Design for DIY wooden floor

[Swell]

I've just bought an inflatable boat, a 13 ft Metzeler Juca. It has an inflatable floor, and came with 2 home made ply floor boards. These have been designed to fit tightly right into the edges of the floor prior to inflating - they fit into the seam where the floor meets the side tubes. However, when the floor and tubes are inflated, the boards are pushed up so they no longer fit within those seams, and instead are squeezed between the tubes. This does create a tightly fitting floor, but I'm not convinced it's right since its essentially distorting the tubes and inflatable floor. Should the floor be designed to drop into the boat when inflated rather than the current design which needs to be fitted prior to inflating with the boat sort of inflating and forming its shape around the boards?

Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated!

Roger

 

[jameshunt]

Re: Design for DIY wooden floor

I too would like to hear what everybody says. It seems to me from what I have read in this forum, most have went with 1/2 inch plywood fit so that when placed in the seams during inflation, the tubes form on top of the flooring. This after also lining the edges with pipe insulation or garden hose. Perhaps this would provide enough "give" that it would not distort. I recently used a 1 1/2 inch sheet of polystyrene foam which also "rises" but is sort of contained by the middle seat mounts on either side. I have yet to try it in water however, I can only state it seems sturdy enough, but that was only on the patio. (Waiting for a motor mount prior to launch). I have a twelve foot Intex Excursion.

Hope you get some good responses.

James

 

[Sea Rider]

Re: Design for DIY wooden floor

You will need wooden or alum side long joiners and small panel joiners to assemble well all floor panels, if not, floor panels could become loose while sibbing in choppy waters and probably causing a unexpected accident.

Happy Boating

 

[Swell]

Re: Design for DIY wooden floor

I've drawn what's going on with the current floor boards in the image below which shows the floor inflated without the floor board - you can see that the seam ends up out of sight, the current positioning of the board before inflating and where the floor ends up when inflated. As you can see it's forcing the tube to take up a shape around the board which I think is not right. I'm thinking the board probably needs to sit tightly into the natural join between the inflated floor and the tube as in the first diagram, so it can be fitted when partially inflated. Does that make sense, or does it need to fit another way? (there's also a photo of the join between inflated floor and tube which shows how the floor & tube bulge when inflated and hide the seam)

 

[jameshunt]

Re: Design for DIY wooden floor

good points. All too often we hear about what a "fine" job somebody has done and how pleased they are but we never seem to hear with things go awry. Just like when I ran a world wide motorcycle forum, somebody would come with a great idea and everybody jumped on the band wagon never hearing about the first guy discovering a fly in the ointment and too embarrased to point out the flaw or his mistake. Usually these "great ideas" become gospel and everybody ascribes to them and as I said, the original poster has long since discarded the idea out of some not so pleasant experience.

James

 

[Sea Rider]

Re: Design for DIY wooden floor

If that Metzeler Juca comes with a inflatable keel under air floor, would need to have 2 small wooden pannels next to bow so to make a hinge board like for keel to accomodate and expand well under air floor. These bright ideas modifications don't work well at wot, just for potting around on calm water environments at slow speeds.

Happy Boating