Derek

It failed on the yellow/blue seam shown in the pic in this post.  Right below the guys butt.  It failed on the inboard aspect of the boat.

I spoke with him today and apparently he was fidgeting around quite a bit with legs/hips, and he feels he put too much outward pressure on that seam.  The guy paddling in this photo is light, it didn’t fail in…[Read more]

Like Matt said, I’ve had good luck cleaning and relubricating the zipper to obtain an airtight seal again.

Man, I LOVE my big boss oversized DIYpackraft.  My son and I landed our first king salmon from the packraft today.  I know you discontinued the Voyageur, but I’d love to have the option to buy plans for one in the future, when this one wears out.  Such a great utility packraft.

First Dolly Varden of the year……..

Year two on my ghetto Voyageur build.  Paddled 11 miles today on a bear hunt, didn’t find a bear.  Pictured with a full pack, rifle, and two crab pots.  This thing is ugly, but it serves a purpose.

Sure, I don’t log in here often.  Contact me on Facebook. Derek Weiss

Crabbing near Juneau with a DIYpackraft, and hauling a deer off of Admiralty Island with a custom HUGE Voyageur DIYpackraft and my smaller one.

When I made the Voyageur longer it was my first packraft build and I screwed some stuff up.  If I had to do it over again, I’d say no, it is not harder, just more time consuming by adding a couple seams.

I can’t answer your question about self-bailer.  If you buy a Big Agnes, be sure it fits your floor length.  My Voyageur is gigantic, and it fi…[Read more]

Second packraft just finished.  The first one was an 80″ floor on the Voyageur.  Learned a lot in that build and applied it to this build.  This one was much easier and more fun to build.  Good times ahead.  Still needs a spray deck.  And I’m using my ExPed large camping pillow for a seat because it’s only $30 and I don’t need to spend hours making it;)

The long seams were tricky trying to reach inside those tubes.  If I remember right, my floor is 84″ long.  I’d say think it through before you proceed so you are sure you’ll be able to effectively seal those long seams from the extended tubes.  I had some persistent leaks there that I finally sorted out.

Don’t mess with the 3m stuff, I just us…[Read more]

Paddles fine, and outside of my craftsmanship, I’m totally happy with it.  I didn’t foresee how difficult the inside tube seam would be when I made the floor length 16″ longer and had difficulty with those seams being airtight.  So….3M 5200 to the rescue.  Works fine now.

I sit with my knees slightly bent and feel I can navigate easy rivers fi…[Read more]

Got the “packship” down the Mendenhall and Herbert Rivers with me, wife, and 7 year old.  Working well.  I put 3M 5200 on all the seams instead of Aquaseal because I had some minor leaks and for whatever reason, nobody will ship the big 8oz bottle of Aquaseal to AK (hazmat?). It’s ugly, but I could care less, it works great.

Bruce,

I built one like yours, but 14″ longer.  I just bought a Big Agnes sleeping pad that fits in as an inflatable floor.  It’s uncanny how well it fits.  Perfect width, stiffens the boat up very well, and it’s a heck of a lot easier than building an inflatable floor.

First float.  Still have some pinhole leaks to fix, but it works fine.  

I thought the same, but I found if you use masking tape to protect the TPU and use the entire flat surface of the iron, it goes pretty quick and makes a good seal.  Then just use the tip for the finer details.