Activity

Finished my UL Packraft

A friend and I floated a 6 mile section of the Yellowstone River near Billings, MT in early March.  I just had to try my newest Telkwa!

Usually leaks are caused by debris in the zipper: https://www.diypackraft.com/faq/why-is-my-airtight-zipper-leaking/

Having a leak at the docking end of my TiZip on a new Skeena build, any hints? Yes have lubed it and done all the TiZip instructions.

Awesome, that’s good to hear. I’ll try a few more with less heating time and see what happens. Then on to the inflation bag!

Thank you!

Aaron

Hi Aaron – sorry I didn’t see this until now. There’s a bug in the forum software that was holding posts with multiple pictures in a hidden section, waiting for moderation, but it wasn’t notifying me about them. Hopefully I’ve fixed it now… we shall see. Don’t be afraid to email me if you don’t get a response within a day or so.

Anyway, your…[Read more]

Hi,

I am in the practice phase of heat sealing right now before I dive into making the raft and I have a couple questions about my heat sealing and if I’m going about it the right way. I’m using a Hangar 9 Iron that is definitely getting hot enough, but I’m wondering if it’s getting too hot. I was able to get dial it in to where I know it’s…[Read more]

Very interesting! Until now, the low melting temperature of DCF has been a problem for heat sealing, but it looks like they have formulated a type of TPU that is weldable at a lower temperature – very cool. Unfortunately the price will be prohibitive for many people, but if someone manages to get a sample of several meters and wants to try making…[Read more]

Hi Matt,

I think my posts are getting caught by the spam bot. I’ve been trying to post in the help thread for a few days now and it looks like the posts are going through, but then nothing shows up!

-Aaron

It might interest you that a similar technique was used in olden times for field repairs of wooden folding Kayaks with a PVC fabric skin: PVC was scraped with a heated knife from PVC patches (or fabric they carried for that purpose) and then the hot PVC was smeared with the hot knife on the area to be patched. Requires obviously some skill.

Very creative tip – thanks for posting! I can see this being especially useful for spots where I accidentally damage the TPU on the tube fabric. Cheers!

This won’t help with having elegant looking seams, but you can use the TPU from the fabric to make patches.  Place a strip of TPU coated fabric with the TPU side down on some parchment paper.  Put on some leather gloves.  Heat the nylon side twice as long as you would for normal sealing.  While holding the fabric strip, raise your iron onto its…[Read more]