Originally Posted by
MATT HASSMER
I'm thinking it would be easier to start from scratch that to repair something already built. Thoughts?
I post a lot of pictures to provide an idea of what you have to buy besides wood, and what you'll have to make in anything more complicated than a bare bones canoe or skiff. Powerboats use pretty much the same quantity of expensive goodies, they are just different goodies like motors, tanks, rails, windshields and controls.
It's amazing how much money building from scratch adds up to. I stopped counting finishing out this simple dory, made all the wood and much of the metal fitments myself and I bought the remaining bronze hardware used on eBay.
You can't buy retail wood and West Marine fitments and can't come out much ahead of a storebought boat, let alone restoring an older boat in middling condition. It's often worth a week's vacation time and long road trip to find the right one. Surveying an open boat doesn't require an special expertise. Moisture meters can find rot almost as well as ice picks.
I'd much rather build from scratch than restore, but if you need a boat for the family to use in the near term, finding the right oldie is cheapest and most efficient in manhours by far. Then once you have a boat to use, you can take more time and care building your next one from scratch.
I'd also like to wean you from the idea of plywood, as using the real thing is more fun. But that depends on whether you live in an area with local sawmills and the right trees.
Last edited by Bob Smalser; 04-10-2008 at 12:24 PM.
““Perhaps then, you will say, ‘But where can one have a boat like that built today?’ And I will tell you that there are still some honest men who can sharpen a saw, plane, or adze...men (who) live and work in out of the way places, but that is lucky, for they can acquire materials for one third of city prices. Best, some of these gentlemen’s boatshops are in places where nothing but the occasional honk of a wild goose will distract them from their work.” -- L Francis Herreshoff