Homemade plywood boats

[markh28]

Has anyone ever made one of these home made plywood boats, say like a Jon Boat of some sort? I have a perfectly good 12' aluminum boat, a 14' fishing boat, and access to a larger boat that can go out on the lakes. But curiosity is getting the best of me and Im a thinking about building one of these.

http://www.duckworksbbs.com/plans/jim/jonsboat/index.htm

I am wondering if anyone has any insight to building one. What kind of waves can these things take?

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Homemade plywood boats

my dad built one similar when i was a kid, we used it for 20 years. it was a great lake boat, and small river. i don't ever remember getting wet in it. it had a 1955 15 hp rude, later we use to water ski with it.

 

[Wee Hooker]

Re: Homemade plywood boats

IMHO, small boat building is the most fun you can have with your clothes on!. It's very addicting too. Never built one like that design but I've built over a 1/2 dozen small craft includign 3 from ply wood. The only downsides to building your own is that : a) resale of a wood boat sucks. b) there is maintenance involved when your done. Not much can be done about the resale but maintenance can be reduced by using modern materials like west epoxy /fiberglass to coat and protect .

FWIW, you might also check designes by Ken Swan and Harold "dynamite" Payson. Both specialize in easy to build sheet plywood designs.
Have fun with it!

 

[CATransplant]

Re: Homemade plywood boats

I needed a boat in the worst way about 35 years ago. No money, though, really. So I built one to use on the back bay near where I lived. It took me one day to build and paint it.

A couple of 12' 2x10s and a sheet of 1/4" ACX plywood, a tube of silicone caulk, a bunch of brass screws and some 1x1 furring strips, along with some miscellaneous paint and some oarlocks that came with a pair of oars I bought at a garage sale.

I cut an 8' length of the 1X1, screwed it to 2/3 of one side of one of the 2x10s. Then I pulled the other end into a nice curve for the rest of the distance and marked the curve. Cut the 2x10 off where the 1x1 ended.

Next, I cut the other 2x10 the same length and clamped the two together and cut them both to the curved line with a borrowed reciprocating saw.

I cut a piece of the leftover 2x10 48" long and cut a 2x4 the same length. I screwed this box together, after slathering the joints with silicone caulk and checking for squareness.

Next, I screwed 1x1 strips 1/4" inside the bottom edge of everything...following the curve, of course.

More silicone slathered on with the thing turned upside down. Then, I laid the plywood sheet in, starting at the stern and started driving screws every 4". The silicone was squeezing out everywhere.

I wiped off the excess and flipped the thing, then put a couple of seats in, made of 1x10 boards with a center brace. Added some 1x1 ribs to the deck, plus a couple of triangular corner braces at the back and a short deck across the front.

Then, I slathered the whole thing with lots and lots of blue oil-based house paint. The next day I added the oarlocks and launched the thing.

I used that junky boat for three years and it never leaked a single drop. It was heavy, but I used it and used it and used it. I even added a motor mount made of a 2x12 screwed to the transom and ran it with a 1936 Johnson outboard.

The boat even ended up in an article in Western Outdoors about bowfishing for sharks:

http://www.osomin.com/BowfishingSharks.htm

Fun times. It finally ended up as a sandbox in a neighbor's yard.

 

[BobJohnson60]

Re: Homemade plywood boats

Has anyone ever made one of these home made plywood boats, say like a Jon Boat of some sort? I have a perfectly good 12' aluminum boat, a 14' fishing boat, and access to a larger boat that can go out on the lakes. But curiosity is getting the best of me and Im a thinking about building one of these.

http://www.duckworksbbs.com/plans/jim/jonsboat/index.htm

I am wondering if anyone has any insight to building one. What kind of waves can these things take?

I started building this about a week ago. Only, I'm using some old drawings I found free online from Vintage Projects. I'm a little frustrated that the plans are incomplete or, at best, hard to understand. I purchased the plans you are referring to here about two years ago, but don't have the funds to build it now.
I hope to get someone to coach me through these old plans because I'm learning the hard way of what's missing in the instructions. I'll let you know what happens.