Anybody know anything about Nidaplast?


https://www.acpcomposites.com/manufacturing-and-production?_vsrefdom=ppcgoogle&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=polypropylene%20sandwich%20panels&utm_campaign=Priority%20Keywords

https://www.nidaplast.com/en-uk/products/nidaplast-8-0

Now that Plascore is at least temporarily so hard to get, we need alternatives. They're are plenty of them. I just don't know much about them.

https://www.boatbuildercentral.com/product/nidaplast-h8pp-honeycomb-core/

I've been posting links to youtube videos made mostly in Thailand where guys glue chunks of styrofoam together and shape it with a sure form file, and then glass it up. Some of those boats run on small DC motors, some on lawn mower motors.

Somebody needs to raise the ante slightly. Use Plascore or Nidaplast instead of styrofoam. Glue the edges up. Add one layer of glass. Then spray it with hot truck bed liner, inside and out. You could make a hull start to finish in a week.

Sixty years ago Dynamite Payson created a mini boat building revolution with what he callrd "Instant Boats," which was stitch and glue plywood covered in glass.

Polypropelene honeycomb core covered with minimal glass and then sprayed with truck bed liner would be faster yet. And then there would be no such thing as moisture-caused fiberglass de-lamination.

Artificial boats?

I am using 1" thick NidaPlast Honeycomb core for the bottom. When you trim the sheet at the chine you end up with open cells at the edge. Is it necessary to fill these voids with a epoxy putty or do I just glass over it?

Good question. I trowel a putty of resin and micro-balloons onto those exposed edges but you cannot fill it. The cells run up and down and they are exposed from the side. It doesn't matter. The chine gets buried under multiple layers of glass. Bottom fabric overlaps the side. Side fabric overlaps the bottom. Tape goes on top of that. The chine area will get smashed and cracked. But it doesn't matter because honeycomb core does not soak up water. I fixed a bottom like that that was 10 years old (three years ago). It was a quick easy fix.

If it had been plywood it would have been soaking wet and hard to dry out before patching. Honeycomb core is the only way to make a bottom panel.

On a side note, on the White Water Dories group on Facebook a Westcoast guy mentioned an extra-wide bottomed boat he rows, that has 20 foot side panels and a 66" inch bottom. His is an aluminum boat. He also mentioned he has a layer of high density plastic riveted onto the aluminum bottom so it doesn't get stuck on shallow riffles. He also said the plastic "helps with the noise issue."

There is a lot to be said for Aluminum. DIY people can buy good Mig welding equipment for about 500 bucks or so. It is the most long-term durable boat. But they are noisy, at least on shallow rivers, and they do tend to get stuck in shallow riffles. I'd like to make an aluminum boat some day. No boat is perfect. They all have their strong and weak points.