Wooden Boat People
By McKenzieDriftBoat.com
An Introduction
I’m going to start by saying Hello to everyone. My name is David Brown, I’ve lived in Seattle most of my life and to date have never owned a boat. This last summer’s Perch fishing gave me the bug though. And since our families budge does not allow for me to drop $1000 + on the kind of boat I like, and since I’m rather handy with the few tools I have, I started doing research on “How to build a rowboat”. Two months later you are getting my backstory.
So the boats that I seem to like are the low sided Prams, with natural wood tone finish. I’ve done a fair bit of woodworking before and I’ve worked with stains but never any epoxy or fiberglass.
I really like the idea of stich and glue with dowel and glue fasteners. I’ve used dowel and glue for several chairs and a desk that I built, and I love the results. Not sure how well it would do for a structure that’s constantly being flexed the way a boat is.
With all that said, I’ll probably start by building a simply Jon boat out of cheap Home Depot plywood first. Kind of a way to get my feet wet and get me out on the lake for some winter bass fishing.
I should also make mention of my Wife. She grew up in NE Thailand and is terrified of any open water that’s deeper than a rice patty. For good reason as well. Many very dangerous things live in those waters. So, for her, the idea that I’m going to build a boat and then go out on a lake that is 250 feet deep in some areas is proof of my insanity. This boat will have to be built as a black operation.
Wish me luck.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Rick Newman on
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Good luck. Maybe you can disguise it as a garden planter!
Rick Newman
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Permalink Reply by Lawrence E. Long on
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David: Contact the H.H. Payson Co. in Spruce Head Maine. Payson died in 2011 but his relatives still sell plans. I built his "Fisherman's Skiff" about 14 years ago. We still use it all summer long to row out to the 20 ft centerconsole on a mooring. It was made from construction grade spruce/ DF plywood. It is easy to row and will take a 2-3hp outboard. Overall length is about 11-12ft. Have had 3 people in it but only for short trips in flat water.
As to water depth- if its over your head who cares if it's 250 ft or 2500ft
Payson has a website. His number is 207 594 7587
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@ Rick N. My wife has been asking me to make her a greenhouse, and I’m going to need a dry dock to build the boat because my garage has been taken over by my stepson. So I might just put the “Greenhouse” on the side of the house that has no windows….. There are a few other nuances to this operation but I’ll put those in another post when I start the build.
@ Lawrence L. Thanks for the tip. Do you have any pictures of the boat. H. H. Payson and Co. don’t have an image of the boat posted.
My wife is more concerned with what is “in” water rather than how deep it is. Deep water can hide very big dangerous things.
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David: No Pictures- don't know how to post them if I had one.
Your wife is right about big scary things in the water. This summer at the cottage- its an island at high tide - helicopers started buzzing up and down the beach about a mile from the house. They were tracking a great white shark about 15 ft long. The next day 2 young blondes were out in I man kayacks paddling amoung seals taking pictures of them.- Guess what. A great white nailed one of the kayacks- tipped both of them over and the girls were in the water for about 30 minutes. A guy on shore saw the whole thing and called911. The harbourmaster got there and pulled them out. The bite marks on the kayack verified it was a great white about 15 ft long. Those girls were scared $hitless even after getting intervieved on TV.
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Permalink Reply by Mark Stuberr on
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David,
For your epoxy know how grab this book, http://www.ptwatercraft.com/ptwatercraft/E-Books.html. You can down load it or buy the hard copy.
Good luck,
Have fun.
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Permalink Reply by Phillip Westendorf on
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David,
Everything you need to know about epoxy and glassing right here.
http://www.westsystem.com/ss/use-guides/
Dorf
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@ Mark & Dorf:
Wow: you guys must be reading my mind. I was up on the web looking over different posts, blogs, articles and YouTube video’s on the subject until about 3 am last night.
Some helpful stuff up there. Some scary stuff too. Saw one guy build a Frankenstein’s monster. Almost made me want to give up. A layer of tape on the joints, two layers of glass all over, and I lost count after 9 layers of epoxy with each layer fully dried and sanded. I was horrified with the look of the boat before he painted it and you could still see the overlapping layers of glass where he folded them over and painted over them.
I really do not want my first boat to look that bad. If it does, I promise to set it ablaze and push it out into the lake with a salute of apology to both the boat and to my fellow boat builders.
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You can have both, a beefy layup and fair lines. Getting good at fill coats takes little practice. Also remember that all those layers of glass add weight (momentum into those rocks). Its all a trade off.
I would take a frankin-boat over a varnished god anytime, build, break, fix.
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Permalink Reply by chris towles on
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Ehh...i have to disagree. Theres an old saying "its a boat, not a piano". Mabye you are building an art piece that will live in the garage. Many people do. However, if you plan to take that boat out on the river with any regularity its gonna get beat, banged, scratched, dented, you name it. Cover with sand, fish slime, . Point is, glass adds structure. Say what you want about frankenboat. Sounds burly and id trust it up against a rock with that layup. Im building a frankenboat myself. Ill do my best to fair it all out and make it look nice before paint, but im not gonna go thru hours of sanding and grinding the fiberglass i just put on for whats essentially cosmetics. Ill let the river and the trailer do that....
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Ok, I'll take that on the nose. putting someone else's hard work down isn't very nice and everyone has their personal preference. Next time, I'll think before I take my foot out of my mouth.
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Permalink Reply by Josh Case on
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That's been my line of thought mostly on my Briggs build. Sure, I can see some of the glass underneath the epoxy, fairing and paint, but my build up will hopefully prevent me from sinking the sucker on my first Grand trip.
I made it beefy, since I'm likely the only one who will ever notice the imperfections...
-Josh
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Permalink Reply by Kurt Selisch on
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Well, I am hesitant to jump into the fray here, but what the heck. Boat builders I think are like horse people, ask 10 different people a question and you get 10 different answers and opinions. Chalk me up on the varnished boat side. There are definitely different reason to build a boat how you wish. Obviously Grand Canyon and big white water boats are going to take a lot of stress. However swift water fishing boats are not, so why not let the beauty of the wood show? David, build your boat, how you want it to look..this is an awesome site....have fun.....build a boat!
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