DIY Packraft - a work in progress.

[north-north-west]

That is *&%$#! impressive. Certainly starting to look usable.

[Giddy_up]

FootTrack do you have any idea what this will roughly weigh when you're finished?


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[FootTrack]

FootTrack do you have any idea what this will roughly weigh when you're finished?

Hey Giddy I just weighed both halves and the valve then, and they weigh approximately 370 g. I also weighed a scrap of fabric which I think will be roughly the same size as the floor reinforcement I am yet to add, and that was around 80 g...so all up I'd say it's going to be around 450 grams (plus a bit extra for aquaseal no doubt). Definitely under 500 g though.

That is *&%$#! impressive. Certainly starting to look usable.

Thanks NNW. The plan is to finish it and take it for its maiden voyage this weekend, so I'll report back on that!

Man, that's definite progress. We'll see this thing finished for sure! I'd get to a certain point and leave it for a bit, which would turn into months, and it'd then never get finished!
Best thing is, everything you've learnt on this one will make the next one so much easier and quicker

Cheers robbie! I've definitely learnt heaps, that's for sure. It's probably been a good thing sharing it with you guys - it's spurred me a long to finish it

Great work! This looks like one of those really satisfying projects where you just jump in and start and end up with something amazing that you can scarcely believe you've made.

Yep, you've read my mind there mike! It's definitely surreal seeing it transform from a roll of fabric to nearly a packraft, like it is now (probably more so because I've been keen on them for so long and have never touched one until now). I'm sure you would have had a similar experience with your first quilt It's always very rewarding making something yourself.

Well done! It's certainly beginning to take shape now.
I am also seeing why Alpacka and co are the price they are!!!!

Thanks Lizzy! Yep, there's definitely a lot of work in making them. Having said that, I think making one yourself is still a great way to go if you can't afford the $1500+ outlay to buy the real thing. There also doesn't seem to be much of a range in packrafts in terms of price, features etc. Once I've finished and had some time to think about it, I'll include a few comments on what I've thought of this project overall (difficulty, cost, time, who I think it's for etc.).

A quick update - I've installed the valve on the raft and now have both tubes fully bonded and reinforced. I'll try and post a reply tonight with the details/photos, if not, tomorrow morning. Next jobs are to join the two halves together and weld down the floor reinforcement. Other than that, I just need to make an inflation/storage bag and I'll be done!

[andrewa]

A fantastic project, and I hope it works well. I'm looking forward to the sustained "inflation" of it....

It interests me that all the seams are welded, and not sewn first.

I fiddled with tape joining Cuban, and it works fine, but a stronger join in Cuban seems to occur if sewn first, and then taped over. I presume the same for PU fabric, but I may be wrong.

I look fwd to a piccy of you floating down a river.

A

[robbieb]

Where's the popcorn eating smiley when you need it?

[Lizzy]

Come on FootTrack- the suspense is killing me!!!

[FootTrack]

Sorry for the lengthy intermission, guys! Unfortunately last week was a bit of a hectic one so the packraft got little to no attention It's very close to being finished though, so stay tuned for some photos of it on water!

It interests me that all the seams are welded, and not sewn first.

I fiddled with tape joining Cuban, and it works fine, but a stronger join in Cuban seems to occur if sewn first, and then taped over. I presume the same for PU fabric, but I may be wrong.
A

G'day Andrew! The reason I haven't sewn the seams is probably two-part. Firstly, my sewing machine isn't up and running yet so that has ruled its use out of the equation. To be honest, I also wouldn't know where to start with one! Secondly, (and this is something I've been meaning to talk about for a while) is that the seams are remarkably strong when shear stress is applied to them. If I could include a video I would, but I've tried pulling two bonded pieces of fabric apart and the fabric tears before the seam faults! This was convincing enough to me, given the forces that will be applied to the seams in-action will likely be a lot less than this.

The topic of seam strength is actually a great lead-in to tonight's update - reinforcing the tube bonds from the inside!

So as I've said, if welded correctly these bonds are very strong in a shear plane. However, they have relatively poor peeling strength. As all of the curved seams so far have been welded flat and the seam strips are on the inside of the tubes (to reduce snagging), the chance of peel failure from these seams is likely quite low. However, if left as is, the tube bond is a seam that could eventually fail due to peeling. For this reason, I set about strengthening the joint with a reinforcing strip from the inside.

