UHMW for keel strips

So what Steve is actually saying is,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Forget the dang trailer, just get the motor up clear and drag it down the highway. The little mileage you will put on will never wear out those strips!!
(written very tongue in cheek)


Steve is very right concerning the longevity issues.
 
I agree with Steve, I'm really not concerned about having to replace these somewhere down the road unless it is knocked off. Which I think would be highly unlikely if it is adhered with some type of epoxy/glue/tape and mechanically fastened.

Brad
 
I'm looking on Hamilton Marine website for UMHW and can't find anything. I want to put some strips of this on my keel of my Broadbill. Where can I get some? And what should I refer to it as in a search?
 
Eric,
5200 is not hard or impossible to work with if you have the tools and the right tech. We use it for many jobs and it is taken apart weekly on jobs in the yard I work in. Your biggest friend is heat. Warmed up it can be removed without much fuss. As for other choices 4200 is OK and so is Sika but they can be just as hard to remove and epoxy does not come off easy for repair without a grinder or saw.
Steve,
the wear word was the wrong one. Broken was what should have been used. The stuff can be broken if it is exposed to very hard side loading. Do you get into liners in the trailers you sell?
 
I'd bet though that if you whack it hard enough from the side to break the UHMW pad then you'll bust the wooden keelson and seperate it from the ull, with hull damage, as well......thats way different than "wear"....

In addition to slide pads we also use it on "oil filed floats" at the rear of the units and in a couple of applications in car haulers.....nothing "complete" though.....

Steve
 
Hamilton Marine looks like they no longer stock the sheet UHMW any more but Mcmaster carr has 24" by 8' in 1 inch that can be ripped on a table saw into whatever shape you need for the rub strip. They also list the 3M epoxy for Hard to bond metals and plastic. The "wear" properties of the stuff is amazing. The Push boats and barges that do dock work and dredging here use it and it looks like it will pass the one million mile test.
As I said, I would be more worried about the wood hull in a good stump or bolder impact situation than the UHMW.
 
I have looked at both of those boats. The Hog Island is a nifty bomb proof drifter. It's kinda ugly but at this point I really don't care. When I need a stylish boat to smoke my fancy cigars and drink 12 YO single malt I'll build a little 12 foot classic for myself...but for now I'm strictly utilitarian. The Hog is very nice ableit pricey. BUT, it's fairly large and I'm not particularly fond of the layout. If I could talk them into having a new mold made to market a low-side boat for the Great Lakes(this has been suggested to me by several people that know the owner)I'd do it. But it sounds like a lot of work to me.

The Boulder Boat Works boat is nice too. I really like the functionality of it better than the Hog BUT the problem is it has too much wood. Especially the interior...that's work and I don't have time to work on stuff. You can incapsulate that wood in 12 layers of epoxy and some nimrod WILL figure out a way to mess it up. Imagine a client getting out of your boat...you insisted that he not wear cleats and he brought them anyway because the guy at the LL BEAN or ORVIS fly fishing school told him he had to have them. Anyway, he's wearing them and you say,"Do me a huge favor and don't rub those cleats on the wood trim while you get out". Now see, at that point you may as well have said "take your file and rip the shit out of that wood trim there Chaz" because guess what...that's what he and his wife/buddy/kid are going to do with their cleats. And this will happen about 6 times before you have a chance to do much more than hit it with linseed or a can of spray poly just to keep the water off the bare wood.

Work I tell ya! The answer my friend is cold, ugly, noisy AL-U-Minium. Sorry for the rant...can you tell I've worked on drifters too much over the past 10 years!
 
but I can tell you still hate customers.......

Thought you were giving up Guiding.....seems the prudent thing given the way you feel about them....

Steve
 
I guess it came out that way...not sure where you get "hate customers". "Nimrod" maybe? I guess I'm not supposed to make light of the fact that things like that happen eh?

The easiest way to mitigate any issues is to make sure there isn't anything to cause an issue...ie, don't get a boat that is easily damaged on the inside or the outside. I don't really hate any of them...I think it's kind of entertaining actually...it's just a bit expensive and time consuming.

I've been guiding as little as possible so I can concentrate on the real estate thing but ironically, it's the most I've enjoyed it in about 5 years. 2 or maybe 3 days a week at most is what I've been doing and it's worked out real nicely.

Thanks for commenting Steve. How's the trucking business been? Do yo love all of your customers?
 
cause without them I wouldn't have any orders, and without orders no commissions at first and then no job.....so YEP I like ALL of my customers, even the ones that aren't perfect.....

As to how the trailer business has been ..... lately it sucks....fuel prices and the downturn in the housing industry has kicked the specialized trailers that I deal in right in the teeth....I suspect that its the same for you in Real Eastate.....another tough business these days I'm sure....

Good to hear you're enjoying it more as you do it less....

Steve
 
Well I guess that's a good business lesson for anyone. I always tell my friends that can't understand how I deal with them sometimes..."they didn't get to the point that they can afford to go on a guided fishing trip by being stupid". I rarely work for anyone else right now so I'm usually in charge of my gigs and I always have the option of saying I'm not available. Recently I took on a "project" as a shop owner called it last week. I kinda like the challenge at this point in my life. That same guy would've driven me nuts two years ago. I've been doing a few power point presentations as well and I really enjoy that to.

