I'm looking to buy a 17' 54" custom haul and I want to know how much weight will be saved if I have it made with .100.

All areas I hunt are free of stumps, logs, rocks. I've been hunting out of riveted hauls for 15 years and never had an issue with the strength of the Al. I hunt a lot of hard bottom shallow areas and getting stuck is just a part of the game so keeping the weight is low as possible is crucial. I'm not concerned with resale.

.100 1.426 per sq ft
.125 1.782 per sq ft

Slight variance depending on type/grade of alum... but that will get you more than close enough.

A 1754 will take about 130 sq ft of material.

.100 is 185 lbs

.125 is 231 lbs.

If it will be a slick bottom you will have to worry about the bottom warping in between the longitudinal brace when welded. That's why all of the jon boats have ribs broke in the bottom.

It's your call but I would just go with .125 just to have a little extra in case you find a stump somewhere.


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Maybe go .125 bottom with 1x2 bracing and .100 for everything else. It's all the boxes and other crap that adds a bunch of weight. Keep it wide open you you will be fine.

I'd look at some of the bottom coatings too!! I had Quick Slick on my last boat and i could drag that sucker all over the place. It would probably help your cause as much or more than going down to the .100 hull....

Yea I deffinatley would not sacrifice the thickness over your hull. A better option is maybe coating the hull or making the interior simple as possible like the other guys have stated to cut down on weight .

You should be contemplating .125 vs .190 instead of .100 vs .125 imo

At least .125 with gator glide. You can thank us later. And make sure its 5086 aluminum

Every pound you add in metal is a pound you can't add in gear. There is a weight point they all hit in which they won't plane or performance becomes unacceptable to the user. If .100 can handle the terrain, then that weight savings can be a big deal to some people when they have to drag their boat or they're trying to get the boat on plane when shallow. I've personally hunted out of a .080" hull that has no hooks 18 years later, and it's had a surface drive for the last 7 years. .125" isn't required for everyone to have a long lasting and good running boat. I will say if you have to ask the question, you probably need the .125 and just eat that extra 50-60 lbs. If you know the .100 will hold up to what you run, then you won't ask on here. Woodie, not everyone needs the heavy plate you do lmao. You really need .25

If your running in an .080 hull and have had a surface drive for 7 years with no hooks. You dont need a MM IMO.

Can't run an outboard in 6inches of water. A 320lb boat with a 27 on the back does fine, though.

Not every area is full of stumps, and not everyone uses these things to go hit shit for fun. Sometimes they are simply a mode of transportation and used to go from point a to point b as efficiently as possible. That path can be shallow with a hard clay bottom and only 3inches of mud, but when the water is at its normal level a regular 4 wheeler could traverse it. The boat is much simpler than the 4 wheeler, however, as the road in by 4 wheeler is marred by deep holes and occasional soupy, deep mud.

I really just got one because all the other cool kids got one. I could pretty much go everywhere I need to get with a bay boat, true story. My surface drive came with white framed sunglasses, a flat bill hat and a nice assortment of Yeti and Costa decals... Neither of which I own.

I dont even have a mm. I just get on here and act like i know what im talking about. Isnt that what most of the people do on here??

The only reason I need a mm is because all the damn hydrilla and moss, if it was clean you could get to 60% of places with an outboard but like flint said they're fun and cool as fuck

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I appreciate all the replies. As I said in my previous post the areas I hunt literally have zero stumps. The only minor concern would be a fence post but I'm aware of 99.9% of them and in all my years of hunting I have never hit one. I hunt the headwaters of the St. John's river up to about Titusville, fl which for the most part is flat, sandy, and covered in maiden cane. Keeping it minimalist as possible is some great advice I'll keep that in mind.

have my 37efi on a .100 hull (16ftx52) and does just fine dont have alot of logs to go over but I have and it is doing just fine.