I used another 4 cm strip of fabric for this job and unlike the outside bond, I did this one from left-to-right.

Similar to the outside bond though, I did all the straights before going back to address the corners.

Welding down the reinforcing strip was a three-step process. After getting the tube taut with a couple of books, I pinned the reinforcing strip to the tube with a single, straight line bond.

I then fully welded that half of the strip down to the tube. When welding, I made sure the seam below was fully parted by spreading it with my non-ironing hand. I also made sure that I ironed the strip deep into the crevasse. This ensured a rigid joint and one that didn't reduce tube diameter.

I then went ahead and completed the strip by welding down the adjacent half (again, spreading the fabric below with my non-ironing hand to create a clean finish).

After all the straights were done, I finished the job by cutting the corners to fit, and aquasealing them down. The photo below shows the reinforcing strip on one tube fully completed.

This photo shows a lesson learnt after reinforcing the first tube. You need to make sure that any other fabric below the joint is flat and wrinkle-free. As you can see, this section wasn't and I made a few extra, unwanted welds! I fixed these spots by pulling them apart and resealing the inevitably damaged areas with aquaseal.

Lastly, for this to be a fair and honest project report I thought I had to include this little stuff up! It's been doing my head in, especially because the rest of the raft looks pretty professional (and I am now up the point of welding the two tube pieces together). I'm still unsure as to how it happened (and how I'd prevent it from happening again next time for that matter), but it's obviously the result of too much fabric being in that corner. I'm nearing the conclusion that I'll have to go to surgery on it! ...but it's going to be a bit of a tricky one because the excess seen here can't just be easily cut out and re-patched (there is a tube wall meeting this point on the other side making it a T-joint). I'll have to give it a bit of thought because although I can't stand it, I may make more of a mess than what I already have if it doesn't go well...

[FootTrack]

Okey doke, so this is where I was at after reinforcing the two tubes.

The next task was to install the valve. I wanted to keep the valve/fabric under pressure whilst the glue set, so I went about creating a make-shift press. After scrounging around the cupboard I found a peanut butter and goulburn-valley fruit container that looked like they would do the job. So I had a quick snack ...and then drilled and rasped out the lids so that they would sit down over the valve's flange.

Before placing aquaseal on the flange, I roughened up the contact surface with a piece of sandpaper to ensure a strong bond. I then wiped down the surface to ensure it was grit-free.
After googling a few packraft pictures, I decided where I wanted my valve to be and marked the spot on my fabric with a dot. I then used my ruler (because I couldn't find my compass!) to mark the hole which my valve was to come out of.

Below shows the hole cut out and the valve ready to be installed beside it. It's probably difficult to appreciate, but the contact surface of the flange is now roughened.

I aquasealed the flange and put it up through the hole with the appropriate lid-press on the underneath side. The photo below shows the project at this point, before I added the other lid-press to the outter surface. I then stacked books on top of this lid-press (which being the quite wide goulburn-valley lid, did a great job of balancing the weight).

The following three photos show the valve 24 hours later after coming out of the press. The first being from the inside, the second from the outside, and the third done up as a complete unit.

That's it for now guys! Next post will be about how I welded the floor down (joining the two halves together in effect)...then after that, I'll finish with a post detailing how the tube ends get joined together (+/- some wrinkle surgery in between! ).

[robbieb]

An update worth the wait!

[Lizzy]

Insert "applause". Well done
I think you have a lot of patience- mine would have been exhausted by now!

[robbieb]

I was wondering if the reason to use two floor halves is just so you use less fabric overall, rather than a single piece? To me, minimising the number of seams minimises that chance of leaks, though probably increases the overall cost of the build.

Looking forward to seeing this thing inflated!

[FootTrack]

Thanks all! The end is near

I was wondering if the reason to use two floor halves is just so you use less fabric overall, rather than a single piece? To me, minimising the number of seams minimises that chance of leaks, though probably increases the overall cost of the build.

Hey robbie! The floor has since had another layer welded over it (making it two layers thick). It would have been lighter if I had of left it as one layer, but I didn't want the TPU coating you can see in the photos to wear away over time and create leak points. It would have also been nice to have had a seamless bottom, but the fabric width (around 150 cm from memory?) limits you to making the raft in halves. The seams inside the boat are tucked away to the side so I'm confident that they will stay flat and won't peel. I'll be keeping an eye on the underneath, midline one though. The weld I've got there is pretty good but if it does start to fail at any stage I'll just glue it down with aquaseal (aquaseal creates a pretty immovable bond - even stronger than regular welding). However, I'm envisaging that won't be for a while. Below is a rough sketch outlining the floor arrangement.

