PE as material for boat?

[iceboater]

These boats are built by plumber who specializes in PE welding.
They are very ridged and popular for fish farms and construction here in Iceland.
He has never got a boat back to him for repair from the material or welds breaking.
The tube is filled with styrofoam.

[pistnbroke]

I have a PE boat and here is a typical problem ...starter battery ..how do you fasten it down? Nothing will stick to PE ..you dont want to drill the watertight inner hull and the makers made no provision ...That last one is the big one for PE you must make it right first time and design everything in ....

[alan white]

Polysulphide seems to stick to PE in my limited experience putting a stern in a canoe.

[pistnbroke]

Found some on Ebay ..not expensive will give it a try ..thanks ..big glob under the battery ..ha ha

[PAR]

You can get epoxy to stick to a degree if you heavily tooth and carbinize the surface first.

[pistnbroke]

oh yes I think not in this case !!!

[foilcats]

PE Seems to weld easy enough, made a speed welding attachment out of a Stainless vacume cleaner tube for a makita hot air gun and have been welding alsorts of fittings on the boats, just have to make sure its all clean and dont over or under heat it, can also get graphics to stick properly by flaming it first and giving it a proper glassy surface to stick to,

[thudpucker]

Stephen, make a movie, put it on YouTube and send us the link. I'd like to see how you did that.
I make stuff for my Barn out of some plastics, but have had no good luck with HDPE.

There's a plastics company in Portland OR. that has a Glue for HDPE. You have to 'flash' the 'site' first, then apply the glue and it's supposed to be good for life.
A Chemist told me the reason we cannot glue PE very well is the 'solvent' contained in the mix that makes it impervious to all the Chemicals they store in PE containers.

[DCockey]

Plastic boats and barges: http://durapolyboats.com/rec-boats.htm http://durapolyboats.com/work-boats.htm I think the material is polypropelene or a mix of polypropelene and something else. Construction is thermal welding. The manufactuer original product was tanks for fire trucks and similar, and then they expanded into boats. I stood on the deck of the prototype barge and it was impressively stiff. There was also a 6 lb sledge hammer available for anyone to use to beat on the boat. No damage resulted.

[DCockey]

Originally Posted by Hornblower

Hey,

I used to hire houseboats made of steel on british canals ("Narrowboats"). As they are very solid you don´t have to worry at all if you hit the ground or the edge of a lock. One day I would like to own one for myself and it might be like those Narrowboats in GB. But there´s one disadvantage: they are much to heavy for beeing trailed by car when I want to discover other waterways.
.....

British canals have low overhead clearances, and to provide standing headroom the cabin sole has to be well below the waterline. The boats have a flat bottom to provide maximum volume and cabin sole area. They have to be heavy so that they sink far enough that there can be standing headroom in the cabins while meeting the overhead clearance restrictions. Some of them may have cement in the bottom to provide added weight.