Raft building

I'll have access to all your basic hardware store materials and tools. Tarps, duct tape, rope, nails, axe, saw...

File: 1488725151747.jpg (39KB, 452x659px) Image search: [Google]

39KB, 452x659px

Get two tarps, sandwich inflated trash bags between them, stitch together at grommets. Build your twig raft on top.

>>964535
Try scouring ditches for old tires. They're super durable and also pretty buoyant, though inner tubes would be a better option.

>>964545
>Stitch together at grommets
Shit, that's a great idea. Tarp would protect the bags from snags as well. But the challenge remains to design something out of sticks that would sit firmly on top of the bags.

>>964549
Tires are buoyant? That's news to me. Inner tubes are a good idea but I don't think I'll be able to get my hands on any.

>>964563
>Tires are buoyant?
That or I'm trying to drown you.

You really don't think you can "source" five gallon buckets? They sell them in hardware stores for like $3 each. Hell, big restaurants throw them away by the stack.

Anyway, this reminds me about this news story about this hipster couple from Minneapolis that built a raft and were going to float down the Mississippi all Mark Twain style, IIRC they didn't make it 100 yards from their launch before the coast guard turned them around.

>>964580
I'll actually be traveling abroad for this, so I have no idea what the hardware stores will and won't have.
That brings me to a tangential question; how do I into rafting? My aim is to live through this.

The Mississippi is notoriously deadly, of course. Almost makes me suspect Huck Finn wasn't real.

>>964583
Oh rafting is easy, you just do it. You're paddling a boat, not flying a helicopter.

>>964584
So I have nothing to fear except crocodiles and bilharzia. Good to know.

>>964590
Yeah, you'll be fine. Bring a sun hat.

I've often thought about making a raft using PVC drainage pipes for flotation, capping the ends obviously, and lashing them together somehow.
It might be more expensive, but possibly sturdier.

>>964681
I've thought about this too; my main concern would be embrittlement of the PVC from UV exposure.

>>964685
Yeah good point. In my half-baked plan, they would be covered by wooden planks. I guess you could also paint them but idk.
I did once come across a raft made from a wooden pallet and some sort of large plastic bottles. It was in a deep dam and I did go on it. Was wobbly as fuck and I jumped back to shore lol.

>>964691
I was thinking of stabilizing whatever I make with an outrigger-style support.

>>964695
I think it was only because it was so small are wise. A bigger raft surely would be self-stablilising.

>>964535
Make one out of a free boat that you get off of craigslist.

File: 14372102_1276498895718004_2146759022290222516_o.jpg (749KB, 1500x844px) Image search: [Google]

749KB, 1500x844px

rafts are fun.

sleeping in the bottom of an alumininium canoe with your face 20cm from an aluminium crossbar on a thin foam may while having to wear a swim vest for legal reasons however is not.

but having done it was worth it

this pic was still pretty early in construction and we paddled it out to about the middle of the body of water you see. fun times

>>966318
Fucking lol, whose idea was that

>>964535
Yeah, because using mangrove wood so terrible for the environment compared to leaching xenoestrogens into the water from your plastic water bottle boat.

>>966546
Probably Jack Daniels or Jim beam's idea. Fun guys to hang out with.