[robbieb]

The diagrams make it so easy to visualise, great stuff

[FootTrack]

Hi all

This post will cover how I welded the upper floor piece to the raft (as discussed with robbieb, above).

I started out by making yet another template. For anyone who comes down this path in the future, I made my template to the same size as the floor outline on the diypackraft plans. As this outline is the back part of the tube bond, it gave me surplus to counteract heat shrink and any unforseen discrepancies etc. Once I'd finished welding I just cut this surplus off to fit.

The following photos show the two sides of the raft before the floor was added.

I then went about welding my newly cut floor piece onto the raft. I was considering welding the two halves together at once, but couldn't see a way to do this easily (and without making mistakes). So I chose to weld the floor piece to one half, and then to the other. As it turns out, this was definitely the best way to do it.

I used numerous bottles/cans to get the bottom piece taut before placing the upper piece over it. This was something I had to regularly repeat whilst welding as things moved, the nylon shrinked etc. If you skipped this step you would end up with a wrinkly bottom piece (+/- a wrinkly upper piece depending on whether you kept that taut or not, also).

After this I pinned the upper piece down over the top. Given the 4 cm surplus I had at this point, I thankfully didn't have to align the margins of the two pieces perfectly. I chose to weld outside in, from the middle of the raft to begin with, as this area is more accessible and allows a good platform to be established before welding the front and rear ends of the floor (which are more difficult due to overhanging tube from above).

The next two photos show the upper floor piece partly welded to the raft half...

...followed by fully welded, below. I'd estimate it took me about 2-3 nights to weld this piece down! Regularly having to check the underneath side of the raft for wrinkle formation, together with the small size of my iron made this a very steady job!

Next, I set about welding the other half to the upper floor piece. After a lengthy thought process, I decided to firstly get a tack weld between the upper and bottom floor piece at one end of the raft. I made sure that the two tubes matched perfectly, to avoid any misalignment issues when joining them down the track...This is depicted in the second photo below.

On a different subject, note how I've cut the inner tube reinforcing strips short by about 1 cm on either side here. This is so that I have a TPU surface to weld to when I eventually bond the front tubes together.

Last edited by FootTrack on Mon 15 Aug, 2016 10:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[jakeyarwood]

Awesome work FootTrack!

[FootTrack]

Prior to welding, I joined the two halves with tape for stability (at the tube joint).

Following the tack, I turned the raft over and welded the upper floor piece to the other half, all the way along the raft's midline. I did this with the help of my riding helmet, in the exact same manner as I did with the curved seams earlier in the project.

Needless to say, the weld was near perfect and I'd managed to weld the two halves of the raft together (something I'd been worried about for a while!) I think this is the best way to do it because (1) you can easily match the tubes at either end, and (2) you can visualise the edges of the bottom floor pieces whilst you weld, resulting in perfect alignment between them. The next photo probably doesn't look like much, but trust me, that weld was good!

Turning the raft right side up again, this is what I had. I've included another diagram for clarity, but the two shinier surfaces still need to be bonded together.

I had been a bit disappointed by the amount of air bubbles and small crinkles I got when welding the upper floor piece to my last raft half, and since then had been thinking about ways in which I could overcome it...Up until now, I had been doing all of my welding on top of a piece of cardboard and was starting to think that it's soft, impressionable nature might be contributing to the problem. So I sourced a piece of scrap craftwood I had left over from a previous project and decided to give it a trial on the next stage...

The result was fantastic, and I was kicking myself that I hadn't considered this earlier [Lesson #53: Work on a hard, flat surface!]. Shortly after this strike of ingeniousness, I had another moment of brilliance! I remembered we had a clothes iron (which to be honest, doesn't get overused here!) and wondered whether it could be used in substitute of the soldering iron, to weld the next floor half...So I got the iron, and a bit of scrap fabric out and flicked it up to the highest setting...and POOF! instantaneously melted the nylon to nothing! I was glad at this point I had the foresight to trial it on a piece of scrap fabric first Anyway, after a bit of trial and error I found a setting which bonded the fabric well (seen below), and decided to take it to the raft...

The next photo shows the raft ready for welding...

