DIY Shorediving Float

[Schnibbz]

Hello everyone; I'm new to spearboard, but have been shooting freshwater fish and lurking the forums for a while now. Living in the burbs of chicago makes me jealous of a lot of the people on here, but I am pretty content shooting panfish and carp in Wisconsin.

Anyway, I got tired of my whimpy inflatable dive float and decided to shape up some super high density foam and coat it with glass. I'm thinking that it will be pretty indestructible as i used 6 ounce cloth and aircraft grade epoxy from West Systems.

Before paint, I will run a stainless steel eye bolt all of the way through the float for attaching a float line to drag it around with or an anchor line for when I get to my hunting area. The idea is that the compartment on top will be used to hold extra weights, water/gatorade, mask/snorkel, gloves, knife, etc. The top side will have backpack straps added so I can throw on my suit and put the float on my back and walk to the shore. It should float about 155 lbs according to my math.

Uploading pictures continues to fail, so follow this link to my photobucket album. I'm planning on sanding and painting tonight or tomorrow so i should have some more pictures soon.

[LunkerBuster]

anyone who tries..you have to add "photo" to the browser bar...it goes to "bucket" right now



looks awesome. man....nice glassing skills...do you think it might be overkill? you could use that as a tuna float with 155lbs of lift !!!

regardless, I think you have done some very nice work..what does it weigh



i linked some of the pics below to make it easier for others

[LunkerBuster]

[LunkerBuster]

[LunkerBuster]

btw...negra modelo is great buildin' fuel

[Schnibbz]

It's definitely overkill! Probably $40 worth of epoxy because I wanted to use the fast drying high end stuff. Fast drying marine epoxy would have dried too slow for my taste. It weighs about 7 pounds. The whole idea was to make a backpack that i could strap my gun, fins, float line, etc to and also use as a float at the same time.

[LunkerBuster]

id say you succeeded in meeting those goals nicely

[zeN]

Nothing like a customized flotation device, you can attach all manner of accessories for attaching your speargung and supplies, I can see this is only the first of many projects, nice job

[jjoshuacox]

me gusta. You are gonna show us the finished product, right?!?

[Atmosphere]

Lots of guys in Northern California rig up body boards much the same way and this guy took it a step further: http://www.spearboard.com/showthread...light=ab+float

[Istickfish]

Awsome. I have been thinking along similar lines and now I am inspired.
Russ

[LunkerBuster]

nice Bump Russ...

schnibz, any pics of the finished float? how has it been working for you?

[JTH]

great little beater float

[Schnibbz]

In all honesty, I never got around to finishing it. Living outside of Chicago, there was not much time to dive after starting the project. Last week when the thread got moved to the new section, and received some new attention, I ordered the rest of the hardware to finish it. I'm going to try to wrap it up this in the next two weekends and will post pictures. Ice is almost off of the local lakes around here, so it's almost go time!

[kitespearo]

Dude you got that far and put that much time into it.....finish it slacker.
Nah JK let us know how it turns out.