BoatBanter.com - View Single Post - Aluminum boats welding (Hewes, Duckworth, Bolton)

Short Wave Sportfishing

On Fri, 11 Jan 2008 20:28:51 -0800 (PST), wrote:

Finally going to make the plunge and buy an aluminum boat, but i am
confused. Our goal is to buy a boat that will last for many years to
come and also turn heads when on the water. The more i talk to
salesman the more BS i hear. What should i be looking for as far as
the quality of the welds, some look like art and some look like my son
who is 12 tried to weld for the first time. Does the apperance of the
weld matter? We are looking at a 200 Sea Runner Hewes Craft right now,
any comments would help at this point

There are two ways to look at this.

Riveted aluminum boats tend to be sounder than welded boats and as a
general rule, easier to repair. The better aluminum boats, like Lund,
Starcraft, Princecraft, are riveted boats. The trick is to seal the
seam and double rivet. Lund pretty much invented that process and to
tell the truth, it was a complete revolution in how a quality aluminum
boat should be made - a lot of other aluminum boat manufacturers use
this technique to varying degrees with the three I mentioned being the
best.

With a riveted boat, the secret is how large the overlap is for the
riveted panels - the more area, the more sealer, the more rivets for
strength.

Welded hulls have improved tremendously over the years. A lot of the
cheaper boats do have welds that look like globs of excess metal, but
you are dealing wtih aluminum and thin aluminum at that - even
experienced welders have trouble getting a good weld on thin aluminum.
Now, most manufacturers use formed and pressed panels which are then
welded precisely with robots with little excess. They also use lower
temperature welding gear which helps.

Dollar-for-dollar, I prefer riveted aluminum boats. I had a 16 foot
Lund open guide boat in 1978 that I sold to a friend who still uses it
for duck hunting and it's as dry and sound as the day I sold it. By
comparison, I owned a Bass Cat aluminum bass boat that was welded and
it warped, leaked and in general sucked - I sold it back to the
company six months after I bought it. (Which, by the way, speaks
volumes for what a quality operation Bass Cat is - they were aware of
the problems, tried to fix them and when they coulnd't, gave me my
money back without me even having to ask for it. I can't say enough
good things about Bass Cat and their ownership.)

Take it for what you will.

Good luck.