It is a common belief (or fact, depending who you talk to) that boats are money pits. Surely, it is a fun past time even for the lucky person flipping the bill, but what if you could build a boat from locally found and purchased items. [Bill] did just this and he did it for a mere $30. His creation is affectionately called Thunder Bucket.
The overall design is a pontoon-based sail boat. You’ll notice from the photo that the pontoons are made from many 5 gallon buckets attached together. The wood frame and deck come courtesy of old pallets that were taken apart. The mast is a fence post and a standard blue tarp rounds out the resourcefulness as it is used for the sail.
Admittedly, this may not be the coolest boat on the waterways but it is a boat, it’s made from non-boat-like items and it works. Believe it or not [Bill] is a professional boat builder. Sometimes ‘why not?’ is the best reason to do something.
I think this is somewhat misleading, it might only cost this much of you already have most of the materials. 14 x 5 gal buckets plus a tarp and fasteners would cost more when if the pallets were free.
Notice no pics of it actually being used?
yeah he only purchased the tarp and fasteners everything else he got for free, if you don’t know a contractor you will probably spend a little more.
Dumpster diving construction sites you can obtain every thing you need
http://www.pdracer.com/boat-shorty/50-dollar-sailboat-race/race/
They also sold it to a scout troop.
$50 sailboat race!? Hackaday should be covering the whole field! That is friggin sweet!
If only the Professor on Gilligan’s Island had had 5 gallon buckets.
Never own a boat, have a friend with a boat.
BOAT = Break Out Another Thousand
I’ve heard you can get the same experience turning your shower on cold throwing money down the drain
We used to compete in a race called the Unboatable Floatable, and I’m pretty sure this would be disqualified for being too boat-like. Depending on who was judging, anyway…
They day boat stands for “Bust out another thousand”, but in this case not so much. (Looks like fun though on a small pond.)
The more you know, the less you need to do something.
I think the idea is build a boat from what you’ve got, not build a boat from buckets.
Along the same lines, single plywood sheet kayak: http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?117707-Little-Guide-a-one-sheet-canoe
Or Coraplast and Ducktape
http://m.wikihow.com/Carve-a-Boat-from-a-Tree
You can make a canoe from a tree, probably for less than 30$. I’ve seen beautiful birch bark canoes that are entirely built with traditional methods. Of course you need a few hundred hours to spare.
Watch ray mears’ “birchbark canoe” episode. I LOVE that man
As a kid, I once build a boat completely out of free parts that my parents had lying around.
It was made by cutting scrap wood boars into thin long strips and then connecting them into a framework for the boat hull. This framework was then covered by sheets of polyethylene construction foil by stapling them onto the wood and tightening the stapler holes with parcel tape.
A 2 stroke lawnmower engine I had lying around was converted into an outboard engine.
Reminds me of the pontoon boat made from two heating duct and duct tape from the “Red Green” show years ago….
As much as I love Red Green, the Mythbusters left out the heating ducts out of their design: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnILEXnRHP0
I tried this once as a kid except with some second hand barrels. I wish he had some more info/pics on the sail. My boat only blew sideways. without proper luff sewn into the sail they don’t generate much lift and cannot tack.
I’d be more impressed if the components bought from Home Depot included a couple sacks of QuicKrete. My alma mater regularly had concrete canoe races on the campus pond, and elsewhere: http://news.engineering.iastate.edu/2012/05/04/iowa-state-concrete-canoe-team-places-2nd-in-midwest/
This is like Jack Sparrow’s boat from the beginning of the 1st Pirates movie, but from a Trailer Park Boys perspective.
am i the only one who gets the joke behind the name? god i’m horrible….
“Hey look at this cool boat we just got, isn’t it *blurb* *blurb* *blurb*…..”
This is the kind of thing I think about doing, but never actually put the time and money into.
“Pastime.” Not time in the past.
A cat design with stays can be much faster and cheaper than a monohull of similar dimensions. I don’t imagine it keeps one dry but I can believe that the design is cheap and effective.