Hey Greg,
Thanx for the comment. Yes that is Meranti. Good eyes! those are oarlblocks in the back but they are just for holding spare oarlocks. They make a great place to ship the oars.
The strips are 1/8x1/2x12' aluminum strips. They work good but not as slippery as UHMW.
Mike

I built the wood boat first and used it hard for a little over a year until I bought the Willie, now its my main fishing boat and the woodie is more my summer fishing, when the flows are good boat.

What led me to the aluminum boat was one winter fishing trip where I had two over 250 pound apiece friends in the front of the woodie. We went down through a little class2 rapid that I had been down many times before, but this time the boat was drafting more water with the load i it and we hit a submerged rock that you couldn't see at all from the surface dead center under the passenger seat. It sounded like a rifle shot. After we got through the rapid we pulled over and inspected the boat carefully and it didn't puncture the hull but it did break the rib under the seat and fractured the first two plys on the inside of the bottom. We still fished the rest of the day and I was ultra cautious not to hit anything else that day.

I repaired the inside bottom by peeling the plys away and filled it with epoxy, screwed and epoxied the rib back together then fit two more ribs on either side of the cracked one making it triple thick. I talked with Ray Heater about what had happened to the boat and he suggested that I should do the bottom of my boat with one of his glass kits that he sells for his boats. It is a massive piece of S cloth that is coated with multiple coats of epoxy and graphite and seems to be holding up well. Admittedly I haven't hauled as heavy, or hit anything as hard since that day, but it has still taken a good number of shots since then and seems to be holding up well.

So long story longer that is what led me to the Aluminum boat. I love the way my wood boats looks, but for sheer toughness an aluminum boat can not be beat.

Greg,

Thanks for the compliment. I was looking at your pictures yesterday, very nice also. Tatman does a nice job of picking out wood doesn't he? The colors always seem to work well together.

Its hard for me to compare my two driftboats,because they both work very well for what they were designed for, but are both very different. My wood boat doesn't have near the rocker, or bottom width over a longer area as the Willie, which makes it better on flat water and it tracks very well. The Willie with much more rocker and wider bottom makes it spin and turn like nobody's business through rocky rapids, extremely maneuverable, and it will haul two guys plus me easily. I don't fly fish much yet, and use my boats mostly for pulling plugs, and in this category they are almost a tie. It just depends on what type of water I will be running as to what boat I like best. The Rogue is my home river and if I am fishing the top of the river (meaning everything above Graves Creek) with just one passenger the woody gets the nod, but the canyon is aluminum boat territory as far as I am concerned and for good reason as I'm sure you know after running it recently yourself.

Weight wise the wood boat is lighter but not by much. I weighed them both and I cant remember what the difference was, but I was surprised how close they were.

Mike

nice boat, photos and i haven't got to the blog yet but looking forward too it.

keep adding photos...love em

Thanks Greg, just thought somemone would be interested in seeing some pics from the Patagonia. We were invited by Roger Fletcher to join and proudly display these pics of the McKenzie Rapid Robert built from scratch by my son Max and I using his drawings. l´ll post some more pics as time permits.

Well I just can't bear to wait till spring to put the boat together... I will need to improvise and get the hull built... I was thinking of taking a year or better to build the boat, but like Randy said, once you get started you want to keep at it. As I see progress, it just makes me want to move on to the next step!

Yeah I am wondering if I am going to be able to get the epoxy to set up in the garage myself... I would really like to be able to work on the boat construction this winter... but I am hesitant of gluing seams and applying epoxy in the warm then cold of the garage. Planning on getting a couple of good heaters, but concerned that after I turn them off and call it a day the cold will hinder the curing... which leads me to my next question. Why don't I have a fully functional wood shop with 220v plugs, full dust collection sytem, and a bay door to roll the boat in and out of?!?! haha (dreaming again)

Hey Greg thanks for posting all of those build photos... It is interesting to look at the process...

Awfully nice Toyota, too, BTW. FJs are a recent fascination of mine.

Wow, what a beautiful boat. The contrast betwen the cedar and the mahogany is just stunning. I like the wood oars, too. I've rowed a boat equipped with high-tech graphite and plastic counter-balanced oars and theyr'e nice, I guess, but they certainly aren't as aesthetically pleasing.

I finished the boat in June of 05 - 2 days before my daughter was born (nothing like taking it down to the wire). I've been in refinishing mode for the last couple months. Sanding and varnishing aren't nearly as fun the second time around! While I really enjoy making sawdust, nothing seems to be quite as fun as the initial building phase. Just curious, what did you use for the floor mats in the front and rear of your boat?

Hi Greg, thanks for the comment. I assume the pics in your "photos" are of your 16' Tatman? If so, WOW, beautifully done! I used to fish the Deschutes, Metolius, and Columbia (for sturgeon) every year, but not since adding children to my life - you're living in god's country.

Hello Greg,

Thanks for your note. Although I live in Spokane because it is close to the airport (I travel a great deal), my heart is really in Troy, MT, which is on the banks of the Kootenai River in the far NW corner of MT. I have a second home there on about 550 feet of Kootenai River waterfront, with wonderful fishing at my doorstep. It is about a 2 hour drive from Spokane to Troy. I keep the Keith Steele wood boat in the garage in Troy and use it on the Kootenai whenever I can. Fishing during Summer, 2008, was very, very good. This Summer I found time to fish the Kootenai, Yaak, Bull, Thompson, Jocko, Bitterroot, and Lochsa, plus a number of smaller creeks and streams.....Mike

Hi greg, good to hear from you. Sounds like you had a fun trip down the Rogue, I am glad you made it OK. I will have to do that some day. I will go with a guide for sure. I really can't build anymore boats unless I get rid of one my others and I havn't been able to part with any of them yet. Thanks for the compliment.

Well, I do fly fish but what I catch goes back in the river. I built my boat as a fly fishing boat a few years ago. As time went by I started running bigger water. Last year friends and I had a Yampa permit for May 25. I went to work and put a deck and self bailing setup on the boat so It wouldn't swamp so easy.

When we got to the Yampa on our launch day the river was running 24000 and it was out of it's banks. By the time we got to warm springs rapid the flow was down to 17000 but it was still as big as crystal in the Grand Canyon. The deck saved my ass that day. I took 2 waves on that run that would have filled it to the gunwales.

But,,,,,,, it doesn't fish all that well now so I am going to build a few more boats. One for just fly fishing and a new big water boat for my next trip down the Grand Canyon.

Building boats is so enjoyable I am going to sell them as soon as I can so I can keep building more.

You can see more images at my dory builders web site

www.pimpmydory.com

Thanks for the welcome to the group.

Thanks Greg, Not very many wooden driftboats. A few guides have driftboats but they are Clarka Crafts or Hydes. Mostly I fish the upper Penobscot & Kennebec rivers in Maine. This boat handles better than any of those others.

Thasnks, I'll take some pics one of these days.

Thanks for adding a comment, Greg!

I do want to build a boat soon. So far, all I have done is a model. Eventually I would like to build a Briggs style white water dory such as Andy Hutchinson builds.

I mostly run the Arkansas, but the Gunnison is one of my favorite rivers! There are some mighty pretty rainbow trout in that stream!

GB

Greg,

Thanks for the comment on the fish, had a great day. Saw your pics on the gallery page and noticed you had a FJ-40, what a great rig how long have you had it? Also do you build from a kit or plans, trying to decide which one would be better to start with being a first time builder?

Thanks,

Jake