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So I'm in the process of building my new blind for the up coming season. I'm still working on the frame. My question is what do you guys with hard side blinds use for sheeting it. I was thinking of using roof alum roof flashing. But if someone who has a better idea I'm open to suggestions. I'm making it up as I go along so I'm not set on anything in particular.

I have always used plywood not OSB and painted it it ran/brown with black branches nothing fancy and secured hog panels to it with all the brush and grass attached to the panels. Warm dry and brushes well.

I might end up going with a really thin ply wood. My reason behind wanting to go with metal is I was planning to use a tube bender and bending the pip instead of cutting angles and having to weld more pieces together. But going with wood would give me more spots to secure the mesh netting to attach cover to.

I used aluminium sheets on mine.

Tomkat wrote:I used 18th century headwind sails on mine.

FIFY

Your the CG pro.

I do it my own way.....

Well I've decided on going with aluminum. I'm not to that step yet but should be by next week. I've got a few pictures of what I've got so far. It's been tough getting time to work on it. But it's coming along

team216 wrote:Well I've decided on going with aluminum. I'm not to that step yet but should be by next week. I've got a few pictures of what I've got so far. It's been tough getting time to work on it. But it's coming along

The aluminum will work great, we give TomKat a lot of shit over his blind but I bet it will last for a long time and yours should too. Post pictures of the final product for us!

Pretty much the same design as tomkat's blind. I've got it all framed out. I'm going to pick the aluminum when I get off. Off the next 4 days so I'm hoping to have it done over the weekend. I'll put up some pictures once I get it done.

Well I got her all done. Besides brushing but that's going to wait until my next long weekend so it's nice and green for early goose/teal. The center sags a little while it's on the ground but I made support brackets for the center when it's put on the boat.
The base is made of 1/2 rigid conduit. The stubs are 1/2 emt . For the sheeting I went with aluminum roof flashing because it was what I had available and was in my price range. The high side sits 26 inches off the gunnel. The low side is at 22.5. With a 22 inch shooting lane. I've probably got about 30 hours of actual work that went into. Alot of stopping and thinking because I made it up as I went along. But I'm happy. It fits like a glove on my boat which is what I really wanted when I started this project. I'm sure I forgot something. Sorry for the lack of pictures but I didn't want to resize and refile all of the pictures I had to be able to post them. If you have any questions or want more pictures of certain things, if this is something your looking to do I'm more than happy to help. Thanks

After hunting out of the boat with the new blind on it, overall I'm happy with what I ended up with. Total cost is just about as much as I spend on fast grass mats per year at least that's how I justified it. There is plenty of room for 3 people. But loaded with 3 the boat dogs a little bit. 2 people is about the same as the old flip up blind as far as speed goes.

team216 wrote:After hunting out of the boat with the new blind on it, overall I'm happy with what I ended up with. Total cost is just about as much as I spend on fast grass mats per year at least that's how I justified it. There is plenty of room for 3 people. But loaded with 3 the boat dogs a little bit. 2 people is about the same as the old flip up blind as far as speed goes.

Looks good! How much does it weigh?

Nice looking blind , how do you like the tracker.

Olly - I'd say it's probably in the 120-130 range, me and my brother had no problem carrying it 30 yards and setting it on the boat. Wish I could get an exact measurement to know how much weight I have left to play with.

Slingshot - i like the boat, I don't like the company after dealing with the hassle of ordering a boat. It's pretty durable, and is a very shallow running boat. Overall I would recommend a tracker but get it from a boat shop not bass pro tracker center.

Thanks for the compliments guys

Well, I took the blind off the boat yesterday so I can start fishing. Only broke one weld which I don't think is to bad being my first time welding and it being 1/2"emt. So I cut the high side off, I'm going to turn that into the new low side. I don't think the profile was to high. But I didn't like having to stand the whole time while I was hunting to see birds. And a lower profile is always better. So I'll be updating this with my new half build as time goes on.

Well I got the blind on, I kind of forgot about updating it. It's the same style as last year's. But I changed the hi side to the new low side and ditched the flippy door in the back. It was just added weight that wasn't necessary. The high side this year is 29" off the gunnel (42" from water line). The low side this year is 26" off the gunnel (39" from water line) %75 is right along the shore line with a 3 to 5 foot bank so the profile is plenty low for the areas I hunt. I almost always have a backdrop taller than me so I think I blend in pretty well. The ducks we did see last year all worked pretty well. But I wanted it lower so I could sit down and watch for birds.
New for this year is a dog door on both sides, just for the versatility of being about to hunt with the bow into the current for where ever I set up.
Last year I installed 2 55w (110 together) kc lights which melted in the front of my boat. This year I went with 2 - 6" LED fog lights which combined pull 36ish watts and 3.7 amps. Last year we made alot of trips into the back channels that were filled with trees and gravel bars. I like the added light other than the man running the q beam who has a short attention span.
My top cover is just simple burlap and emt poles cut to 29 inches to fill the gaps other than the shooting lanes. With Raffia attached.
Last year I went with all natural brush cut from ditches down the road from my parents. Well that's truck loads to really conceal a 16ft blind well. This year I went with raffia. And I love it. I got the blind grassed for early season head to toe in 6 hours by myself. It's pretty green right now. As season moves on I will pile on more yellows and browns to match the banks and such. I honestly think I enjoy building duck blinds and brushing them just as much, if not more than shooting birds. And to build it from scratch with my own two hands, blood, sweat and beers is pretty darn cool to me.
In the past I've gone out to people's fields who I don't hunt with just to brush a blind. It's just cool to me taking this man made structure and blending it to become one with nature like God himself placed it there. Okay well thats my rant. If anyone has any questions ( new people) feel free to ask or message me. I'm more than happy to help.

team216 wrote:Well I've decided on going with aluminum. I'm not to that step yet but should be by next week. I've got a few pictures of what I've got so far. It's been tough getting time to work on it. But it's coming along

My blind is similar sort of and what caught my eye is the long horizontal piece of tubing. You or your buddies are going to lean on it a little too hard one day. I'm a wittle fellar and have to keep straightening mine because it's easy to forget and use it as an arm rest or whatever. Mine is 3/4 steel conduit. Aluminum bends wayyyy easier.
If I had it to do over I'd use 1' or 1.25" steel conduit for the horizontals.

I've got 1x1's that go in the center that support it. It keeps it from sagging in the center. We all set our guns up and rest our weight on the back side. No issues last year. But with not having a whole lot of material to weld on I feel better with the braces. About the center of the picture will see the brace I'm speaking of.

Was that invasive choke out the great lakes... phragmites you used as natural growth on your boat blind?

DukMan wrote:Was that invasive choke out the great lakes... phragmites you used as natural growth on your boat blind?

Yes it was, I will not be returning to it though after reading up on it. However I didn't find any information prohibiting it's use unless you were on a state managed hunting area. But I would rather not contribute (although it's not an invasive species( it's already invaded and has been established for years) to its spread along our river. Even though it's out of my control as it already lines the banks of every waterway around here.