Awesome work FootTrack!

Cheers, Jakey!

[FootTrack]

Turns out the clothes iron works a treat for large areas! I managed to weld the same area that took me 2-3 nights previously, in about 30 minutes I reckon (only having to go back and weld the occasional edge I couldn't get, with the soldering iron) [Lesson #54: Pull out the clothes iron, not the soldering iron for the floor!]. In combination with the craft wood, it also made the welding virtually wrinkle/bubble free! I was amazed because I had worked judiciously on the other half trying to reduce the wrinkles/bubbles etc., yet on this half, I could be a lot more relaxed about it and still finish with a significantly cleaner weld! The photos below show the underneath side of the raft following welding - the right side was done with the soldering iron, the left with the clothes iron.

On a side note, when I first welded the floor down with the clothes iron I was obviously moving much faster over the fabric than what I did on my test sample because an insufficient bond would form (I could peel the two floor layers apart without damaging the TPU coatings). As a result, I had to increase the heat setting and re-iron the floor to create a good bond. If anyone else has a crack at one of these, I would recommended finding out what that "very light weld" setting is on your iron and use that before finishing off with a hotter setting. I did it inadvertently, but by putting a light, initial weld on the floor fabrics, I could have pulled them apart without damaging them had I caused a wrinkle etc. It's then very easy to do a quick, hotter, fixing weld over the top of this.

Lastly, after fully welding down the floor I went back and cut the surplus away from around the edges. I did this by making two cuts along the length of a strip (down to the edge of the tube bond), marking the line between them, and cutting away the excess. I found this method okay, but will probably look to remove the surplus differently on my next raft. I found it a bit difficult at times to get a perfect join between the tube bond and upper floor piece, leading to gaps between the two pieces like in the last image.

Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of the raft when the floor was finished so I can't show you guys what that looks like. I could of course take a photo of it at the moment with the tubes bonded at the front but that would just be a spoiler for the next update I've 95% finished my inflation bag for the raft (just have to put some aquaseal on it) so hopefully in the next day or two I can report back on that. Then all that will be left is some wrinkle surgery and closing up the back of the raft!

[undercling-mike]

Great update! and looking forward to the next installment. It's great that you're documenting all of your construction tips and techniques for the rest of us, you've got me keen to give it a try myself at some point!

[andrewa]

I'm enjoying it too. Whomever asked about the seam in the floor, waterproof mess is less of an issue with this, coz most water comes in over the top, in my experience. So, the extension of this DIY project is a DIY spray deck, however, I'm sitting on tenterhooks waiting for a picture of it inflated!

This is a piccy of the work up to one of my DIY spray decks on one of my Alpackas (compete with odd looking daughter!) on the older version rafts without the long tail - but, first things first, let's see this raft in full glory floating...

It's a great project. Well done.

A

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[Nuts]

Good write up so far, I too want to see this thing floating
Have you tried some practice seams with steam or other heat see if there's a way to undo the seams? ( I doubt it too).

[Lizzy]

Your detail is amazing! Thank you for putting so much effort into the write-up. Also can't wait to see it inflated and on the water

[Moondog55]

Seriously impressed here.

[FootTrack]

Thanks for the feedback guys! No worries at all re. the write-up. I've gotten a lot out of this forum, so I'm glad to be able to contribute back in my small way...

Have you tried some practice seams with steam or other heat see if there's a way to undo the seams? ( I doubt it too).

Nah haven't tried steam on it yet, Nuts. Good thought though - I'll give it a whirl on the weekend and get back to you. Small wrinkles I have been able to get rid of by spreading the fabric with my fingers and ironing them concurrently. To be honest, I've been trying hard not to make mistakes in the first place though because they are time consuming and a headache to fix (i.e. that wrinkle on the underneath side of the raft).

Whomever asked about the seam in the floor, waterproof mess is less of an issue with this, coz most water comes in over the top, in my experience. So, the extension of this DIY project is a DIY spray deck.
A

Thanks Andrew, this is interesting. Now you come to say it, I do get quite a bit of water in my kayak just from standard paddling. A spray deck is definitely something I will give thought to down the track. I take it your spray deck is permanently attached to your raft?

You've got me keen to give it a try myself at some point!

Mike - definitely worth trying if you're moderately handy (which you obviously are from your quilts!) or willing to have a crack! There's been quite a bit of time go into this one but I think that's all part of the fun, right? On the plus side, I reckon my next one will be a breeze to make and it's always nice to know how your gear is made for the inevitable repair jobs which will come in the future.

