Boat & Motor build.

[Wimperdink]

Heya folks, Its been awhile since I've been around. I don't know if its appropriate to bring a build like this here but since its small (though cantankerous) and home made, I thought you might enjoy some pics. This is a two part project; a home built boat, and a home built motor. First a paragraph or two that is completely unnecessary to read unless your just bored. Feel free to jump straight to pics.

I built the boat a year ago from plans from woodenwidget.com as a means to have something to bring with me when I went camping. Since I used to play here, my family has grown and I have 3 mini me's so I started to stray from paddling and moved to camping. I have a hightop conversion van that pulls a camper that neither would be easy for throwing a pirogue on and since I don't spend as much time on the water, small and folding, fit best. What I found is that this boat is impossible to paddle and oars would be a heavy beast. The boat only weighs in at about 30 lbs and slips in the door of my camper and stores easily in the walkway.

My trial runs were with a trolling motor that worked swimingly but I didn't much care for carrying a 20lb motor and a 60lb battery with me. I decided I needed a light weight motor so I built one. The motor is a 2hp 2 stroke from an old mini tiller, with a bunch of old weed eater parts hacked together into one 16.4lb package of gas guzzeling, noise making, awesome. (I haven't tested in water yet as I finished it 2 days ago and its been cold and rainy.)

Anyway to save any slow connection folks, (if there is any anymore) the trouble, I'll post links to the directories full of pics and just leave a couple in here.

Linky to all the outboard build pics
Fliptail boat build pics (ignore the green cloth pics... just some junk cloth I was testing to put in place of fiberglass someday.
And a youtube video<--- please turn off speakers if your offended by crude language. A buddy made this video for me.

And last but not least, a few pics of the two of them together.

 

[Kayak Jack]

You've put a lot of work into this. For those kids you're raising - and, GOOD on you for that! - let them " help" you build a small canoe? Matt has plans and kits; something there could serve you well.

 

[Wimperdink]

I've been drooling over Matts plans for ages now but as you well know, these little boats are a disease. You can't just build one and I wrestle over whats next. I built a minimax first, 3 pirogues next, then a rebuild on a 10' wooden speed boat, now this one, and I'm eyeballing the SOF kayaks at the moment. When is enough, enough? lol

 

[Kayak Jack]

"Enough is enough", when you have more boats than the average Inuit village. Keep building.

 

[jpsaxnc]

Hi Dink, I was wondering where you got the proper looking motor mount and the prop? I've started on a weedeater outboard as well. Thanks James

 

[Wimperdink]

Hi Dink, I was wondering where you got the proper looking motor mount and the prop? I've started on a weedeater outboard as well. Thanks James

The prop is from a 60's model 4 HP johnson outboard and the motor mount is from a trolling motor that had some problems. To be honest though, I will probably change that prop out for a plastic trolling motor prop as the screw hole makes it easier to center, which also balances it better. I had to make a hub for this prop on my lathe and managed to drill the center hole just slightly off center so when I started it, it has some vibration. One more thing with a plastic prop is that if its off pitch for the power of your motor, you can repitch it with a heat gun. Just make sure whatever prop you get goes the right direction for your motor lol.

These are only $12 at Wally world.

 

[jpsaxnc]

Thank You. James

 

[Kayak Jack]

I noticed that the pictured prop is a weedless one. For uses that would be likely for these rigs, that could be important.

Can you make weed eaters variable speed? Or, are they just ON and OFF? When my late wife used an electric trolling motor on the canoe, the variable speed was really nice. Then, she replaced the motor with me. (The motor was more reliable, but I'm better looking.)

 

[lil'moe]

kayak Jack, most weed whackers have a throttle control. But I bet when your trolling motor was replaced with yourself, there were times that the "quiet hum" of the motor was missed. And it did have an off position!

 

[Kayak Jack]

(Twisting necktie here, tossing head from side to side)- "NO respect!! NO respect!"

 

[Wimperdink]

I could probably save you some trouble and advise you that weed eaters are very underpowered as outboards but I'd hate to ruin a project lol.

I found that my two HP was way over propped with that weedless prop so I changed to a used trolling motor prop I had. It too was too much prop for the motor. Remembering that a small outboard has somewhere around a 2:1 ratio gear reduction in the lower unit, advises that with my direct drive setup is running around double the rpms at the prop. So I am playing with the used plastic prop to see if I can make it useable without some real modifications to the shaft.

Here is the prop halfway through removing some surface area to the blades. This is to show how much material I removed for the next test.