aluminum hull any ideas

FRED
My bread is welding, bending, and etc. aluminium, I know our welding machines are quite expensive, fully equipped programmable, pre programmed Fronius Alu Edition, water cooled, push pull, 8 meter cables etc costs way over 10K € a peace, the knowledge of aluminium welding must be there too and a welding machine does you no good without a lot of other tools, even if you use a water jet service to cut every part in the structure.

On riveting, we rivet some structures but not structural, usually use glue on them too. I know that structural riveting of a Viking lap strake boat is much more demanding on the skills of the actual worker than weldinga or riveting a boat out of sheets, also all the cuts must be perfect, rounded edges etc. and I believe it would be a lot more difficult than doing it out of wood a lot more time consuming too, and would require the services of a very experienced wood boat builder, wiling to work with aluminium.

Another thought that comes into mind is why break a waterproof sheet of alu into a bunch of strips and try to make it into a waterproof peace again.

In hulls, wood is good for lap strake, glass fibber’s optimal shape is round and steels and alloys should be used as peaces near as big as they come with the talent of the builder being the limit of shape

PS. To weld alu cheaper you can use just about any old mig and practise, its just a hassle to get the settings just right and more difficult to get a good seam, though a good alu welder can get aexcellent alu seam, up, overhead and back down again on a simple 300 € used 1200 € new mig for steel. For production work a standard mig is too slow and distortion too big,