Aluminium vs Steel

[larper]

Me and my wife flipped our steel 60ftr with tree comalongs and a hydraulic jack. no expense. Were almost done with superstructure by now and we’ve cut all plates so far with 125 and 180mm anglegrinder thickest plate so far are 8mm. over my head we’ve used about 200 180mm disks at a price of 1,5usd each. We both work fulltime so we´ve been building boat about 19months on our free time. I.e. weekends and holidays besides spending time with our 7yo daughter.

My point is. Its very much possible to build a boat outta steel with what many of you have at home. No big expenses besides the material itself, and steel are cheaper than alloy. Steel are easier to weld (imho). Bits and pieces are readily available in the scrapyard I mean. Go there and pickup a piece of steel and make what you want out of it without really care what type of steel it is. Choose with care tho.. .

The project

Just a few cents from me

-- Per Larsson / sweden

[MikeJohns]

larper

Welcome. I agree steel is the most forgiving of all boat building materials which makes it a very good material for the home builder

Please post some pictures of your project. Many folks here would be interested to see your progress. Perhaps to the gallery assigned to you or to your own thread.

Cheers

Cheesecutter
All materials have their advantages and disadvantages. Small boats are very suitable for alloy construction, larger vessels need some carefull design wrt fatigue loads, and will often need additional stiffening, you also need much larger sections to get the required frame and stringer stiffness. Alloy is a much harder material to repair.

Cheers

[hiracer]

As a non-designer and merely a user, I like the fact that steel broadcasts its corrosion, while aluminum I understand is more secretive.

[ssnoopys]

Hi buddy,
Acoording to me Steel is better building material for cruising sail boats.For detail informatin you mind sharing that on splashvision.com.