@laikwokwah
Active 5 years, 7 months agoForum Replies Created
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Hi dear packraft DIYers,
I would like to share some pictures of my DIYed and some points on trouble shooting of air leakage.
I must thank Matt first for his great web site and products. He had made my dream came true without costing arms and legs.
It is for my sea side recreation, watching birds flying and fishes jumping. But most of all, I am enjoying the tranquility of the sea when it is calm.
The PVC inflatable canoe, alone, I have been using is weighted almost 20kg, it was a kind of torture in handling it.
So, I was always thinking about of replacing it with a lightweight inflatable canoe or raft.
Commercially available products today are Yotta expensively unaffordable to me. Their prices are unreasonably marked high, I said to myself.
So, I told to myself to forget about it as simply as I can’t afford it.
Until I found “DIY packraft”, then I entered a different world.
I don’t mind any colour of fabric, so go for a readily available medium sized digi-camo DIY kit. Actually, this dig-camo is beautiful.
My raft is weighted about 1.4Kg.
After doing the last seam sealing of the stern strip, I tested the air leakage.
Using the method described by Matt, I had found leaks on the apex of stem seal strip and at the junction between tube L1, 2 and the floor piece. The bubbles they formed were easily visible big. They had been fixed by using Aquaseal.
Then leaving the raft inflated for overnight, it was found deflating very slowly.
Inspected carefully and by applying soap water again onto all seam strips then wait very patiently while observing. Some numbers of very small or minute bubbles formed very slowly on a point of the R1-2 seam strip.
It was a dry join and problem was fixed by re-solder and then applied a little bit Aquaseal.
The raft was left inflated for overnight again. Next morning, it was found good, no noticeable deflation.
Also made an inflatable 2nd floor (321g) mattress.
Difficult to make it good, the air pressure is very high when I sit on it and the heat sealing inside will break into segments.
Pockets of air (tube dia.) should be made small that air displacement will be small when weight is stepping on it.
The 67g blue colour back rest in the pic is just a cheap air pillow for camping, paddle is 980g, PFD is 625g, tuck Tape is 200g and repair kit is 33g (from local camping store).
My berghaus backpack is about 1kg.
All stuffs could be loaded into the backpack.
Raft items with backpack all together is weighted less than 5kg.
Add a bottle of water and something to eat, I am ready to go seaside kayaking now.
Thanks very much once agin to Matt, “DIY packraft” and inspirations from all DIYers.
Wish everybody all the best!
Cheers.
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Hi there,
Thanks for the inspirations.
I am going to make it from the kit and have to have a sealing iron.
Got no Clover Mini here so have to do modification on my 20W ham soldering iron.
That is what I could do with limited mech and metal resources at home.
Got a piece of an inch wide and 1/8 thick brass metal to make the tip, this is what it look like after some sawing, drilling, filing and bending.
Adjustment of temperature is, similar to others, by taking power from my 400W living room lamp dimmer.
Then practiced sealing with some scrap fabrics and found the tip was too wide for 20mm width seam straps, so narrowed the tip down to about 18mm wide and filed the bottom edges in round shape.
Tried again sealing, this time handling is good. Placed the tip flat on the fabric and press while sliding with back and forth motion about a distance of one and a half inch for few seconds then press and hold the fabrics with an eraser rubber for few seconds before releasing. I’ve got some papers placed under the fabrics.
Repeated the sealing with dimmer knob set from low to high positions, if temperature is low (roughly below 190deg.C) the bonding was like sellotaping and fabrics were peel-able apart easily.
When temperature was set too high (roughly above 210deg.C), fabric’s surface was darken a bit fast and tpu melts quickly together with more wrinkle arround the sides of tip.
When temperature was set to about and between 200 and 205deg.C, fabric wrinkles a little bit upon ironing but the bonding is strongest.
I used a K-type thermocouple and a multi-meter to measure tip’s bottom surface temperature before soldering, however, the reading gives only rough figures of temperature due to un-calibrated setup.
Also, as heat capacitance of this tip is low (few 10th grams of metal), so temperature regulation is bad that temperature drops after few seconds of tip’s contact with fabrics and a 20W heater power was not quickly enough to heat charge up the tip again to the set temp. I have to wait for sometime between two ironings.
I still do not have confident to solder the raft, hence, I wish to practice more soldering first before going ahead with the real thing.
So I used some scrap fabric materials to make a hiking water bag.
Cut the top of a PVC bottle and used some Aquaseal to glue it to the bag.
Final product will hold about 2 tall AL cans of beer.
The two bottom corners were soldered good, no leaking by applying heat only but there is leaking at the junctions on the middle of bottom, due to where too much of fabric folding together, I guess.
So I applied some Aquaseal to the gaps, they cured after an hour into a flexible layer of rubber and the bag is no more leaking now when squeezed.
But it smells, with odor of the glue…
I will try some more soldering practice before doing the real stuff.
Thanks for reading.
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Thanks so much Matt,
My raft had first virgin cruise today and I would like to share some more pics and points about it.
It was super fun to paddle with my DIY raft on the sea, your design is so good that even this is my first packrafting with kayak paddle (I was self-trained with Canadian style canoeing with an oar) it can be handled very well on the sea waves. Speed is way faster than my inflatable PVC canoe.
Today’s weather is fine, wind is peacefully in scale 3 to 4, normal waves size is small compare to the size of the raft. There were occasional invasion of big waves, caused by speed boats, with peaks higher than the packraft, however my raft could surf over the waves easily with very good stability. Sea water was spreading everywhere when the raft hitting the waves but it is OK water inside the raft was not much (less than a can of beer) to cause uncomfortable.
However, I was so disappointed with my DIY 2nd floor mattress, It was deflating in the middle of nowhere between launching site and a small shell island I was going.
I must redesign it and make it more reliable, but how, the air pressure inside is so high.
By the way, the fabric is tough that shells did no make harm to the raft bottom when I was crash landed it on the shells and rocks.
One more point is my paddling posture, I found that I needed a higher sitting position in order not to hitting the tubes with my elbows. I feel much better paddling after placing my inflatable back rest under my bum. I think that I need to make a good seat as well.
So, a reliable 2nd floor mattress and a good seat are my next DIY projects.
I think the green colour fabric is good, hope they would get through soon and I could use it.
Have a nice day and happy paddling!
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Dear, I have the same question as I am thinking of doing or not installing that top up “valve” (but actually it is not a valve, it is just an air tap) to the raft being DIYed at the moment. However, thinking it as similar material to the Boston valve’s base, I will install it in the way as similar to that for a Boston valve installation as described in the video. But would you please help ? I don’t have experience on top up of an air chamber, does it really necessary ? For, I have been paddleing with a PVC air canoe which has an safety valve for any air expension due to sun shining. Thanks so much! Cheers mate. * O! Forget it, just saw Matt’s new post, it solves all my questions, great man.
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