folder Beavertail
folder Honky-Dory
folder Buffalo-Boat
folder Dayak
folder Whale Rider
folder Drift-boat-info
folder Flies Flures Lures
folder Oar locks and Anchor systems
What-you-get
index
Stitch-and-Glue
MRB Blog
2021-06-10-0707
Aluminum is plywood
Kirk built this boat with the MRBoats Honky Dory plans--subsituting aluminum sheeting for plywood. Cool stuff. I need to buy a welder. Kirk used a mig welder.2021-05-10-1403
Big Bugs -- are almost here
2021-05-08-1306
Latches
Locker lids that leak are the work of satan.
A raised lip in the deck made from Trex decking material matched with a loosely fitting lid that has an EVA closed-cell foam gasket inside works nicely. If and only if the latch pulls DOWN on the lid as it latches. To do that you can make slanted latch-mounting blocks with Miratec Fascia board and/or more Trex decking material. Wood swells with moisture over time. No matter what. Miratec and Trex never swell. No matter what.
In this photo a ten year old Dayak is in the middle of a bit of maintenance. Locker lids now. Body work and paint job next.
2021-04-22-1355
Bulkheads Roughed In
I haven't been in the shop much last two weeks. I finally got the bulkheads roughed in.
Nothing gets glued in this experimental boat. It all goes together with caulk and Torx screws so anything and everything can be replaced or remodelled. At any time.
Bulkheads help hold up the deck and in case of a puncture they limit water intrusion to one section of the boat only, so you can still row slowly home for repairs if you cave in the front end of the boat. Bulkheads aren't structural. Not mine anyway. So I'm using 3/8" rough sawn siding plywood--largely because it's light and because I had some.
The bulkheads will caulk and screw to wooden cleats on the inside sides, and to strips of Miratec fascia board glued to the (fiberglass) inside bottom. Miratec doesn't soak up moisture so it works well for non-structural cleats--that do get glued to the fiberglass boattom shoe. Older (move down)
Blog Start
Do it your self wood fiberglass drift boat and white water dory plans
DIY Wood and Fiberglass Drift Boat Plans -- drift boat building -- online drift boat blueprints
The Honky Dory -- a wide white water dory
Beavertail: all around do anything boat well-suited to Fly Fishing, now as 15' or 17' feet
Buffalo Boat -- the smallest pickup truck boat that will hold three in the boat
Montana Riverboats Buffalo Boat
The buffalo is a standard 15' 48" wide driftboat chopped off at both ends. Unlike a Rapid Robert, which is pointed at one end, the Buffalo Boat is chopped off square at both ends. The idea was to build a short, lightweight pickup truck boat built from the fat business-only portions (the middle) of a standard boat. The Buffalo Boat is now going on 25 years old and still going strong. This one is sitting on a trailer, but the Buffalo Boat does fit nicely in the back of any standard size pickup. If you place it on top of a spare tire and drop the tailgate, it will even fit in the back of a small pickup. The boat pictured here is a high-sided, fully-rockered Buffalo Boat. You can challenge surprisingly difficult water with this boat. Many users, however, do choose to reduce the rocker by up to 3", and to cut the height of the side panels down by as much as 4" or so, in order to make a less wind-resistent skiff, suitable for fly fishing in non-white-water conditions.MRB Dayak -- as fun as white water gets
I love this little boat. Building plans and step-by-step instructions are not finished and perhaps never will be. The diagrams and dimensions are finished however. Experienced boat builders can plunge right in. Right now. Beginners should know there will be some problem-solving along the way. The important information is all there. But the step-by-step instructions are not. I'm 69 in 2017 and I've got other things to work on before I'm ...... So maybe it's best to think of this as a freeby add-on to the completed plan sets already available. This little boat sure is fun to row. I can do anything with it. Even head back upstream at times. You can hold it in fast water and turn on a dime. And it sure is stable, even in very big water. It's a great little white water boat, although I did flip in once, after dropping into an 8' foot hole sideways, like a fool, because I was trying to ferry away from a wave train and didn't see it coming.
DIY Stitch and Glue Drift Boat Building. Digital blueprints, online plans images diagrams and step by step instructions
One-off Wood/Fiberglass and All Fiberglass Construction
Purchase a $30 dollar plans access password
- Dimensions and instructions for five different boats
- How to hull
- How to design and build your own hull from scratch
- How build a stitch and glue boat from someone else's framed-boat blueprints