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Newbie Boat Build - Military Barge

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Dirty D

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
Alright, this should be good.

For starters a little background, been bowfishing since I was a little guy and killed 1000's of pounds of carp here in Colorado, absolutely LOVE bowfishing. That said I've never fished at night out of a boat but it's been a long time dream. Been lurking here for quite a while trying to figure out what it's going to involve. As far as the boat goes, I've talked my ol' man into converting his duck boat (some millary surplus barge contraction) into a summertime bowfishing boat (we'll be pulling the stairs in the summertime as well). The catch is, come fall we'll have to pull the deck and put the top back on so he can go duck hunting. I mention that because whatever I do, I'll need to be able to relatively quickly convert back over twice a year. Overall I'm pretty excited about the boat and think it'll make a sweet bowfishing rig, it's about 18' long and 7' wide, it's a beast. Supposedly floats in 6" of water.

I'm thinking about a flush deck because it sits pretty high in the water but where I'm really struggling is trying to get my arms around the lights. I like the idea of LED's but the price has me a bit terrified. I also already own a 2000 watt generator, so I don't have to worry about that expense. Any thoughts/recommendations? I was looking at the 50W Custom Fitz but not sure how many I'd need? Or, if I should just stick with something cheaper until I've spent some time fishing it. Any advise, comments, criticism you all have for me? Let 'er rip.

Thanks!

 
#3 ·
Welcome D. That thing is a beast, should make a great rig. I am personally a fan of Seelite LED's, just bought my second set for the new boat. I had (8) 50w HPS on the old boat and just put (8) 100w HPS on the new boat. They don't have as long a throw as say 400w HPS, but has never been a problem for me.
 
Discussion starter · #8 ·
Thanks guys. Here's a question, we're debating steel vs. alum. deck. It seems like most everyone goes alum., but would it be crazy to build our frame from steel? Crunching some quick numbers we're coming up with a 60 lb difference between the two materials and it feels like our boat is big enough to handle a little extra weight. Crazy?

Here's a pic from last weekend, wading. We're wondering why we're building a boat! Ha.
 
#10 ·
Steel would bed fine for your boat. Just don't use more of it than you need to is all. A 70lb. difference in weight is pretty negligible on a military barge. Nice group of commons. My girlfriends son and I went out today walking the flats and he got a 43lb. grassie.
 
#11 · (Edited)
nice looking boat! always wanted to see somebody build one of these things! should be a sweet build.:D if you want to make the deck removable, do what i did with my light rail for my 1648 and fab up some feet that will slide over the gunnels and you can just lift it on and off. to secure it down, just hook some ratchet straps on it and hook them to the boat. you'll want to line the inside of those feet with some carpet to protect the gunnels of the boat from rubbing directly against the feet of the deck. hope this helps ya out! ill try and get some pics up in a little while.
 
#12 ·
Alright, so as you can see here, where the rail attatches to the boat, the foot just slides over the gunnel.



heres a better angle

where the gunnels angle in it the bow of the boat, i just bent a piece of angle to the same shape, bent some flat bar to the same shape as the angle, and welded it to the angle on the other side of the gunnel.


oh and btw, i used 1"x1/8" steel box tubing for the rail and for the feet i used 2" angle and flat bar. both 1/8" thick. what can i say, i'm known to build things overkill :laugh:
 
#13 · (Edited)
1" emt is about 16 ga. I used 16 ga tube for mine, 1x2 for deck and 1x1 for legs with some emt bracing. I was originally going to make it all from EMT but fitting round to round at odd angles just wasn't happening for me.

If you put a wood deck on, you can get away with wider spacing than needed to support alum sheet. All in all if you size the steel accordingly it won't be much heavier than alum. EDIT: my platform has gaps 32" by 22" or so and either 3/4" ply or 7/16" OSB are stiff enough. 1/2" ply was not stiff enough. I went with the $8 OSB for short term to find a nice piece of 3/4" ply but it is still being used 11mo later.

