Water Sealant or Paint

Well, I posted this on another thread, but got no responses so I thought I would give it a home of its own. I have completed my design work and this weekend I will be cutting the wood for my new floorboards for my Crawdad. I do not intend to use carpet. I want to either use a sealant or an oil based paint, but I would rather seal. I will be applying strips of griptape to the sections that I'll be standing on. Does anyone have any suggestions, or specs to look for/avoid, when selecting a sealing product? Thanks. Baring any major disasters, I'll have some pics documenting my progress early next week.

Use pressure treated Marine grade plywood and skip the sealer and paint!

I have a friend who is in the hardwood flooring business, and he told me when I was going to deck my jon boat that he would get some good polyuerothane and when he applied it to the wood sprinkle fine sand in with it to give it a textured feel and be non slippery.

nicdicarlo said:

Well, I posted this on another thread, but got no responses so I thought I would give it a home of its own.

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Where here? :shock:

Jim, I posted the question in the "Marine Grade Ply" section to no avail. Good responses here though :lol: .

Backpain, did you do that sand technique? If so, how did it workout? It sounds like a pretty good idea.

bAcKpAiN said:

I have a friend who is in the hardwood flooring business, and he told me when I was going to deck my jon boat that he would get some good polyuerothane and when he applied it to the wood sprinkle fine sand in with it to give it a textured feel and be non slippery.

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That sounds like it would work. Put a few coats of poly on it and on the last coat, sprinkle the sand on it.

bAcKpAiN said:

I have a friend who is in the hardwood flooring business, and he told me when I was going to deck my jon boat that he would get some good polyuerothane and when he applied it to the wood sprinkle fine sand in with it to give it a textured feel and be non slippery.

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I'd say carpet it instead

So a few coats with good polyurethane will be suffient to seal the wood? I plan on rounding as many corners as possible to keep the sharp edges to a minimum. I think that will lessen the chances of things catching on the ply and splitting/splintering it over time. I will also be applying extra sealant to the edges. I'm exciting to get cutting. Hopefully the weather will be OK.

I would poly it a couple of times and you should be good. I just emailed someone myself for a crawdad for $185 asking.

Wow, great find Jim. My brother in law has been searching for a used one for a while now. He currently has a Pelican (basically the same as the new version of the Crawdad) and has always like my boat a little better. That RAM-X material is pretty much bombproof. He has a Coleman canoe that is 20 years old, has seen tons of action all over the place, and is still in great shape...we still take it on trips down the Delaware.

nicdicarlo said:

Wow, great find Jim. My brother in law has been searching for a used one for a while now. He currently has a Pelican (basically the same as the new version of the Crawdad) and has always like my boat a little better. That RAM-X material is pretty much bombproof. He has a Coleman canoe that is 20 years old, has seen tons of action all over the place, and is still in great shape...we still take it on trips down the Delaware.

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no repsonse yet!

Over here there is a local forum and they all use the crawdads. Not the new ones, the old ones. So it's hard to score one with out paying top dollar.

People get em and hang on to them. Do those guys do any serious mods to their crawdads?

nicdicarlo said:

People get em and hang on to them. Do those guys do any serious mods to their crawdads?

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yes!


The major things.

1, move the front seat back a foot
2, add a foot controled trolling motor
3, put a floor like you are
4, huge cooler aerator for cartopper tournies
5, Clamp for a rudder in the rear

Fishin NJ said:

I may pick one up to use instead of my 10' tin jon for next season if i do not buy a 16' boat. See what $$ brings.

Dicks sporting goods carries them or something similar, like bass raiders or something.

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NJ,
The new ones are all plastic, So you really cant do anything to them. If you can find an old used one, they are allot easier to use and work with.

Jim, here is the CAD figure I made up with the dimensions of the boat. I have added another layer thats not shown here showing the layout of the floorboards. If you end up getting that crawdad I'll send you over my "AS-BUILT" plans when I finish up.

You rule!

Oh Im getting a crawdad...Its stuck in my head. Once something is stuck in that melon, there is no changing.

WOW NicD - that is awesome work. You may have a future in this boat modification thingy.

Seriously, if you are willing to do detailed floor plan layouts you can and will sell them.

Thanks for the compliments guys. I like doing CAD work, or basically anything that requires me to be ultra precise. My girl thinks I'm a little crazy that way. Dave, if you want me to draw something up for the Shad Slayer in your driveway, let me know. This is my first figure of this kind, so I'll let you guys know how close the finished product came to my plan.

The only problem is, I don't have autoCAD on my computer at home, I have to pirate it from my company. The program is pretty expensive, not to mention, its HUGE. We're slow right now so who cares! ha. 8)

Oh yeah, and get that crawdad jim! Good luck!

nicdicarlo said:

Jim, I posted the question in the "Marine Grade Ply" section to no avail. Good responses here though :lol: .

Backpain, did you do that sand technique? If so, how did it workout? It sounds like a pretty good idea.

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No I wanted the quiet of carpet.

Clamp for a rudder in the rear

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Whats the rudder for?