Definitely, here in most of Florida you want a light hull, we got very little water right now over a hard sand/marl/ coral rock bottom, and very little mud, plenty of veggies. I ditched my sorry azz Evinrude outboard back in 1986, bought an LT and never looked back. Air cooled is the ticket. Several friends have run longtails and surface drives on riveted light hulls with no problem. Right now I wish my 1648 grizzly .100 were lighter (it is 395#)! Depends where you run- if I lived in those infernal bayou stump, beaver dam infested, cypress knee environs I would get the thickest hull/ most HP available and fill my Yeti cooler with cheap beer and posture like the most savvy duckster on the planet! Rivets are easy to fix if you go riveted. My next hull I would love to have an 1848 in .100 flat bottom, open floor, no boxes, and I'd be set. I dropped weight myself just to get into the skinny that much farther. All those old time alum flats boats were riveted and flexed and did just fine in the salt water. The conditions I have described have also nixed the idea of a surface drive for me, which are heavier, need more water to run in, and not as reliable, so all you heavy azz hull owners get you all the super winches and chit you want!!

jackhunts, i have spent lots of time on that part of the St.Johns. never had an issue pulling my 1660 GDSD off any sand bars/shallow spots, but i have had to jump some little fingers of land here and there that make the .125 worth it. not to mention, there are definitely stumps/fences in other areas around that part of the state. just gator glide the boat and you'll be fine. i think the trade off is not worth it. it only takes hitting something once for your boat to be f'ed for good...

Here is my take on it first hand and the other boat builders can chime in. I have built several boats, but this last one I built, I did it with weight in mind. I even went so far as to set up a spreadsheet with all the materials, length and weights so I could damn near get a final number on weight. I decided to go 3/16" bottom, 1/8" sides, .100 gauge floor (fully welded), .100 gauge fuel tank, front deck and side seat. This 17'6"x48 out performs all the others. What I found was that the 3/16 bottom is less prone to getting hooks and dents which can impede performance, load carring or whatever the hell you want to do. Sure I have built lighter hulls, but this one is the fastest I've built. You can do other things to shave weight. I went with Hat section for ribs instead of 2x2 tubing. I also added cross braces to strengthen. Just by going with the hat section, I shaved 70 lbs just in the ribs. Now by going 3/16 bottom, it just about broke even, but I have no worries in the bottom of my hull.

No as a side note, I have noticed that my floor, .100 gauge, in the back between me and the battery box, has a slight buckle. If you stand on it, you can feel the floor pop back and forth very little. But I use mine to haul tons of brush, trees, deks, shit back and forth to camp, so my floor takes a beating.

Wonder if a person could eventually rub a hole in a thin boat if he spent a lot of time on sand bars..

According to Uncle J, yes. We have some sand on our lease and Jason is the onw that convinced me to go 3/16 due to that. He mentioned that he will ge some hulls in for repair and are paper thin in some spots.

So, banded-mallard, approximately how much does that "light" 1748 hull weigh? Eventually I want to go to a custom mfg. to make an 1848...I want to get a 35 LT for that, it is just a better fit here for me (and cost). A .125 bottom and .100 everything else sounds real good. A good friend has run a 35 shorty on a real old seanymph 17' riveted hull, the transom did need to be beefed up after it developed a crack after five seasons with the SD; otherwise the hull did fine, no "washboarding" of the underside as has often been reported; the sand/marl shaves props but not much harm to the hull, by the time you hit sand you are usually stuck good. Most mfg.'s of jon boats stopped making the 1848 size riveted hulls and have gone to 1860, usually all-welded; I recall those older Lowe 1848's weighed around 400 in .072/.080 gauge. We slap on some steelflex on our hulls, both riveted and all-welded, and this helps big time running mud/veggies. Sorry for hijacking thread, jackhunts, but I am also looking for an ideal hull for here.

My riveted 080. ga 1648 Alumacraft is going on its 8th season. Hasn't worn thru yet and has run a very shallow sandy bottom river, since new. No hooks, and just repaired one leaky rivet. Has been powered by surface drives since new. Currently running MB BD 4500, 38/47 gears, Hammer Prop at 4490 rpm. Don,t have any problem keeping up with a Excel 1851 with a MB7000. And can get it up on plane faster and easier in very shallow water. For my use no need for a High dollar custum mud hull. If it goes to hell I'll buy another one for under 2k and run it for ten yrs.