About the wading...no joke, that is something to consider. Since I started using boats to bowfish, I don't think I have waded/walked more than about 5-10 trips, and those only in places with no boat access. It made me lazy.
 
#14 ·
glassbow201 said:
1" emt is about 16 ga. I used 16 ga tube for mine, 1x2 for deck and 1x1 for legs with some emt bracing. I was originally going to make it all from EMT but fitting round to round at odd angles just wasn't happening for me.

If you put a wood deck on, you can get away with wider spacing than needed to support alum sheet. All in all if you size the steel accordingly it won't be much heavier than alum. EDIT: my platform has gaps 32" by 22" or so and either 3/4" ply or 7/16" OSB are stiff enough. 1/2" ply was not stiff enough. I went with the $8 OSB for short term to find a nice piece of 3/4" ply but it is still being used 11mo later.

About the wading...no joke, that is something to consider. Since I started using boats to bowfish, I don't think I have waded/walked more than about 5-10 trips, and those only in places with no boat access. It made me lazy.
Click to expand...




I used 3/8" ply, but I want it to flex.
 
#17 ·
My what a little deck you have there...:D I count 20 round to round welds. That is impressive. I did 2 and I was sick of it. You should probably weld for a living. Oh, wait... The round to round welds themselves weren't particularly hard, but it took forever for me to shape the ends of each piece with the tools I have. I even bought a 1-1/8" hole saw bit to help but soon realized that would only help on simple 90 degree fittings, and not help a bit on compound angles.

So, I wisely chickened out after the first two round to round welds and stopped with a 4x8, one sheet emt deck. The two round to round welds were for the main center support. Basically a bended corner rectangle like you have, with rose weld supported butt joints, with a single bar in the center from front to back. We used that 4x8 emt deck sitting on 2x4s across the gunnels with osb on top to shoot the spawn last year. About a 4" raise over the gunnels. It served, but there was almost no storage space underneath.

In the summer I bought some square and rect tubing, expanded the design I had planned to a gunnel width 6x8 deck tapered in the front, and went with a 2 ft raise with full triangle support. Two feet high is nice for view and allows enough space under the deck for storage. The square tube was more expensive than emt, but was so much easier for me to cut to fit in a timely fashion without the high probability of insanity. Square is not as pretty as round, but 1x2 rect makes for stronger deck that resists bending much more than 1" EMT. That original 4x8 bended emt deck along with a light sheet of ply and a pair of sawhorses sees use as a portable table, so that didn't go to waste and served as a big ramp up the learning curve.

@DirtyD,
I think you could go raised or flush. I don't think raised would be any harder to remove with two guys, but for night shooting flush would be fine and more stable, closer to the fish. You will lose storage space underneath with a flush deck. Raised would be harder to store for the winter; takes up more space. I removed the deck wood and stored that in the shed, but left the platform on the boat. I don't use it for hunting, and the platform is too big to fit in the shed.
 
#18 ·
Round stuff isn't as hard as ya think, once you do it a few times you can quickly cope it by hand with a grinder.

Square looks fine as long as you properly miter your corners. No disrespect to any on this site, but it bugs the $hit out when people build stuff with the "butt joint and cap" or even worse the butt joint and uncapped tubing.

Back to the topic at hand, this boat is a beast. Perfect candidate for a raised platform, in fact it would be a crime to not have one. I don't suscribe to this closer to the fish stuff, higher is simply better.
 
#19 ·
Buddy of mine has the same exact boat. He went flush aluminum deck on the front with 10 (?) 175 watt HPS lights. His has a 101 36 volt troller with a 4 stroke tiller steer outboard. Not sure of the size of the outboard, but it pushed it around mid 30's or so. the troller goes just fine, lots of room for fish, and there is a bunch of storage under the flush deck in front to keep things tucked in.
We shot 225 fish in a 10 hour tournament and got her up on plane on the way back in to the launch.
 
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