Friday, 24 October 2008

Wooden boats,how to build them?



Click on the main pictures below to enlage them and see full detail.










Its my biased opinion that to buy a kit set to any design, should only be from a company who actually has personal experiance in building such a kit,maybe not that actual boat but as long as its to the same system,the seller can easily supply building information as the customer proceeds with the build,for most of our boats,we have a large picture file on most steps of constuction too,it all helps the builder,a picture is worth a 1000 words as they say?

George Buehler does some intresting design work,said to be based on the USA West Coast fishing boats,whatever the design started as,its sure a massive piece of wooden boat structure,in my case I built a 'Diesel Duck 38',it just grew and grew,it was on steriods was my feeling at one time! The design called for a wooden hull,traditionally laid up keel,traditional planking but instead of then caulking the seam lines,we then clad it in two layers of 9mm (3/8") plywoods and of course the entire assembly was done with our Shell Chemicals epoxy system.

The frame patterns to this design are still in our store,we can create a frame kit set with very little difficulty,the keel and stem were layed out on the plys we skinned the boat with later,so that needs re lofting,not a bother of course,this is a belts and braces do it yourself build,it will of course make a very inexpensive commercial fishing boat as well,with the high cost to polyester resins now,wood/epoxy boats make even more sense than ever.

note: Shell Chemicals epoxies are now sold under the name Resolution Chemicals,the product quality remains as high as ever.

No comments:

Post a Comment