This next installment will cover how I made my inflation bag. For newcomers, I would say that this is a great introductory project to hone your skills on before getting into the more complicated stuff. So here it is!

I started out by (yep, you guessed it!) making another template. I couldn't work out what size these usually are, so I just took a guess on what "looked right". My bag is 58.5 cm x 97 cm and weighs about 110 g. Given the weight of the raft itself, this inflation bag does weigh a bit and I probably could have cut it down by about 1/3 in size...However, I'm not overly fussed about weight and the extra size of the bag will make inflation easier I'm sure. I like the width of this bag. I think it's a good balance between ease of handling and letting enough air in.

Here are my two pieces cut-out. You'll notice I tapered the bottom of the bag - I saw this on a couple of other bags and thought it would help guide air to the hole at the bottom.

Again this was all pretty impromptu stuff, but I thought it would be handy if the bag had handles! I wanted the bag to be easy to open up and roll like a normal dry sack. So I ended up cutting some 2.5 cm strips of plastic out of a milk bottle to do the job. They are approximately 44 cm long (and admittedly, could probably be cut down a bit to save weight).

The ends of each strip were pretty sharp so I trimmed them back to reduce abrasion against the fabric.

I marked a line on the inside of each piece, about 9 cm from the top. I folded the top over, matched it up with this line and did a straight-line weld along the length of the fabric. This created a sleeve for each handle.

I then put the handle into the sleeve and welded up to it, as shown in the next image. In hindsight, I probably should have aquasealed the handle onto the fabric. You can move the handle slightly inside and I think over time this will cause the weld to peel (especially during the roll-top action). However, this is not a deal breaker as I can always cut the fabric and inject some aquaseal in there (/trim back the handle length) if required.

Next photo shows the two handles installed. You will notice that the handle on the left looks considerably more wonky than the one on the right! It wasn't until I'd enclosed both handles that I started thinking about the handle fixing idea. I'm not sure why I didn't trial this idea first, but I tried clothes ironing the handle in the hope that TPU surface and plastic strip below might form a bond. Pretty foolish actually...and as you can see that idea stopped where it started! [In short, no bond was formed and it contorted my handle!]

After installing the handles it was time to start welding the two pieces together. I cut back some of the folded over fabric at the edges to expose a TPU coating I could weld my bonding strip to.

My first weld was from the inside to ensure that I created an aesthetically pleasing bond against the already folded over fabric. I wasn't too concerned about what the bond looked like from the outside in terms of gaps, because I'd left an extra tag of fabric to eventually aquaseal over it. This tag would also help reinforce the beginning of the seam which would likely experience additional stresses.

I then got the riding helmet out and bonded the two pieces as if they were a curved seam (welding over the helmet seems quite natural so I've been doing it in preference to welding on a flat surface. It also helps to negate any minor curves/waves that might be found along the edge of a piece of fabric).

[andrewa]

Yep, one of my spray decks is permanently attached, but I'd prefer a detachable one. For me, sometimes they are useful, often they aren't.

Inflation bags are easy. Not sure whether you valve attaches to a standard irrigation thread, but , if it does, I'll post a piccy in the next few days. Make them out of the lightest nylon you have, although using silinyon etc allows you the famility of a waterproof dry bag if it is designed well.

A

[FootTrack]

Everything went easily and as expected, until I met my first truly curved seam at the bottom of the bag. I probably should have thought this through better when designing the template, but I made these curves quite pronounced. This meant that they were too acute an angle for even my helmet, and that the fabric was near impossible to weld as it would not lye flat. Anyway, the moral of the story is that if you are welding a curved seam you need an object with a horizon line similar to the curve you are about to weld. I looked, and looked, and looked and could not find anything that had a curve like this retched thing I had cut! In fact, I almost conceded that I would have to reshape the corner...when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the family gnome chilling out on the back verandah! It was actually his dashing hat the drew my attention, and when I tested it against the corner of my bag I found that it was a perfect fit! So thankfully, with the help of the gnome, I managed to weld the rest of the corner without any issues

Some of the other things I tried without success were the handle of this jug and the corner of this pasta bake jar...but neither of them had the right curve and breadth to handle the fabric properly. In short, a gnome is legitimate piece of equipment in a packcrafting toolbox!

