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That is a great idea! I’m going to add these heat sealing form tips to the Heat Sealing page.

Thank you, I really appreciate it!

I’d propose a different construction, though it’s a bit of a heretic idea to make holes in the hull…

Use longer aluminum crossbars and make them go through the whole hull, using plastic boat thru-fittings:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/through-hull-boat-fittings/s?k=through+hull+boat+fittings
I’d imagine if you cut off the unnecessary length in the…[Read more]

I made my curved forms out of florist foam like this: https://www.walmart.com/ip/FloraCraft-FloraF-M-Foam-Disc-1-9-inch-x-9-8-inch-Green/593218875?from=/search

It’s easy to cut a large and small form out of one disc using a bread knife. I added a few layers of aluminum foil before the masking tape to keep it from melting and had no problems.…[Read more]

I had a similar idea about making my ultralight self bailing by extending the seat into a full length inflatable floor and cutting bailing ports into the original floor (and reinforcing around them) since I found that the seat alone gave nearly enough buoyancy to keep my behind above water. I imagine that with a full length inflatable floor + a…[Read more]

Hi ztron, don’t worry, it’s not a big problem. I’ll post my advice on the Tube 1 instructions page. Cheers

Yeah, that’s something I’ve thought about, but once there’s TPU on both sides of the standard tube fabric then it’s only slightly lighter than the standard 450 GSM floor fabric – the difference isn’t big enough to make it worthwhile on a floor that’s about one square meter (it might save 50 or 100 grams compared to using the standard weight floor…[Read more]

Hi Matt, I noticed that though the floor fabric is heavier due to it being double sided TPU, it isn’t actually stronger than the tube fabric since the base fabric appears to be the same. I understand the UL isn’t a very popular item for you, but is it in the cards for a future revision to have a sturdier floor fabric option? I imagine that maybe…[Read more]

Nearly Exactly , crossbraces prevent also the outward forces. I add dyneema rope to distribute outward forces from only the cross braces, but it wasn’t enough. If I can  think of a way to insert not permanently welded , aluminium tubing, instead of dyneema rope, it will be a good alternative. Thanks for the idea

I’ve replied to Matt with skeg pictures 🙂

As for durability, I’ve found that I no longer worry – I’ve seen marine life and debris brush up through the floor enough times and it still causes concern, but nothing yet has caused a breach or puncture. I don’t drag it along shore or docks, and I only launch and land directly in the water to reduce…[Read more]

Hi Matt, you absolutely can use this photo! As for the skeg, I don’t have any pictures of the current revision but here is what V1.0 looked like. As you can see it’s a two part design to make printing easy (three if you count the skeg) and is compatible with Intex skegs. Base is TPU and top is PETG, but V2.0 is all TPU since I have determined that…[Read more]

It sounds like an Ultralight is what you want… I paddle class 1+ in the Ultralight and sometimes carry my wife with me on lakes. If you dig through my old YouTube videos you can see me doing these things in earlier versions of what became the Ultralight. Just four days ago a customer who built an Ultralight emailed:

“By the way last weekend I…[Read more]

Hmm interesting. I thought the UL floor was 190gsm and the tubes were 115gsm, or something close to that. Were you dabbling with the idea of doubling up the UL floor or wall fabric to increase the abrasion and puncture resistance? What about using the 250gsm tube fabric as a floor base instead?

I remember you hosting fabric strength tests though…[Read more]