Building a small work barge with plywood

[CaptBill]

Originally Posted by indianbayjoe

Boy, you guys are way ahead of me.. Were still working in the dark ages with a drafting board and pencil and paper. I will try and copy some of the drawings that Chick has made and post them. Not sure how since they are 24" X 30" but maybe i can take a picture of them. Don't know of anyone around with a scanner that large. Were continually working on our design taking into account some info from you guys and our experiences. Chick did have compartments that were scuppered but not accessible and not i have asked him to add pass through holes through the bulkheads to allow for inspection and repair. The craft would end up with 4 separate compartments. We are planning on utilizing some of that area for storage of things like chains, blocks, lines etc. Also we will probably ballast the aft end of the barge a little. This should help when lifting a large load up forward. In our design we had the lateral bulkheads spaced every 2 feet. The longitudinal bulkheads will be every 4 feet. All internal construction is double 3/4 ply glassed and sealed.
I need to look into that program that your using captbill.

Drafting board and paper is the way to go. I have spent all this time getting software to work only to realize I should have just drew the grid out on a wall and started building something, honestly.

Looking at the first photo mock-up, you are right concerning it needing more aft support. Needs to extend back one more notch like this..



This type of proportional spacing is much stronger and can be built lighter than by evenly spacing cross members on even patterns. It' just plain old math/physics. No magic. No more magic than gravity.

[indianbayjoe]

I would hope that we wouldn't have any problems like hogging with a craft this small and with the amount of internal framework we have designed. I did find a scanner to copy the drawings so maybe tomorrow i might have something to post..

[indianbayjoe]

here are some prints but they are pretty light and hard to see.

[indianbayjoe]

[indianbayjoe]

One drawing is the side view, another is the top view showing the frame layout, another is how the bulkheads will be cut

[indianbayjoe]

click on the thumbnail for a bigger view

[CaptBill]

Originally Posted by indianbayjoe

here are some prints but they are pretty light and hard to see.

Hey man you know what you are doing with a drafting pen. Excellent drawing skills (not that I would actually know,ha,ha).

What type of hauling will you be using this barge for? Long distance or short trips close to home? Lake Champaign is a big lake right (Chicago?)? Windy and lots of wave action over there?

[indianbayjoe]

Local work, not too heavy, #4000 max, and you were close, lake champlain is between nY and VT. 130 miles long and about 11 miles at the widest which is just about where we are. Right across from burlington vt. It does get pretty wild at times. Thats why were building a new barge, bad storm. And its not me with the drafting pencil, my mechanic Chick. I wish i could draw and envision things like he does. We just bounce ideas off each other and fine tune it as we go along.

[CaptBill]

You mentioned a crane earlier. Do you have one that you want to install or did you plan on building it too?

[indianbayjoe]

I thought i had one on ebay but got nailed right at the last minute. It was a non opertional unit but thats ok. We can make it work. Were planning on a 3 or 4000# truck crane like an ideal or similar. Not a real long boom, maybe 3 section, 15 foot. I have a national crane, #15000 mounted on an old school bus chasis but that will be much too large. I like the 360 degree boom rotation asset over a fixed A frame or jib crane. THen we can set 3 or 4 anchors on deck and save trips back to shore. We have to re set all of our anchors for the docks this spring. Probably 30 to 35 plus our customers mooring work that i couldnt get to this summer. Need to clone myself.

[CaptBill]

Is this what you have in mind?

http://bargecranes.net/image/Barge%20Pics%20046.jpg

[hoytedow]

That's a darn nice rig. What did it cost?

[indianbayjoe]

much smaller although we could probably force ourselves to work with that.

Like this

[indianbayjoe]

oops hold on

[CaptBill]

Originally Posted by hoytedow

That's a darn nice rig. What did it cost?

I found this from a google search [barge crane].
I can guarantee they dropped more than 1k on it, materials wise for sure.

How goes it Hoytdow?