Here's a blind build on an Excel F86. It's not my very first boat blind build but its my first time posting pictures. Hope I get it right.

Does my dog not look like Kat Williams?

Looks good

So it's made of 1/2" conduit. That will be beefed up after the season, if it lasts, but for now, the 1/2" bender is what I had. The blind had to stay completely inside the boat because I run timber. All boxes had to be accessible and I had to get to my nav light plug-ins, and the fuel fill cap. All without having to manipulate things this way and that just to get to them. It also had to clear a mud motor handle.

I made the swivel brackets out of steel stock and an anvil. Not the best but functional. The material is Rancho Safari in the APC jute/burlap. The nylon webbing and hardware (plastic buckles and metal one inch slides) are from Grainger. Grommet kit from Ace. Miscellaneous hardware from here and there.

I wanted some structure when the blind was up instead of it all sagging and taking away room in the floor. There are 5 strip of webbing connecting the frame to the gunwales via t-track, carriage bolt and a grommet in the nylon. There's a slide adjuster on the 3 middle sections of nylon. The two end pieces cross over top and connect to one another. Rhe nylon on the ends is riveted to the bkind frame. The only adjustment in those pieces is at the connector buckle. I left enough slack to allow for adjustment in blind height.

Instead of cutting that expensive ass blind material, I draped the excess over and zip tied it from there. That REALLY helps eliminate the black hole, especially if, using bungees, I drape the material over the opening in a few places. Usable space in blind is about 8.5'. There's leg room bc the webbing helps keep material from sagging. It's higher towards stern than toward bow because it follows the contour of the boat. Sits about chin height. 18' of material covers a 17' boat pretty well. Can't wait to get it bloody!

Looks good, some ideas:

I would be worried that your light conduit will bend with the weight of the shaggy materiel when wet (its heavy). I had made my frame out of 1/2" rigid conduit which was stiffer and had 90's and 45s to connect together with couplings. This also allowed me to add some iron pipe 'T's on the front with some pieces of bent pipe to cover the front deck (where my dog sits).

I also made some rain covers out of Cordura and held them on with bungee toggle balls. This made the deployment of the blind very quick and kept it dry while trailering. I added some PVC pipe to the bottom of the blind panels cut at the bends in the boat hull so it wrapped the boat. I ran a rope through the PVC so it kept them together. The old panels had a place in the bottom to slide the PVC through. This aided in deployment and weighted them down at the bottom when the blind was deployed. To deploy the blind, I just pulled up the bars and connected one of the clips on the straps, took all the bungees off and the rain covers and it just rolled down to the water. When rolling it back up, the PVC at the bottom helped you roll it back up the straps.

The adjustable bungees I used to keep it rolled up- cheaper than a bag of straps :
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Keeper-06345- ... s/19869565

I actually came across a thread you posted in that offered some of the inspiration. The new panels have the slots in them, too, and I put those on bottom to potentially run PVC through.

I know the 1/2 stuff will likely fail. I will be redoing the whole frame after the season. Where do you find the rigid conduit? Same place? I like the idea of the cordura covers. I'll have to figure out how to cut slots to go around the nylon webbing, which is attached to the boat. Which means I can't just pick the whole works up and slap a fully enclosed cover around it. As it is now it will fold into a neat little bundle, but I can't roll it up because I have it attached to the nylon webbing, which is attached to the boat. This serves the same basic purpose as your cordura covers of keeping the material from jumbling together or otherwise displacing itself before deployment. Now I could easily cut the tie straps fastening the material to the webbing, and might try it to find out if I like it better. The only issue there is that the webbing would more or less have a mind of its own when the blind is down. It probably wouldn't be as bad as I'm picturing it in my head.

The reason I opted out of the prebent joints is because of the way the transom is shaped. I wanted it to lay flush with the contour of the boat on every axis, so I had to make the rear bends go in two directions: one bend angled a little upwards and the next bend to go around the corner. Do you have a picture of yours in the down position? I'd like to see how your prebent frame sits on your transom/gunwales. If it sits nice and pretty I'll definitely look into that arrangement when I reframe it.

I like the idea of the extensions across the deck, but decided against it for two reasons: I don't have a dog (which will hopefully be remedied in the years to come), and some of the places I set up are a little tight for a full length blind. I.e. underneath tree limbs that dip so low they almost touch the deck; with a full frame up front, the blind would get knocked around by limbs.

Like I said, I used your design as a reference and tweaked it according more to my abilities than my needs lol. But keep the ideas coming. I will try some of those you mentioned and see how they work. And send pics of it down if you have them! Thanks!

What kind of material is that


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how in the hell did you get ahold of rancho safari??

They still make that stuff. Just Google rancho safari and order straight from their website. Mine came from California pretty quick.

ive tried emailing and calling with no luck. i noticed on there website they offer a couple of different colors which one did you go with?

does that stuff soak up a lot of water? It looks like it is heavy to begin with. It seems that if it gets wet it would add a ton of weight to your boat.

But it does look good.

Since it's distributed along the length of the boat, it's tough to get an idea of poundage. Maybe it is as heavy as a person, but it's distributed evenly enough that I didn't notice. Now, my blind frame may not hold up but we'll see.

Did you use the 4'6"x18' panel from rancho safari? If so was the $178 for just one panel or both

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