What equipment for an aluminium boat building shop?

Discussion in 'Metal Boat Building' started by RSD, May 9, 2024.

  1. comfisherman
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    comfisherman Senior Member

    I know nothing about laser welding, a pulse mig and a push pull gun can lay down a tremendous amount of bead for the cost.
     
  2. RSD
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    RSD Senior Member

    From what I understand the advantage of the laser welders is that there is no deformation from heat.
     
  3. comfisherman
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    comfisherman Senior Member

    Perk of a push pull gun and pulse mig in my opinion is ease of use and low entry cost. But my use case is much lower than a full time builder would have.

    Something to think about is deck size, I'm not sure what size plate you have access to but that would dictate cutting method. Seems like big router tables are cheaper than big plasma, not sure what a big lazer would be.

    We outsouced the nesting and cutting of most our stuff, at the time we were just starting to get 60 x 288 sheets. Now they do even bigger. Was really nice to have way less seams, and at the time was very reasonable to outsource the cutting of big sheets.
     
  4. RSD
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    RSD Senior Member

    I really want to do my cutting inhouse - everyone else's cutter of any sort will be heavily contaminated with steel filings etc - and I don't want to risk contaminated welds. I will have to see what size sheets I can get - there is a large aluminium smelter down near Aswan with an annual production capacity of 320,000 tons per annum. Their website shows the following for their sheet aluminium capabilities -
    upload_2024-5-10_16-22-27.png
    upload_2024-5-10_16-24-41.png
    I'm not too unhappy being limited to 6000mm / 20 feet - means two pallets of sheet can be fit on a truck, and six metres is reasonably manageable.
     
  5. wet feet
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    wet feet Senior Member

    I'm a little surprised to learn that a shop used more electricity with a laser cutter than with a router.I would have thought that a loss of the vacuum hold down and extractor would have balanced out this switch.Is there a local pool of experienced CNC laser programmers?The software licence plus the person would be another expense to consider and I know that there are some pirates in the CAM software business-so be aware of subscription models for use of the software.I have no idea of the cost or availability of shielding gas for the welders in Egypt,but it may become a significant item.
     
  6. TANSL
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    TANSL Senior Member

    @RSD , going back to your initial question, I would say that, if you intend to make money building boats, adopt the philosophy that boatbuilding is a synthesis industry. That is to say, a place where many pieces arrive, which are assembled, thrown into the water and it is verified that it floats as expected. With that idea in mind, what you should have is only, I repeat, only what others cannot provide: powerful cranes, slip ways or any other means of launching the boat into the water and an armament dock. Everything else, buy from the external auxiliary industry. Start by purchasing an advisor to help you correctly plan your industrial project.
    Good luck with your project.
     
  7. RSD
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    RSD Senior Member

    I don't know if Laser uses more electricity or not, fortunately electricity is fairly low cost in Egypt - but not always reliable. There won't possibly be a heap of CNC laser programmers in Egypt, I expect that I will have to get trained up myself so as I can train others as needed.

    Gases in Egypt appear to be on a par with prices paid elsewhere - certainly for the gases we buy in for diving - oxygen, helium and argon.
     
  8. RSD
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    RSD Senior Member

    Normally I would agree with you - however it would be a disaster to try that in Egypt - the Egyptians are notoriously unreliable when it comes to getting things done - especially meeting timelines etc. The saying there is Inshallah Bukra Malesh - "it might happen - god willing - maybe tomorrow..." - it is a nightmare trying to get anything achieved over there and the less that you have to rely on anyone else the better the chance of you ever getting anything done.
     
  9. TANSL
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    TANSL Senior Member

    From what you tell me, I seem to understand that you intend that Egyptians, who do not seem to be very efficient at their jobs, are effective when they work for your company, as your employees.
    Forgive my frankness but, given the seemingly insurmountable difficulties that you expose to us, why then set up the shipyard in Egypt? Mount it anywhere else.
     
  10. RSD
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    RSD Senior Member

    Egyptians can be efficient if they are taught how to work efficiently, if there are systems and procedures put in place etc - Egyptian businesses generally lack those and so deadlines get missed, there is often an inability to determine what the priorities are or should be etc and so things happen very inefficiently unless there is some training, direction and leadership provided.