As far as the real estate thing goes...I'm strictly recreational property at this point. I work for Grubb and Ellis Outdoors and we're affiliated with Cabela's Trophy Properties. Oddly enough, that segment of the real etate market is doing quite well just about everywhere I've checked. I'm sure as with anything it will have it's ups and downs but right now I'm wet enough behind the ears and giddy enough about it that I'm enjoying it a great deal. Ignorance is bliss sometimes.

As far as trucking goes...it seems like such a stable business to me. I guess the specialty trailers are a different story eh. The housing situation...yeah. I think that once things iron out over the loan issues it'll stabilize again. Based on the population growth it has to keep chugging along eventually. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
 
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If you live in the North, where snow mobiles roam UHMW can be found. They use it for glide rails. Tough stuff. That is my source. I used it for glides on a sliding door. For fastening it can easily be drilled and counter sunk on a drill press.

Use for skids on a duck boat would be the cats meow. however longer pieces would be nice. For fastening I like the idea of bolts every 12" or so. The bolt head on the outside of the boat counter sunk and nut inside with a washer. Silicone around the bolts or flexible water proof glue. I don't know about the expansion differential between fiber glass and UHMW. It would probably be a good idea to have the holes slotted out a little bit from the middle of the boat outward to allow for that. I do not see a reason to bed the rails. The UHMW will not make the boat indestructible. As I see it dragging the boat across the landing on black top will protect the boat.

The material is also good for bunks on a trailer. In the north where a boat can freeze to the trailer no problem with this stuff. Just don't unhook the boat before you back the trailer up or your boat will be on the ground. My neighbor found this out. Brand new boat and motor never in the water, first time out. The whole shebang on the ground. Scratches on the boat and a brand new lower unit. OUCH!
 
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Steve do your trailers move the house or the materials to build the houses? Used to do a lot of work with dump body rigs and walking floors. Cool what they can move. Just hard to keep them near the 80,000 limit. Boy are you right about the customer being your lifeline to your survival.
Jay, I know what you mean about the customers when you guide. I worked as a charter mate on offshore saltwater charter boat for three years. Got paid to see some awesome fishing. In the end I liked the commercial fishing better because it was just about the fishing and not a vaudville show to provide entertainment. I will say that the pleasure of showing a nice guy or gal the experience of hooking into something they would never see on their own is the tops, but some guys just want to drink and get out of the house. If it was all kids I would go back to it tomorrow. The line is fine when you meld a pleasure activity like hunting or fishing with a work related experience driven by performance by guiding.
 
at this point and I would think that it is affecting "recreational property" as well....heck even people with "good credit" are having great difficulty in getting financing for homes, much less "recreational properties", and thats going to take a while to shake out I'd bet......

Your right that the trucking industry itself is pretty stable.....nothing has changed since Oxen pulled the "trailers"....if you own it it got to you via truck at some point in the delivery stream....but "stable" isn't "growth" and its "growth" that drives the acquisition of everything from "new" trailers to "new" lake properties....

Add fuel prices to difficulty in getting aquisitions financed and you get an industry that maintains itself but doesn't grow.....Maintenance of an industry provides some sales of "replacement" equipment as it reaches the end of its useful life but not the same volume that "growth" does.....

I'd "guess" that you'll see the same thing in "recreational property" markets until this latest "issue" shakes itself out....discretionary purchases are always the items that suffer first when money is tight, be it "new" trailers, "new" toys or "new" property not needed as a primary dwelling.....

Bob, I sold some trailers to a company that moves OUT HOUSES once but that would be the only "house" that would be trasnsportable on the type of equipment that I sell...about 60% of our business is directly related to the home building supply business.....as housing starts drop due to financing problems so does that entire industry....the rest is a mix of aircraft, food, and general commodities...

Steve
 
Ok ok Steve wear may have been the wrong choice as Bob mentioned, but I have seen it rubbed/smashed, squished off from the ski's of snowmobiles, tub boats having peices of it hanging from where they got under something and other issues like that, even on your beloved semi's...That stuff is tough, but it can be mangled and need replacing and I am not just talking about boat crushing forces.

I love the stuff too, works great. I am just thinking of down the road for him...I am done
 
it can certainly be damaged......in the application of "over wood" though I'll stick with the statement that if you "DAMAGE" the UHMW you're going to also have "wood damage"...we're talking wooden boats here, not STEEL semitrailers, STEEL boats, STEEL snowmobile ski's, or even aluminum RV trailers.....

Steve
 
I've noticed a lot of that stuff on boats and it "sags" between fasteners allowing stuff to get under it. A full length piece fell off Bezubics Outlaw and I waded around and pulled it up off the bottom..rolled it up and tossed it inside. I think it's better "on" something rather than "under" something. And don't EVEN mention the housing market to me! Actually, the big national builders that were throwing up subdivisions on every sq inch of "country" property are the ones I blame....of course that meant "growth" for all the other industries associated with new homes so when the "growth" came to a screaching halt things went backwards.
 
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