Wooden Boat People

By McKenzieDriftBoat.com

UHMW

O.K. so I was doing some searching around and stumbled on a company that is attaching UHMW to aluminum boats this way.

"We attach UHMW via aluminum washers that are countersunk into the plastic at strategic locations on your hull and then filled with aluminum weld to create an ultra strong, HOLE & BOLT FREE finish. No holes drilled through your hull, no overtaxed bilge pumps, no ripping up your expensive interior to gain access to elongated bolt holes that allow water to stream in. Leak free, guaranteed!".

So I got to wondering would this be possible to do on a wood boat? I was thinking of using epoxy instead of aluminim weld. I have accidentaly epoxied some metal to wood on occasion and sometimes it sticks really well and other times not so I am not sure about using metal washers. Maybe some kind of wood washer?

Any opinions out there?

Mike

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Permalink Reply by eric stevens on May 7, 2010 at 6:32pm

i have used epoxy to weld aluminum to aluminum and it is rock solid. I saw a program a long time ago where they showed how they built 747's and they used epoxy on the aluminum parts before putting them together. whats the name of the company? that is an interesting idea,

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Permalink Reply by Mike Baker on May 7, 2010 at 6:56pm

http://www.highcaliberbc.ca/jetboatmain.html
So do you think using aluminum washers might work? I was also thinking fiberglass washers.

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Permalink Reply by John Greenleaf on May 7, 2010 at 8:05pm

I would think there would still be a problem due to the big difference in the shear strength between aluminum and say epoxy, which is ultimately what we would need to fasten it to the wooden boat hull at these various "nodes" (If I understand completely). When some sharp rock digs into that UHMW bottom it would tend to shear all those little attachment points off somewhere between the washer and the hull and then take the shoe along with it. You'd probably need many many more nodes to make up the difference..Just a speculation..