    With the target market being Egypt that dictates that they need to be built in Egypt - or else that 40% import duty comes into play again which would make the boats very expensive for buyers.
     
  11. TANSL
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    TANSL Senior Member

    I would like to make it clear that I do not want, at all, to judge your country or your compatriots. I am simply drawing conclusions from what you say, and if my conclusions are wrong, I humbly apologize.
    That said, whatever the efficiency of the industries in any country, my experience (and I have worked in and for various shipyards, of various sizes) is that almost everything is cheaper to build in auxiliary companies, external to the shipyard, and make in this only what cannot be done anywhere else.
    Taking into account, furthermore, that so many different unions are involved in a boat, welders, carpenters, cabinet makers, bricklayers, electricians, plumbers, air conditioning experts, interior decorators,... the list of equipment that you should buy, following your business approach, is immense. Furthermore, having space for all these different workshops means a factory of enormous size. Everything that has been advised to you so far falls short.
    If you want to consult specific details, or any other matter, you can send me a pm.
     
  12. comfisherman
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    comfisherman Senior Member

    Depends on goal for the size of the yard. My exposure has been small dual bay yards. They had an overhead gantry crane, some welders, the obvious hand tools (drills, grinders, plasma, router's etc.) A movable and adjustable strong back (one shop had a heavy i beam version another had a large box steel setup. One had swing away set of wheels, the other had removable torsion axles. Both had bolt on aluminum bars for frame or jig interface. )

    Neither had in house nesting or cutting, but were both located in an area where dedicated shops existed for both cutting and roll bending for reasonable prices. That would add a significant cost to overall setup, my hunch is a decent laser table with a deck big enough to host large plate cost more than the building that houses it. Shops who went all in with everything in house certainly have much more control, albeit a much higher initial cost.

    Used Mavrik as an example as they went from zero to hero faster than any other company I've seen in the alloy plate space. Skiffs to big cats in less than a decade is several decades faster than, kvichak/rozema/bayweld etc. Keep in mind he had prior industry experience, a very defined goal and was quite possibly one of the sharpest minds I've met in west coast boat building in years. Overwhelming majority of boat companies start out as welding outfits who build a boat and then over time make more and more and grow in size and scope of operation. Going from 0 to full in house self contained builder isn't going to be an easy task.
     
  13. RSD
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    RSD Senior Member

    I never took your post to be in any way critical of Egypt. It is a country where the ancient ways are still very much today's ways. The only way to progress anything over there is in a face to face meeting, and then when you outsource something it will usually come back wrong the first time, and then when you re-explain what you want they will either say that they don't have the capability to do that or produce something that is still different to what you want because they think that their idea is better than what you want. As a westerner it is a very frustrating country to do business in - time and timelines mean nothing to Egyptians, engineering drawings are treated more like concepts and a rough idea of what the finished product could look like etc... It does your head in... If a builder turns up on the appointed day to start an addition to your home then you know that you must have misunderstood what day he was coming or what day of the week today actually is.

    In pure dollar terms it probably would be the same in Egypt, but I am unsure how you would determine the dollar figure of time lost waiting for auxiliary companies to produce and deliver running on their own timelines. Certainly I think that it would at least triple the amount the overall time taken to build a vessel, and the frustration level would be immense. To be honest I wouldn't want to put myself through that.

    Its a tricky one - I think that the upholstery etc could still be outsourced, and possibly a couple of other things like the aircon, but keep the main fabrication all inhouse.
     
  14. RSD
    Joined: Nov 2022
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    RSD Senior Member

    Are you able to share a picture of a strong back - I probably know it as something else, and google just have my pictures of lots of muscly people.

    I've found a Turkish manufacturer of laser cutting tables and have asked them a few questions about the capabilities of their machines. One possibility is that instead of outsourcing work we could do some work for other yards ourselves using the laser table.
     

  15. comfisherman
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    comfisherman Senior Member

    On the road at the moment, but will put a note to take some.

    It's a squared up steel frame that serves as a basis of solid point assemble the hull and cabin on. Wheels allowed the hull to be welded upside down wheeled out and then rolled over.
     
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