Don Hill 16' for a First Build

Hello Everyone,

I've been looking in on this site for a little while now, and have finally decided to build my own drifter. I bought the Don Hill plans for a 16' standard. After looking at the threads by Phil Westendorf and Guy Fredrickson, I'm really excited about beginning my own boat.

I've got some skills, already being an accomplished knifemaker, as a second-generation machinist. I've built houses, and turned bowls, and lots of other crafty stuff, so the skills are there - just not the interest - until now.

Has anyone here bult a boat using the Don Hill method of not using a strongback? Is it ay easier? Is the boat any good when its done? I'd really love to hear some advice from those of you who've built one this way. It'll be pretty difficult to compete with the boats that Guy and Phil are making, but I figure that just starting out would give me a good boat to play with, and allow me to develop good habits to inject into my next build.

 

Anyhow, thanks for listening to me, and its great to be here.

 

Kibby

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Permalink Reply by Kibby on September 5, 2012 at 5:09am

I will probably build my own scarfing sled for cost reasons, but I am loathe to do it. Its a sickness of mine to build things that make other things. When I was heavily into knifemaking, I was always building a jig or a grinder, or something to make something else with. Its takes up time, and it distracts me away from the end product. I also tend to over-engineer things, which makes them really great, but again, time-consuming and distracting.

I searched for Guy Fredrickson's sled to no avail. Guy, if you read this and could find a pic of a link, I would really appreciate seeing yours for inspiration to build mine.

Permalink Reply by Rick Newman on September 5, 2012 at 7:40am

Kibby, here's the link to Guy's scarfer. http://http://www.woodenboatpeople.com/forum/topics/guy-s-wooden-dr...


I guess I have read these pages too often, I sort of remembered where to look. Guy also had a nice system for scarfing longer lumber into chine logs and such in the pages and posts prior to this. Guy's system shouldn't take to long to build.

Rick Newman

Permalink Reply by Kibby on September 5, 2012 at 10:39am

Thanks, Rick. I actually saw that scarfing jig when I was drooling all the way through Guy's build thread, but I forgot it. Now that I have reacquainted myself with it, I actually think I'll copy it and use that for my first build. I was looking at about $750 for a decent router and the Woodhaven sled, so I think I will simply placate myself with my old Craftsman router and a makeshift scarfing jig for the time being.

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