Boatbuilding styles: Traditional frame, stitch & glue, or hybrid?

I guess there really is no cure for compulsive boat building.  (LOL)  So I’m going to build two more drift boats this fall while waiting for the ski season to start.  I'll sell one and keep the other for myself. 

Both will be built in my mold which controls the shape and allows them to be built totally without screws if so desired.  Definitively not free-form stitch and glue. They are 17’ x 54”, with either “fly fisherman” or high sides.

The goal of this build is to incorporate the best features of traditional construction with the much lower maintenance and higher resistance to rot of frameless wood epoxy techniques. So I thought this might be a good opportunity to explore the different ways to build a drift boat and give people an opportunity to relate their experiences.

We shouldn't loose sight of the fact that the traditional wood frame boats that most are familiar with were designed to be built by an unemployed logger in his garage using inexpensive local materials.  Good enough to catch a mess of Rainbows and then take him safely through Martin's Rapids---- not to become heirlooms or museum pieces.  We no longer have cheap local materials, but the simplicity and ease of construction remain. Something to keep in mind before you spend more time restoring a tired old boat than it would take to build a new one.

When someone like me chooses to curve the top of the transom and build a cap instead of chopping it off square, add an inlaid breasthook, or build a furniture quality seat it is largely for the pleasure of artistic expression rather than function.  Same principle applies to recurve side panels, curved transoms, and high back rope seats.

Other techniques like using premium Sapele plywood prepared with transparent glass and special UV coatings have both esthetic and practical functions, and can result in a beautiful wood surface that requires less upkeep than paint.

The main alternative to traditional frame construction is the stitch and glue method often used to build kayaks and other lightweight craft. Using this approach only minimal frames are necessary, and the resulting interior can be much easier to maintain, especially if you want the wood to be varnished.  However, building up a chine tough enough to withstand hard use requires multiple layers of tape and subsequent fairing, and is all to easy to shortcut.  And it lacks the great feature of a nice piece of oak to take the knocks that can be removed and replaced when needed.

So in place of a tape/epoxy chine seam I’m using a laminated oak inner chine with a removable/replaceable outer chine.  I’ve developed a procedure that completely eliminates the possibility of water entering the wood through the outer chine screws, yet allows bedding with a material that permits easy replacement.

Since all the oak we receive from suppliers anymore is subjected to the indignity of rapid kiln drying it is quite brittle when bent.   Even if steam bent it is prone to splitting once it dries back out.  For this reason I epoxy laminate all my curved oak pieces—chines, cap rails, casting brace---.  Radically increases their toughness.

Here is the plan for the two boats:  All negative and positive comments are welcome!

BOAT  #1:

HULL:  9mm BS 1088 Ocume marine plywood:  Epoxy flow coated with UV resistant epoxy and sanded to a mirror finish on the interior. Clear LPU topcoat. Painted jade green on the outside.  Cosmetically it will be similar to the nesting dingy I built. (see photo)

BOTTOM:  ½” marine fir plywood: Outside:  30 oz glass and epoxy with graphite/silica filler. Raised double bottom platforms at casting locations.  ANTISKID:  “Treadmaster” as used on high end ocean going sailboats.  No funky hot black bed liner.

TRANSOM:  ¾” Sapele finished clear inside and out as on my Chameleon pram.

SEATING & INTERIOR FIT-OUT:   Traditional rope seats. Laminated arch style aft casting brace. Mahogany cap rails with no raw edge of plywood exposed. Custom breast hook with inlay.

BOAT # 2             

HULL:   Premium grade BS 1088 Sapele marine plywood: Clear finished inside and out. Watertight compartments.  High side version for more extreme waters. I may pull the length out to 18’ as a true double ender.

BOTTOM:  CoreCell-Kevlar-glass: Toughest bottom structure possible. 5/8” CoreCell core with 36 oz glass/epoxy/silica/ graphite bottom.  Kevlar inner skins for bulletproof impact resistance.

INTERIOR: Waterproof side flotation lockers with custom wood lids and twist locking handles.  Straight side rod storage for four rods.  ANTISKID:  Treadmaster as used on high end ocean going sailboats.  No funky hot black bed liner.  Awlgrip LPU paint on the floors. Integrated YETI cooler.  Custom seats.  Open style cap rails with hand holds. Custom breast hook inlay.

Boat #1 will be for sale for $8,000, and #2 for $16,000.  The features are not set in epoxy until they are underway if somebody wants customization. If they want both it will get a lot more expensive!  Like enough more to retire to Argentina. (LOL)  

There are a bunch more photos over on my (Richard Elder's) blog.

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Permalink Reply by Don Hanson on August 13, 2013 at 8:40pm

  If the Old timers, the famous builders of old, whose boat draw so much interest and reverence now...the boats that now take so much time and money to put back into service...if they'd taken just a little more time and done their boats just a bit more properly...those boats wouldn't be such time-suckers, such money-pits to try to bring back to life....And people really do insist on trying, with mixed results..

  Personally, coming from a more formal boatbuilding backround, I like to build boats that will last.   If I just wanted something to get on the water, how bout a float tube?   Or a trashed out throw away built by someone else , then duct tape it up and go?  You can find clunkers on ebay for next to nothing, boats that will still float just fine...

