Hey fellas, over the summer I’m going to have a go at building my first aluminum boat. I’ve built 3 now from wood and fiberglass so I have a decent idea of laying it out. What I don’t know a ton about is the welding end of things. I’ve purchased a pretty nice tig welder and I’m currently getting the seat time in on that thing. Any advice you guys that have built boats could give me would be appreciated. To start things off, my machine does have the adjustable pulse function. Should I be using that to help reduce overall heat input?


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Get a mig. Gonna take a year to tig a whole boat.

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I knew I’d get that comment[FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY]. I got a tig machine on purpose. Might take a bit longer but I don’t see where it’ll be overly slow. I’m just getting started and can go at a decent pace. I feel like the tig is gonna be easier to get right and won’t burn through easy as a mig will. I do have access to a spool gun setup. Forgot to mention this boat is gonna be 1/8” 5052


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Dam is this place really this dead? Anyone know what size longitudinal stringers are usually used? I was going with 2x2x1/8” square. More I think about it more that seems a little large?


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Do some googling with mudmotortalk at the end. There are quite a few threads concerning which people use and why, along with plenty of discussions about other stuff boat building related. If you arent willing to do that, then good luck. A lot of the guys that built pretty good boats in their shop don't frequent here anymore so they won't be answering your questions. But most things you will ask have been answered here before.

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10-4. I’ll check like that. Little conversation wouldn’t hurt this place though


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Not arguing that.

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Most longitudinal braces are rectangular and placed on end. It’s a lot stronger than a square.

What are you planning g to do with the boat? What’s the general layout? You using a foot pedal on your tig machine?


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Thanks for the interest dfou. It’ll be a smooth bottom boat for running around the shallow areas we hunt. No major mud or anything here but some. I like having a boat that’ll go wherever I want it to. I’ll run one of my home built long tails on it, will probably build a new one of those at some point using bearings instead of bushings. The boat is similar to a phowler design having a flat front deck in front of the cockpit and a hunt deck out back.


It’ll be a remake of my current boat shown here except two foot longer and aluminum instead of wood and glass


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Oh and yeah my machine has a pedal but I don’t think it’s practical to use on a boat build. I’ve been practicing using the finger control. Less control over the heat but it works


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That’s why I was asking. It gets hard to use a foot pedal for alotta stuff on a boat. If you have access to a spoolgun I’d do most of it with the spoolgun


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I work at a metal fab shop so I will be bending whatever I can to reduce the welding.


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