Stainless Steel

[BoHawg]

Has anyone else heard of people using a sheet of stainless steel on the hull of their boat instead of polymer? I've heard about it a couple of times and people are allegedly running it instead of polymer in places where oyster bars are abundant. Anyone else heard or seen this?

 

[fatboy0054]

I LIKE THE IDEA BUT LEAKS WOULD BE A B---- !

 

[Rich Andrews]

down here they call em rock boats..full wrap of metal. Tough as hell, but a pain to replace. If I were running creeks and bays it would be the best bottom to apply.

 

[dean]

some of us here on the Brazos are putting a piece of stainless between the boat and the 1/2 in poly to help keep from beating the back of bottom so bad. I put a peice 2ft x 4 ft sheet stainless sandwiched between boat and poly on my boat. Really hard tapping and drilling(breaks a few bolts also) but sure saves your bottom shape on our rocks and gravel. That would be one tough boat with the whole bottom stainless. pretty expencive too i would think. like to see a video of that at nite

 

[rbjscott]

This is for real. Use Mustard as a drilling fluid on stainless.

 

[cfth]

I have heard of plenty of people using stainless for the bottom but I would think would be way to heavy. My dad tells story's of his first boat which was plywood hull with stainless bottom and a 65 hp aircraft motor. He said you could barely get the boat on a plane and God forbid you hit a sandbar.

 

[marshmaster pat]

I have heard of it on the bottom of riveted hulls. Just had a sheet of Stainless on the bottom instead of aluminum. I would imagine that you would have some awesome corrosion issues starting.

 

[barhopper]

Check with Diamondback or Alumitech. There is a guy up here that is running stainless on his boat and says it works well but I have not seen the application method. I think the guy is running a Alumitech and I know enough about him to know he didn't install it himself so some builder must have done the work.

 

[Larry]

There are a few boats I have seen down here with stainless bottoms. Usually they were built to run down south by Kendall and Homested areas where there is a lot of coral rock running, it is the only way to keep the hull intact. Usually it is only a sheet of stainless riveted on the bottom of an aluminum hull and coming up the sides about 2-3 inches, I have not seen a boat with the hull made out of it. Most of the ones I see are built by Cloninger airboats, but I saw one about a month ago that was an old Thurman with a 180, seemed to run the island pretty well too. Almost all of the stainless wrapped boats that I have sen are about 9 1/2 to 10 1/2 ft. long and are running a rear deck over with a little wrap around on the nose. They are usually a very light built 4 cylinder with high seats set up for hunting and running in tall grass.


Larry

 

[Anonymous]

Wonder how it fares running on asphalt as compared to polymer?

 

[Larry]

Here are two examples of Cloninger style rock boats with the stainless wrapped bottoms. you can see where it comes up on the sides of the hull to protect the edges. These are what I usually see around here.

Larry

 

[marshmaster pat]

Sweet looking little rigs. Appear to be Palm Beach styles. Those would be nimble little fun operating machines.