Below is the bag after having one side welded. I welded with a different strip for each side, with both terminating at the hole at the bottom.

This photo shows the difference it makes having an appropriately curved surface to weld on. The corner on the left is my half-botched attempt using the riding helmet and the gnome, whereas I only used the gnome for the corner on the right. Also note the drier, singed appearance and hole in the corner to the left. I think I've mentioned this before, but if my iron sits idle for too long it becomes hot enough to melt the nylon. As this corner was quite fiddly when using the helmet, and I wasn't dissipating the heat readily enough, I kept melting the fabric. This can be avoided by giving your iron ten strokes back and forth on cardboard prior to welding (or a couple if you've only let it sit momentarily). I've since re-patched this area as its structural integrity was compromised (and a surprising amount of force has to be applied to the bag to pass air through the Boston valve).

On the seams inside the boat, I didn't bother bonding the strips right to the edge due to the low snagging risk and because of the high chance of touching (and damaging) the adjacent TPU coating if the iron slips. However, the seams inside the inflation bag are arguably more likely to get caught on stuff and peel so I wanted to fully weld them down. You can do this by placing a piece of paper against the TPU coating and welding out to the edge of the strip, as can be seen set up here. The TPU won't bond to the paper, which means you don't have to worry about unwanted welds or TPU-iron contact.

This is a quick photo of the extra tag that I folded and aquasealed to the outside to cover-up/reinforce this seam.

On advice from Matt at diypackraft.com, I just used a section of garden hose as my bag-valve adapter. It works out to be a surprisingly good fit! I did put a layer of aquaseal around the tube though, just to improve the seal.

I pulled the welding strips out through the hole at the bottom of the bag and aquasealed them along the tube, like legs. I then wrapped a strip of fabric around the body of this to hold things in place. Whilst the glue was setting, I wrapped everything with tape to keep it all under pressure. Obviously this is one way to "skin the cat", and there's likely other options that would work equally as well here...

The following two photos are of the finished product!

Next update will (hopefully!) be of the finished raft, so stay tuned It could be a few days though, as I'm currently waiting for aquaseal to set on that wrinkled area before I close everything up.

[robbieb]

Successful?

[FootTrack]

Successful?

Hey robbie! Yep, the project was a success! I'm just writing up a final report at the moment, so if you come back this afternoon/evening the details should all be there for you

[robbieb]

Awesome! Looking forward to it

[FootTrack]

Hi all!

Firstly, apologies for the delay in updating this thread. I've been flat-out trying to squeeze trips/work/study into the past fortnight and have only just found time to write this report. On a positive note, this is the last one so there will be no more waiting after this!

This post will cover four things: (1) my fix-up job of the "wrinkle" discussed previously, (2) how I went about closing the two tube ends, (3) photos of the fully inflated, final product (what everyone has no doubt been waiting for!), and (4) some general comments on the project as a whole and plans for the future.

Although a significant wrinkle should not be part of a normal build, I'll include details of how I tried fixing mine because it was a part of this project and others may find themselves in a similar situation in the future. I'm still somewhat bemused as to how the wrinkle came about in the first place (given the fabric was cut out accurately and all lines matched up etc.), but I will certainly avoid making a repeat of this in the future. I think the key thing to note here, is that mistakes can only be made/worsened when the iron is welding the fabric. In other words, make sure everything is absolutely perfect before making contact with the iron! Interestingly, the corners of the tube bonds made on my first raft half were neater than those on the second half...The technique I outlined earlier (with the 1 --> 3 --> 2 diagram) was certainly easier to implement, but created more corner wrinkles on the second half as a result. I think on my next raft I will go back to my original technique (although it was tougher) to try to make these corners neater.

The photo below shows the most significant wrinkle in question. After some lengthy thought, I decided to do something about it because it was pretty ugly and I was also concerned about it snagging and copping increased abrasion etc.

I knew I had cut out my pieces perfectly so I was apprehensive about removing any seemingly surplus fabric caught up in the wrinkle (...it had to be there for a reason!). I firstly measured from the midline of the raft to the apex of each corner and found that the distance was shorter on the side with the wrinkle. This confirmed my suspicions about the fabric "needing to be there", so I put the scissors away and began dismantling/rebuilding the corner. I started by fully peeling the corner back, as in the next photo.

I then had to try and re-bond the pieces into correct alignment. Given the TPU coating was destroyed in the peeling process, this was obviously another job for aquaseal...

