The Duct Tape Paddleboard Project
We had just watched two episodes of Mythbusters—one about creating a sailboat out of duct tape and another about surviving on a deserted island with only pallets of the famed sticky, shiny, silver stuff—so you can forgive Kelly and I for talking about how we should create a duct tape sailboat together. But then, in my sometimes rational mind, I decided perhaps this wasn’t such an Einsteinian idea. Surely, instead, I should start out with something less ambitious. Something quicker to build and wouldn’t require welding equipment, as the Mythbuster’s rebar-framed sailboat did. Something that would still float, but was a tad smaller.
“Let me try making a duct tape stand-up paddleboard first,” I resolved. “It’ll be for proof of concept and give me practice with working with duct tape.”
It seemed all so simple in my head: just create a frame out of PVC pipe and wrap duct tape around it. Make sure it is sealed well enough to preserve its buoyancy and voila! A paddleboard that costs a fraction of what a “real” one would go for brand new.
A back-of-the-envelope calculation even proved to myself that it would be able to support my weight. My design parameters were a 29″ width, 11′ length and 2″ (inside-diameter) pipe—which effectively gave a 2.5″ height. “It should be able to float with up to 240 lbs. on it,” I concluded.
So in early May I made a Home Depot run for the PVC pipe, fittings, and duct tape:
![Puchasing plenty of 10 foot, 2-inch PVC pipe from Home Depot.](https://felixwong.com/gallery/thumbs/d/duct_tape_paddleboard12.jpg)
In mid-June I created a frame. With a compound miter saw this turned out to be quite easy:
![Making the frame for the duct tape paddleboard out of 2" PVC pipe.](https://felixwong.com/gallery/thumbs/d/duct_tape_paddleboard12-000.jpg)
So then it was just a matter of wrapping duct tape around it… which turned out to be extremely tedious. And after the first few hours of doing so, there was the first failure: the frame came apart at a joint. The PVC cement, it turned out, was not strong enough especially when considering that I was wrapping the tape with quite a bit of tension.
Unfortunately, when this happened, the tape collapsed onto itself, leaving a sticky, inseparable mess. There was no choice but the cut the layers of tape and try again.
![This is how I envisioned paddling on the water... if the duct tape paddleboard worked.](https://felixwong.com/gallery/thumbs/d/duct_tape_paddleboard12-001.jpg)
My neighbor Tim then came over to help and we reinforced the joints with self-tapping screws. “These joints will never come apart now.” we predicted.
Hours later, our prognostication turned out to be wrong. Another joint failed, essentially ending the project. I had already wasted close to 10 hours on this, and it was not worth it to spend another 10.
![Unfortunately the frame joints failed again and several hours of work erased. End of duct tape paddleboard project.](https://felixwong.com/gallery/thumbs/d/duct_tape_paddleboard12-002.jpg)
“Maybe I’ll look for some other sort of water flotation device on Craigslist instead,” I concluded. Preferably one that was not made out of duct tape.
One comment:
I am thinking of another approach. use 1/2 plywood for deck and three or four layers of. celetex blue foam...cut out the plywood and foam and shape like you would a surf board. make a port for your skag in aft section of foam..then wrap with duct tape. apply grip tape on top where you stand