My Sydney Boat Show Experience

[Martin]

How bad was it to get a parking on the Sunday

I enjoy the Boat Show each year, hoever its more to have a look and shop around at what is available. Then go out and buy elsewhere having done my home work.

Cheers

Martin

[harry.dz]

Ben can you clarify for me that 90% of the strength is at the plastic it self or the welded area.

What I mean is the weld 90% strong as the adjoining area?

I don't think that a plastic weld would be stronger than a alloy weld.

The adjoining area that has been heated loses it's strength not the weld.

Hope I haven't confused anybody

Hazza

[tuffy]

Yeah, I'd be keen to know how they arrive at the welded strength also. Does the weld go thru the entire thickness of the plastic, or just the surface area? I mean the plastic is about 8mm thick on these things judging by the cutaway I saw at the show. You can call me old fashioned if you like, but at least I know what I'm doing with aluminium or fibreglass and I understand the effectiveness of repairs on them, strengths and weaknesses etc whereas I have absolutely nothing in my shed with which to repair plastic.

[pjbink]

Tuffy,

Sandpaper and a heat gun is all you are likely to need to repair one.

As to aluminium if you weld up a crack you are never sure how good the repair is. For the alloy to fail it means that there is a stress point there and the surrounding metal is likey to have fatigued.

Fiberglass is very expensive to fix. You are looking $1500 - 2500 to repair a transom on an average 5.5m boat. If the transom has rotted out you probably need to replace the the hull stringers as well and the cost increases to about $5000.

Edited August 26, 2006 by billfisher

[tuffy]

Yeah, Billfish, I take your point on the 'glass repairs and you're just about bang on. With the plastic weld, are you just melting the damaged area to melt into itself, or is there extra material going in as there is when you weld with a Tig or Mig etc, like a "fill" type situation?

Re alluminium, the only required repairs I've seen below the chine line are usually damage related, not stress fractures. I haven't heard of stress fractures on your average recreational tinny. I'm on my 3rd (4.6m) and it gets a fair workout when I'm on my own and so far so good. Only probs I've had in the past is electrolysis and that was due to my own negligence. Not any more as last two have been 2-packed in/out.

[pjbink]

Tuffy,

With the Polycrafts the minor damage you can fix yourself. Most scratches and gourges don't required adding plastic as filler, you just melt it a bit and smooth it over with a knife. Or in some cases sand it first then heat it to smooth it out. As to more major damage as Ben said a plastic welder can fix it. I don't know all the in and outs of their procedures.

I agree that most small tinnies are pretty good. But some of the larger pressed ones which take a pounding out at sea do have structural failures. I don't think I would trust one that was been welded up again.

[MrGenius]

Plastic welding is basically the same as tig welding where you are heating the area and using a filler rod.