55 gal drums???

[Delta Duck]

The plastic pipe do work well!

[Stano]

They make a two part foam that works well it expands to 26 times its original volume, best example I can give is a 1/4 of an inch in a 16 once plastic cup will expand to about twice the volume of the cup. Same stuff in pontoon floats some of that might be a help if your gonna use metal barrels I would go for the plastic and fillem with foam becareful the foam will bust the barrel. but where you guys or gonna put that thing one person gets pissed off and shoots you barrels your screw'd and if I don't get and invite .....well ::::grin:::: I will see if I can find the stuff on the web kinda pricey but they can shootem till their blue in tha face and they'll still float

[Delta Duck]

Stano, You mean to tell me that a fellow duck hunter would do that to another fellow duck hunter?

[tunica]

Fellow duckhunters would never shoot blind barrels out of meanness.....its a fellow duck hunter that is altering the height profile of the blind. Now if only one side of the blind is altered it does not mean the shooter was being destrutive its just that he ran out of shells, he'll be back to fix the other side soon

[Delta Duck]

of course!

[Wingman]

We have a bunch of those old styrofoam floats that go on electric paddlewheels in the ponds. They are covered in some type of hard shell. You can shoot them full of holes and they won't sink.

Wingman

[Dutch Dog]

well, the blind itself is built. we are going to go with 6 barrels and we can put as many as need be (or will fit) under it. I will try to get a picture of it, I know my buddy is gonna take some pics of it so we can see exactly how to re-assemble it once we get it to its resting place. We are going to use 4 quarter FAS poplar for the flooring, we had some cypress ordered, but it isn't going to be in by this weekend. We are going to have concrete reinforcement wire surrounding the blind, with burlap on the inside, and all kinds of cover around the outside. the top is slanted from front to back...about a 3 inch drop over 4 ft with a tarp laid on top of the wire acting as a "roof" to keep us candy arses dry. we let the center reinforcement bar extend out the back of the blind 6 ft to drive a boat under and act as a boat slip....We are hoping to have enough weight on the bottom with all the wood and US to keep it from being too top-heavy. If it doesn't work, heck we will just have to make it a little deeper next time. We are probably going to come up with some kind of system where we can anchor it down on 2 sides each one counter acting the other one thus not allowing the blind to tip.

[tunica du4u]

There is a formula; multiply the gallons capacity by 0.1337 to get cubic feet. 1 cubic ft of air will float 70#'s. Been building floating blinds and boat docks for quite a while and have used this formula for quite a while and never let me down. Friends brother in law (yeah i know) works for Ranger and has told me many times plastic barrels are better than foam as barrels are 100% full of air where foam has a density. I have used the 2 part foam but like the barrels mo' betta

[Stano]

I just like the bullet proofing foam gives ya that air runs out quick.......

[tunica]

If you tie off to trees make sure you leave slack in the ropes that is if your putting your blind in a place where the water rises and falls. Nothing like finding your blind hangin or submerged.

[Dutch Dog]

I think we're gonna leave 20' extra slack to allow for that much rise in water. I really don't think it will ever get that high...the highest I've ever seen it would only put it about 15' deeper than it is right now. By the way that water in the coldwater river is EXTREMELY LOW, I guess it has something to do with the fact that they drew arkabutla down very low to allow them to work on the spillway for quite a while without flooding the whole country. Went by there last night and there is NO water coming out of the spill way and Caterpiller backhoe's down in the "channel".