ENVIBOATS

1. To ensure tight joints
2. Adjust the angle of the planks on the boat

To Ensure Tight Joints

Adjusting the Angle

Hotcoating is a slang term that means to coat a surface with epoxy resin with no fiberglass.  This is done to ensure that all wood is fully encapsulated and protected.

As long as it is properly constructed and installed, either work fine. This is another one of those topics where experts will line up on both sides of the question. Additionally, we have had about an equal number of customers state that:

• I will never have an aluminum tank in my boat!
• I will never have a plastic tank in my boat!

What it seems to depend on most is whether you personally have ever had a bad experience with one material or the other. The question is almost moot however when you get into big boats with big fuel tanks. In those situations, it is highly unlikely that you will find a plastic tank that will work. Typically, to get the substantial weight of a large tank full of fuel in the right place in the boat, it needs to be specifically designed for that boat.

Douglas fir is the wood of choice for the laminated structures in a cold-mold boat. It has excellent properties of:

• Strength
• Flexibility
• Light weight

Certainly other woods of similar properties can be used. One of our builders is very successfully using cypress.

Make sure that any wood you use has been properly dried to its equalibrium level. You can Google™ to determine a wood's moisture equalibrium. We bring this up because cypress, for example, is often not sufficiently dried.

Hmmm. Although we get that question frequently, we have never figured out how to answer it. Other than: "It depends." Depends on what? Well, here goes.

• How big is the boat?
• What is your prior experience?
• What level of "fit and finish" are you trying to achieve?
• Do you have help?
• Are you buying any FasBuild™ options?
• What type of time commitments can you make?

Even a small boat is a significant project but one that rewards you at every milestone with incredible satisfaction. Talk to any our our current builders!

There are three species of marine plywood that we commonly supply with our products. We typically supply Meranti or Douglas Fir for primary structural components and Okoumé for areas where flexibility is desired.

Our kits typically combine species in order to maximize value.  In other words, we use the right wood for the job and that typically works out well from a cost standpoint.

Comparative Properties

Additional Thoughts

Okoumé, as stated above, is more flexible than Meranti. Obviously, flexibility is very important when bending plywood to form the hull sides. The smaller the boat, the tighter the curve and the more important flexibility is as a characteristic. However, we have had customers successfully build our 17 with only Meranti. Our 16 and 17 Redfish Flats boats have even tighter curves though and we would be hesitant to recommend building those with Meranti.  When thinking about the weight savings using Okoumé to form the sides of the boat, consider that a cold-molded boat is already considerably lighter than a similar boat constructed of solid fiberglass.

Let's start by emphasizing that there are tools you MUST have and tools that are nice to have. This is true for power tools and hand tools alike.

We will continue to develop these lists to provide you with a good understanding of the tools required.