Airboat is an excellent vehicle for those who often like to go fishing and hunting, because in terms of its characteristics it is many times greater than the cross-country ability of any off-road vehicle. Moreover, it can be operated both in summer and in winter. True, the cost of airboats sometimes starts at 300 thousand rubles and more. But you can go the other way by making such a tool yourself.
Homemade airboats are almost as good as their factory counterparts. Therefore, every year in Russia there are more and more of them. And today we will look at how to make an airboat with your own hands.
Engine
The motor for our homemade can be used from a regular Soviet-era boat. But for lovers of high speed, this will not seem enough. In this case, you should pay attention to the Japanese Honda and Yamaha engines with a capacity of 150 to 210 horsepower. Paired with a propeller, such a motor is capable of accelerating the boat up to 50 kilometers per hour on water and up to 90 on ice. V-belts and a thermostat are taken from a car of the Zhiguli type. driven and driven pulleysmade of duralumin steel.
Propellers, blades and propeller
In addition to the engine, you should also take care of the propeller of the airboat. We will make it from a solid wooden beam. You can go the other way by gluing several 10 mm plates with epoxy. It is important that the finished element does not contain unnecessary knots and burrs. As for the plates, when fitting them, it is better to make a 1: 1 drawing, which will be a kind of template, and already according to these data, make the propeller of the boat.
To make a high-quality airboat with your own hands, you should not be lazy and make everything "by eye" - each detail is made according to its own template and drawing.
The propeller blades should also be free of burrs and other deformed areas. Such shortcomings are removed with a small hatchet. Next, the wood is processed with a planer and rasp. Cross cuts are made on a special slipway. They are needed to install the propeller blades.
How to make an airboat with your own hands? For the slipway rod, we need ordinary steel. The main thing is that its diameter is equal to the opening of the hub of the mentioned part. Next, the rod is placed on the center of the stacking board. After that, a propeller blank is put on it and pressed against the template with several blades. This blank should show traces of patterns (where the blades touch the propeller).
These places should be processed with a planer and placed back in the slipway. The process of processing the blades must be repeated. Further with the help of the upper templatesthe upper part of the screw is processed. As a result, both elements must touch up to the plane of the connector. All processed places are marked with a colored pencil or marker, after which zones are made between the control section. The correctness of the work performed is checked with a steel ruler - it is applied to the points of adjacent sections. Ideally, the gap between the ruler and the blades should be minimal.
Now the screw needs to be balanced. This is done in the following way. First, a steel roller is inserted into the central hole and a propeller is mounted on the balancing rulers. If suddenly one blade turned out to be lighter than the other, it is loaded with lead (thin strips of this metal, previously poured into the mold, are glued). The finished rod is inserted into the hole of the blade - where the lead strips were applied. It is flared on both sides. The propeller is glued on both sides with fiberglass, sanded, balanced and goes through the painting procedure (primer and enamelling).
How do you make an airboat with your own hands? Drawings and assembly of the lower case
The body of the airboat consists of two parts - lower and upper. It's best to start with the first one. To do this, in accordance with the drawing, we prepare frames from 12 mm plywood sheets. The keel and stringers will be made of slats with a section of 2x2, 2x3 and 3x3 centimeters. Frames are mounted to the floor on bars and braces. Adjust the rails should be in place. They are attached with epoxy glue. The slats for the front of the boat are pre-treatedsteaming in boiling water, after which they are tied to the frame with wire. After drying, the wood is finally fixed with glue. Next, the finished frame is leveled and filled with foam blocks. We also plant the latter on epoxy.
If necessary, the foam is puttied with a mixture of glue and sawdust. The case itself is glued on both sides with a thin layer of fiberglass, after which it is polished and painted. From the inside, unnecessary foam is cut so that it is flush with the frames. Then it is also pasted over with fiberglass.
Upper case
The upper part of the case is assembled a little differently. Here we will not use plywood frames, but curved rails that will be mounted on the finished bottom of the boat. Where the engine is located, the frame is fixed with scarves. The frame itself is mounted to the cross member of a square steel pipe (4x4 cm) and fixed with 2.2 cm pipes. Then everything is simple - foam is applied to the surface and pasted over with fiberglass. So we will complete the procedure for forming the upper part of the hull of a homemade airboat. Doors can be made from plywood, and the windshield is best taken from any domestic car (for example, from the back door of the Moskvich).
How to make fishing crafts? Controls
A drum is installed on the steering wheel shaft, connected with a crosshead on the steering baller box. Instead of an accelerator pedal, there will be a small lever that can be mounted in any front of the cabinboats.
Salon
Seats for passengers and the driver are made of wood slats and plywood. The frame is filled with foam rubber and sheathed in leather. You can go the other way - take ready-made seats from any foreign car or even a domestic car. At this stage, the question "how to make an airboat with your own hands" can be considered closed. All other little things in the cabin are arranged to your liking, the main thing here is to have imagination and enthusiasm.
So, we figured out how to make an airboat with our own hands. Good luck!
