Watching A Boat Get Welded Together Is Workshop ASMR

If you’ve been on the Internet long enough to know about Hackaday, we’ll wager you’re familiar with the concept of autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) — a tingling sensation in the scalp that’s said to be triggered by certain auditory stimuli. There are countless videos on YouTube that promise to give you “the tingles” using everything from feather dusters to overly starched shirts, but for us, the tool of choice is apparently a Lincoln Electric Magnum PRO 100SG spool gun in the hands of [Bob].

You’ll want a friend to help wrangle the panels.

Admittedly we can’t promise the latest Making Stuff video will induce a euphoric physical sensation for all viewers, but at the very least, we think you’ll agree that watching [Bob] and his brother methodically welding together the twelve foot hull of what will eventually be a custom jet boat is strangely relaxing.

While we usually associate [Bob] with scratch builds, this time he’s actually working his way through a commercial kit. Sold by Jet Stream Adventure Boats, the kit includes the pre-cut aluminum panels that make up the hull, stringers, and top deck — niceties like a windshield and seats are offered as extras. The engine and jet drive need to be salvaged from an existing personal watercraft (PWC), but that will have to wait for a future video. For now, there’s a boat-load (get it?) of tack welding to be done.

The build process looks to go pretty smoothly, except for when they attempt to put the bow of the boat together. Unable to get the two side panels to meet properly, [Bob] eventually has to contact the manufacturer. After some back and forth, it turns out that a bit must have broken on the CNC when the hull panel went through, as a key cut was made nearly 8 inches (20 cm) too short. He was able to complete the cut with a jigsaw and continue on with the build, but we’re still scratching our heads at how this wasn’t caught before it got shipped out.

It won’t be the first homemade boat we’ve covered, but given [Bob]’s attention to detail, we’re particularly excited to see how this one develops in future videos. Especially since he’s foolishly bravely asked the commenters to come up with a name for his new craft.

33 thoughts on “Watching A Boat Get Welded Together Is Workshop ASMR

    1. Because it’s a boat? Because it’s not in the water? Why didn’t the concrete ships of WWII sink? Get a can of beer or soda and wrench the fliptop handle off. Drop it into the can. You’ll see it floats.

    2. You know how if you let iron cool slowly, it embeds the geomagnetic field and stays magnetic. Well it’s the same with aluminum and gravity, you just have to use it the other way up from how it was sitting when it cooled.

      ;-)

  1. Very cool , except how they are welding the aluminum . Goes against everything I’ve been taught. Steel tools being used and never cleans the weld site . As I have been taught in the autobody biz You must clean the weld site with stainless wire brush right before you weld. Aluminum oxidizes very fast and creates a poor weld. Iron based tools contaminate the aluminum and creates galvanic corrosion. Spool welders are cool because the protect the welding wire from oxidizing and needs to be put away in a cool dry place when not in use.

  2. Oof, that might be grounds for firing in a business with multiple shops working on the same project. My wife is HR at an aluminum boat building company and each shop has a set amount of time budgeted for their portions of the build. CNC to fabrication, to tack and seam welding, to systems, etc. Not much of the work can be done in parallel so if one shop messes up it can eat into the next one’s budget.

    They’ve had more than one fight break out over jerks messing with other peoples work and tools. If one of them pulled that WD-40 stunt and cost them build hours I don’t think the culprit would leave with their paycheck or tools intact.

  3. The story of ‘The Weld Inspector’

    Decades ago I worked for a dude who had a friend known as the ‘weld inspector’.

    He was a welder.
    One night he had a dream. He was inspecting a weld, and it kept changing as he ran his finger up and down.
    He was awoken by his wife, who was all hot and bothered. He had been ‘inspecting her weld’ in his sleep.

    Nothing wrong with any of that, healthy human behavior. But he made one mistake, he had a story too good not to tell. So he did. Which is why I was introduced to him as ‘The Weld Inspector’ 20 years later.

    He lived in constant fear that someone would call him by that name in earshot of his wife, and that she would hear the story.

    Moral: Stories too good not to tell, are too good not to tell. If you tell one person, it will follow you.

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