TYVEK for skin frame boat?

[Kurt Bittner]

Just a wild thought - would Tyvek have the durability for a skin-frame
boat application? It
seems it would have the proper tensile strength and watertight
characteristics, and seems like
it might be quite durable.

--
Kurt Bittner <kbit...@flash.net>

"There are moments when tragedy and courage can lend a suggestion
of shape to the random pain of life." -- Norman Maclean

[Chris Crandall]

Kurt Bittner (kbit...@flash.net) wrote:
: Just a wild thought - would Tyvek have the durability for a skin-frame

: boat application? It
: seems it would have the proper tensile strength and watertight
: characteristics, and seems like
: it might be quite durable.

Does it stretch well?

[Bob Cavenagh]

Kurt Bittner asks:

>would Tyvek have the durability for a skin-frame boat application?

In my estimation, probably not. At least not without several coatings.

A better covering for a skin boat would be CECONITE, made as an aircraft
wing covering. Platt Monfort (of the Tyvek sails) has been using this
to cover his Geodesic Aerolite canoes and small boats, and again has
detailed instructions. The cloth is incredibly tough, is cheaper than
sail cloth, comes in great widths, can be heat-shrunk to fit, and can
possibly be found through your friendly local airplane mechanic, or from
Monfort. One of his skin on frame canoes is about 9' long, weighs about
8 pounds.

A search of rec.boats.* in DejaNews should turn up more info.
--
Bob Cavenagh Cave...@Dickinson.EDU
Director of Instructional Technology 717-245-1508 (w)
Dickinson College 717-245-1456 (fax)
Carlisle, PA 17013 USA 717-249-6195 (h)

[Ron Ginger]

> Kurt Bittner asks:
>
> >would Tyvek have the durability for a skin-frame boat application?
>

Since one of the major features of TYVEK for housewrap is that water
will pass throught it I dont think it would make much of a hull cover.
It is also very slippery- there are warnings printed on it about
stepping on it- it is somewhat hard to glue or coat. I suspect it might
be tough to get a sealer that would stay stuck on it. I know that Platt
Monfort had to do a lot of experimenting to get tape that would stick
well enough to make a sail.

As to the UV degradation, the label warns it should be covered in 180
days. I suspect a sail for a small boat would wear out before UV got it.

I used TYVEK on my house, and there were places where it was left
uncovered for a few months. Some edges came unstapled, and the flapping
in the wind made it a very soft fabric. It still was quite hard to rip.

ron

[craig o'donnell]

In article <622sdn$n...@raven.cc.ukans.edu>, cran...@stat1.cc.ukans.edu
(Chris Crandall) wrote:

It would work; I'm not sure how much stretch you'll really get, and I have
to admit I've never taken a hair dryer to tyvek. At least that I can
remember.

-- COD
craig o'donnell ||| author of Cool Mac Sounds
dada...@friend.ly.net . . . craig_o'don...@bmugbos.org

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[Kirk Olsen]

Kurt Bittner (kbit...@flash.net) wrote:
> Just a wild thought - would Tyvek have the durability for a skin-frame
> boat application? It
> seems it would have the proper tensile strength and watertight
> characteristics, and seems like
> it might be quite durable.

I've seen a plain blue tarp used for a "quick" corracle.

Tyvek might work if you could figure out a way to tension it and hold
it onto the frame, without ripping. It might work for a small umiak
or a curraugh. I'm not sure how well it would work for a kayak.

kirk
remove the -spamless to make my address replyable.

[Stephen A. La Joie]

Ron Ginger <gin...@ma.ultranet.com> wrote in article
<34455A...@ma.ultranet.com>...

> I know that Platt
> Monfort had to do a lot of experimenting to get tape that would stick
> well enough to make a sail.

1) What kind of tape sticks well enough to make
a sail out of Tyvek?

2) I thought that the beauty of Tyvek was that
it could be sewn on a sewing machine. Whey do
I need the tape?

> As to the UV degradation, the label warns it should be covered in 180
> days. I suspect a sail for a small boat would wear out before UV got it.
>
> I used TYVEK on my house, and there were places where it was left
> uncovered for a few months. Some edges came unstapled, and the flapping
> in the wind made it a very soft fabric. It still was quite hard to rip.

I wonder what the failure mode is after 180 days of
solar UV exposure. Is it a structural failure, or a
failure of it's vapor barrier qualities? Perhaps just
the brand name comes off.

[Marcus G Bell]

> > Kurt Bittner asks:

> >
> > >would Tyvek have the durability for a skin-frame boat application?

Ron Ginger (gin...@ma.ultranet.com) wrote:

> Since one of the major features of TYVEK for housewrap is that water
> will pass throught it I dont think it would make much of a hull cover.

Hmmm, I believe that water VAPOR passes through it, not water the
liquid. Gore-tex is similar in this regard.

--
--
Marcus. ( be...@mail.med.upenn.edu )

[craig o'donnell]

In article <624dpj$850$1...@netnews.upenn.edu>, be...@mail.med.upenn.edu
(Marcus G Bell) wrote:

There's woven Tyvek, and nonwoven ("paper") Tyvek. I don't think anything
passes thru the nonwoven (Fed X envelopes, housewrap). Woven Tyvek,
surely, can be had in different weights with more or less permeability.