The biggest problem with making small craft from aluminum is that under normal circumstances aluminum bends in only one direction at a time, which makes it hard to form complex curves -- unless you stretch it using explosives forming or something similar. Also, aluminum watercraft are typically riveted. That means you need to leave enough room on the inside to get at the seams with a rivet gun. That's one of the main reasons aluminum canoes have such full ends. One manufacturer of racing canoes got around this by welding the bow and stern, which allowed finer lines, but I suspect this method of construction would be much more expensive than fiberglass. It's not just the welding, but the grinding afterward that would make it too expensive for kayaks. The wood and canvas canoes that preceded aluminum canoes actually had finer lines. Their main disadvantages were weight, absorption of water, and maintenance. The aluminum canoe became popular because of its relative lack of maintenance, not because of its paddling qualities. Here in Minnesota, and I suspect around the country, it has been largely replaced by plastic canoes, both Royalex and fiberglass. Grumman sold off their canoe-making business several years ago. Like the aluminum canoe, they are relatively maintenance-free, but like the old wood and canvas canoe, they -- especially the fiberglass ones -- can be shaped with complex curves. Aluminum canoes have a few other disadvantanges as well. They conduct heat -- and cold -- better than plastic, and they are noisy when struck by a paddle, hence the nickname, "boominum" canoe. Aluminum also stick to rocks more easily than plastic. Also, it is not indestructible -- I have seen a few pictures of aluminum canoes wrapped around rocks -- and it is hard to repair. And if you were paddling an aluminum kayak that smashed into rocks, I think you would stand a good chance of being pinned inside. Polyethylene rebounds and fiberglass shatters. Aluminum does neither. Chuck Holst ^_at_^_at_ *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Feb 27 2003 - 14:18:01 PST
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