Aquaseal bonds strongly once set, but is not enormously sticky when wet (i.e. if you want two pieces of fabric to set nice and flat against one another, you have to keep them pressed whilst setting, otherwise any microtensions in the fabric will overpower the glue and will cause them to separate apart). In addition, its weakness when wet means that if you smooth out any wrinkles on one side and flip it over to check the other side, the bond will likely separate and re-wrinkle in the process. So to ensure there were less wrinkles in this corner than what were originally present , I had to be able to view both sides simultaneously whilst bonding. That way I could tick both sides off as being wrinkle free and immediately press the bond, without flipping the fabric over.

A glass-topped coffee table would have been ideal for this task, but as we don't have one I had to look elsewhere. This pyrex dish was the next best thing, so I blue-tacked it down to the table (with an overhang) to achieve a similar effect.

I then placed the raft's affected corner over the dish and set about re-bonding the joint. An example of how I visualised the underneath side of the joint is seen below.

Re-bonding the corner joint took three days (drying time included). As aquaseal bonds have to be pressed to get a good finish/seal, I chose to glue/press each of the joint's bonds individually. This reduced the chance of a colossal muck-up! The next photo is of the joint's reinforcing strip, on the inside of the tube...

...and the next two are of the finished joint from the underneath side of the raft. Admittedly, this corner is still not perfect and is still a bit wrinkly/ugly. However, I think it is better than what it was like originally and after a lot of mucking around, it's probably the best I could have done. I'm not sure how much of a difference can be appreciated, but the original wrinkle was a significant out-pouching of the fabric.

Now onto the closing of the raft's ends! I started by cutting another 2.5 cm wide, bonding strip to the length of the front tubes' circumference (+ some extra). I then aligned the tubes perfectly at the base of the raft and pinned them into position with more books/jars.

I then tacked-welded the two tubes together with the bonding strip. As can be appreciated in the photo below, I didn't weld the start of the bonding strip to the base of the tubes because I wanted to avoid an awkward closing bond position.

My riding helmet went inside the tubes next, and I began welding the tube ends together from the outside (as I have for all my other curved seams).

[FootTrack]

After completely bonding the two ends of the front tubes together, I aquasealed a patch onto the tube wall/raft floor as seen below. I did this because there was a slit which remained and needed closing where the two adjacent tube bonds on the floor met. I cut this patch so that it ran up the tube wall for some distance, as I wanted to ensure that the area where the two ends of the bonding strip came together (on the inside of the tubes) was totally leak proof.

The next photo shows the raft floor completed (following on from my update a fortnight ago)...

...and this one is of the raft ready to have rear tubes closed up (with the front tubes closed and the bonding strip for the rear tubes pre-cut).

I won't go into extensive details about how I closed up the rear tubes because I think the technique(s) have been thoroughly covered in previous posts. However, I will briefly mention one point. The tip of the rear tube is obviously very point-like and so not even my trusty gnome could provide a surface to weld on! With the knowledge I have learnt from welding other oddly shaped seams, I used the corner of a wooden block to weld up the raft end. It worked very well and I was able to get a nice, sharp finish.

Before I upload the finished photos of the raft, I thought I should make a quick comment regarding aquaseal. Locally, I was only able to get very small quantities of aquaseal (2x 7 gram tubes for approximately $20) from a fishing store. I guess that most people only need a small amount to repair rips in waders etc. I also bought a single, 21 gram tube off eBay for about the same price but I used that up reasonably quickly also. All up, I have probably spent around $60 on aquaseal (2x packets of the 7 gram tubes and 1x 21 gram tube) on this raft. The other day I managed to buy a bigger, 226 g tube from the US for about $50 shipped. If anyone is considering making their own packraft in the future, I would consider buying the 226 g tube to begin with. The little tubes are fine, but they get expensive if you start making mistakes and have to buy a few of them. The larger tube is a particularly good option if you are planning on making more than one raft, as I am.

Now for some raft pictures! The photo below shows the wrapped-up raft and inflation bag, next to a nalgene bottle for size comparison.

Next is the raft and inflation bag on the scales. 560 g (actually 540 g if you discount the 20 g pair of straps holding things in place!).

This one is of the raft on the scales without the inflation bag. 450 g (actually 430 g if you discount the straps, as above).

The inflation bag inserted into the raft's valve.