   I always get 'sucked-in'..."Oh, Jeeze, if I just taper this frame a little, it will look RIGHT...even though that might take me ten whole more minutes"...or..."I am going to put a screw here...where's my Goo?...can't find it?   Stop!  Go look for it..."  Or  "I have to go all the way to Portland (60 miles) to get some good plywood....or I can get some at Home Depot that will dissolve in maybe 10 yrs.....I'll take the morning and go to Portland...

   When people ask of some of my boats..."Aren't you afraid to use that boat, it's SO pretty?"....I go "Hey, I built this sucker, I can fix it if I scratch or hole it" and I do like the feel of a pretty boat...

   Different strokes, different folks..

Permalink Reply by Richard Elder on August 15, 2013 at 6:25am

Thing is, spending the extra money for BS 1088 Sapele plywood, even having it shipped to the wilds of Idaho, will only cost a few dollars a year over the life of the boat vs. using the "Marine Grade" fir plywood now available-- because the boat could well last far longer.  And "cheap local materials?  Use fir plywood from Home Depot and you've a boat that won't last five years unless you essentially build a glass boat over the outside of the junk fir core.

We've all heard the "that is too pretty to use nonsense."  Just ignore it and go fishing! That is what drift boats are for.

And just to ruffle a few feathers, a frameless boat built with heavier side panels is not only easier to maintain but faster to build than a traditional frame design, given the same style of interior seats & stuff.  Which doesn't negate the respect I have for people like AJ who choose to preserve the values incorporated in history.

Permalink Reply by Mike Baker on August 14, 2013 at 2:33pm

So I have been seeing discussions like this on WBP for a while and have never posted. What I think people miss about the old boats is that they were built as a disposable tool, used in a ridiculously harsh environment and never intended to last a long time even though they had materials we will never have the privilege of using (that part is a shame). They sold these boats for nothing and had a very slim profit margin with a family to feed. I am sure if you told Keith Steel in the 70's that in 2013 someone would pay over $1000 for a completely used up boat of his he would have called that person one stupid S.O.B. Having said that it is hard to put a price on a piece of history.

Mike

Permalink Reply by AJ DeRosa on August 14, 2013 at 3:09pm

This is a 1953 16x48 that was built for Edsel Chase of Springfield, Oregon.  LeRoy Pruitt recognized it a s "Ed's Boat" at  Randy's show in 2007 or so.  It's made with the legendary fir that no one has seen, except maybe Steve Steele, in 30 years.  The workmanship is superb and an over the winter restoration to replace a missing transom and replace an old set of chinecaps has it back on the water.  It's out there fishing the Snake as I write this.  These boats do last.  Treat them right and enjoy a piece of history.

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Permalink Reply by Don Hanson on August 14, 2013 at 4:11pm

  What a great pic!  Oh yeah, the boat looks nice, too....The pic captures the whole Boat thing though.... 

it floats you....and that pic shows floating really well, what with the clear water suspending (floating) the boat and the boat's shadow on the bottom....

Permalink Reply by tungsten on August 19, 2013 at 6:45am

I'd like to here more about the inner and outer chine idea you mentioned.No fillet or glass in the inside?

Permalink Reply by Richard Elder on August 19, 2013 at 12:38pm

Hi tungsten,

When I use the glass or kevlar tape method to build the inner and outer chines I always end up spending an inordinate amount of time bent over fairing it perfectly so it looks right painted with LPU. Even with a Huchins orbital long board it is still a pain in the back.  I suppose I could just cover it with black bed liner, but that just looks only slightly better than the spackle paint the production glass builders use to cover their poor workmanship.

Now a nice full length piece of laminated oak with the proper bevels to fit into the bottom and sides and epoxy in place, pre-finished before it is put in --- that is a different fish entirely.  Easy to do with the jig building method that I use, and almost impossible without it.

Permalink Reply by Andrew on September 6, 2013 at 12:42pm

Tungsten, I recall you and I having a conversation about this type of this build in the past.  

In regards to the cooler as a front seat, Ive been running a canyon cooler as a front seat in my ribbed boat this season and love it.  It is a cube shape rather than a long skinny cooler.

Sadly, they dont make it anymore.  It fits perfectly as a front seat pedestal. This one here looks to be identical, and cheaper. 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/53-Quart-50-Liter-Cube-shaped-Ice-Chest-Coo...

Permalink Reply by tungsten on September 8, 2013 at 10:09am

Yes Andrew I remember,but like Richard says almost impossible to make without a strong back of somesort to hold it and shape it.

Fillet and tape is much easier.

Permalink Reply by Richard Elder on August 19, 2013 at 12:40pm

NICE photo AJ!

Permalink Reply by Sandy Pittendrigh on August 27, 2013 at 7:16pm

I've put duck boards in stitch and glue boats many times.  Usually in three fit-tight-to-the-sides sections, so they can be lifted out for hull maintenance.  That's the biggest drawback to framed boats: you can't take the ribs out for sanding and painting. 

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