my first boat without having to deal with fillets.
Tony

Well my father, who is 60, told me when he was a kid growing up their boats were just built with marine grade glue, exterior plywood and a lot of paint. So you could do without fillets. I would at the least do the fillets on the inside seams of the boat.

 

[Jimmy W]

Would like to build my first boat without having to deal with fillets.
Tony

The Uncle John's plans call for filleting the joints, but they call it creating a cove instead of calling it a fillet. I personally think that Matt has better designs than the UJ and better directions and much better customer support.

 

[seedtick]

if you're building with plywood, it's tough (almost impossible) to get edge nailed or edge glued plywood to hold

as far as i know you've got two choices a fillet (or cove) of epoxy and wood flour or a chine

a chine can go inside or outside and it provides the attaching surfaces to hold the sides to the bottom

 

[thylton]

Thanks islandpiper, I may take you up on that offer. Would like to build my first boat with internal chine logs and no glass or fillets. will use epoxy for glue though.
Tony

 

[gbinga]

if you're building with plywood, it's tough (almost impossible) to get edge nailed or edge glued plywood to hold

as far as i know you've got two choices a fillet (or cove) of epoxy and wood flour or a chine

a chine can go inside or outside and it provides the attaching surfaces to hold the sides to the bottom

I built mine with inside chines. I believe JDupree (another fellow who posts here) did also. If you hunt around in the Pirogue section you can see pictures of each. Also, Seedtick has posted all kinds of pictures, some of which show boats with outside chines. He builds boats that look like fine furniture and so far as I've noticed, he doesn't do fillets at all.

A "chine", in case we are losing you here, is a strip of wood that sits at the intersection between the bottom and the side. Gives you something to nail to and provides a decent surface area for the glue. Makes the fillets unnecessary.

Takes some carpentry skill, since it has to be beveled to match the angle between bottom and side. Also has to be cut to length and fitted. We are not talking master carpentry here. I pulled it off and I am NOT a master carpenter. I'm pretty handy with wood, though, and I had to work at it a bit.

Put lots of thought into it and ask lots of questions. You'll get plenty responses. I've been bouncing around in this forum for a few months now, and the folks are about as friendly and willing to help as you could ask for.

George

 

[seedtick]

here's a couple of sides with the inside chine already attached - note on the ends that they are diamond shaped to match the side to bottom angle that gbinga mentioned

finished boat looks like this with inside chines

here's another pirogue that has outside chines

Like Piper said..........make a road trip out this way sometime, showing you how to do it is way easier than trying to explain it

 

[bluegrasslover]

Amateur comment here...I thought that the fillets were not so much for strength but to put a curve in place for the fiber glass. When you use inside chines wouldn't you have corners and I read over and over again that fiber glass doesn't really like corners too much. Can someone shed some light on my confusion?

Thanks

 

[seedtick]

we don't use fiberglass on our boats

but yes if you wanted to glass an inside chine, you'd have to round the corners or just not glass across the chine

 

[gbinga]

Amateur comment here...I thought that the fillets were not so much for strength but to put a curve in place for the fiber glass. When you use inside chines wouldn't you have corners and I read over and over again that fiber glass doesn't really like corners too much. Can someone shed some light on my confusion?

Thanks

Amateur response here -

My understanding is that the fillets provide strength AND a curved area for the cloth. The fillet replaces the chine and welds the two pieces of ply to each other. Then the cloth provides a lot of strength. And getting the cloth into a hard angle like that would be a problem.

I didn't glass the inside of my boat, but like Seedtick was saying, you could just glass the flat parts and leave the chines bare. I can't imagine trying to glass the chines... or the ribs, for that matter, if we are talking about a boat with ribs.

George