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I say it’s finished… but I feel like a project like this is never done… it’ll continually change to meet my needs. But for now it holds air so I’m considering it finished enough until I actually get around to using it this summer and figuring out my first round of modifications.
Things I learned:
Don’t use the Coverite 21st Century Iron. It doesn’t get hot enough and you can’t adjust the internal thermostat like you can with the Black Baron. I used the Black Baron with MUCH more success (after adjusting the thermostat and reshaping the shoe). The 21st Century iron did work well for the really light 40D fabric on the inflation bag though since it holds it’s temperature really well. It just didn’t have the heat to work well on the thicker fabrics.
I like SeamGrip more than AquaSeal. It seems a bit thinner and flows a bit smoother.
The wood form is pretty key. I can’t imagine using anything else. It worked great. Even with the wood form though, I spent a LOT of time aligning the seams and getting everything tight and straight and perfect before sealing. The sealing was the fastest part of the process it seemed.
Also, the masking tape I used on the wood form (the green stuff from Home Depot) would leave a lot of it’s sticky residue on the raft after I heat sealed an area. I’m not sure if all masking tape brands would have this issue, but this stuff wasn’t great. It came off easily by using more tape on it to pull it off quickly, but it was a bit annoying.
I tried double sided tape on the wood form. It was WAY too sticky. It was hard to remove the form after doing a longer seam section. I quickly abandoned that idea and went back to dealing with the masking tape and it’s residue.
A headlamp is pretty critical. It allowed me to focus right on the edges of the seams and see when the TPU was getting soft and oozing out there. Without a headlamp (or other focused light source) it’s tough to see what the TPU is actually doing at the edges of the black seam and floor material. Getting it hot enough to just start oozing out, but not too hot to damage the rest of the TPU was a fine line to walk. Having a headlamp made it much easier.
The TIzip is awesome. It allowed me to get inside the boat and seal that rear center seal SO well. I can imagine it would be very tricky to get it sealed really good without the zipper.
REALLY check every inch of every seam with your fingernail before moving on. There were many times I thought for sure I got a good seal and then I’d slide my fingernail along it and try to pick it off and I’d find a section that would pull off easily.
I worked my way around so I only had 1 center seam to do at the rear. I’m very happy with how it worked out. Even with the 130cm version, reaching through the second tube 3 wasn’t too bad. It was far easier than doing a front center seam would be (IMHO).
In hindsight I would have swapped the location of the topup valve and the boston valve. I wanted the topup valve way out of the way (the plan was always to extend it to the cockpit with some tubing for easier access) but I think if I had the locations switched, it would not need the extra tubing.
I am glad I installed the TIzip/boston valve/topup valves on the panels first before attaching the panels to the raft. It was very easy to get a great seal on them when working at a table and flipping the flat fabric over to seal it from both sides.
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Hello Mark,
Getting my V3 Packraft on Thursday. It might be in the V3 instructions but I haven’t seen it referenced anywhere else (maybe just missing it). What “Wood Form” are you referring to? You say it’s key, I’d like to not mess this up! 🙂
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I couldn’t find the right type of attachment loops for hooking the backband shock cord to the plate anchors… so I made some. Used some scrap 8AWG copper wire and a $13 wire bending tool from Lee Valley Tools. The nice thing about copper is it doesn’t rust, its malleable, and it’s easily solderable. I wouldn’t use it for some heavier duty attachments, but for this purpose it worked very well. Make sure to file the ends nice and round.
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More pictures of the refinements I’ve added over the past couple days…
Finished grab lines on the stern, added thigh straps and a backband:
The thigh straps and back band are simply some shoulder straps that came with my MEC duffel bags over the years:
Had to name it of course…
I’d like to introduc you to the Wavefaring Stranger:
Weighed the whole shebang. This is 2.88kg (approx 6.5lbs) with the thigh straps and backband and seat all rolled in there too.
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Added a few tie down points:
one inside on the floor with a paracord loop to clip a nalgene onto: It’s simply 2 – 2″ circles of 210D with a 1000D semicircle in between.
Then 4 on the bow for a grab line (using the improved tie-down method posted here on the board):
And then took it for a test drive in grandmas pool:
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Feel free to use anything I post here 🙂 I’ll take some good measurements of things tonight and post up more information and details. The measurements you provided for the TIzip location worked out beautifully.
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