First stainless steel is heavier, and you have to have the right sort of stainless steel, as some are excellent in salt water, some are not! I got hoild of a plate of aluminium that was 4 mm thick, that I said I would use in salt water, but I don't know what type it is. Not very hard, but stiff. My first take was making it twice the size the original, by making it approx. twice as deep, while keeping it at roughly the original length, so it is roughly quadratic, but with rounded corners. To make it fit I used a hacksaw with a wire saw to widen the gap in the original assembly and replaced the original pin with a stainless screw and a locknut. After a few trips with it I realised that it needed to flip up more, due to its increased size, and fold down more to become more balanced. Not is superb! I spraypainted it with black car paint to make it nice, but I didn't use any primer, so it could be improved on! I also installed the pedal assembly on frame # 4, similar to they way Long Haul does theirs (I did not know about this at the time), and it sure simplifies assemebly a lot! Earlier I had attached them with a single bolt through the keelboard, but this is even better! Most of this can be seen on Michael Edelman's site Foldingkayaks.org , soon if not already today :-)! Tord S Eriksson *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
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