HINA: We Built a Live-on Boat for $300
(Page 2 of 4)
January/February 1976
By Bill Hyslop
Now, here's how we built our ship. The drawings are kinda funky, but if you've been waiting to put a boat together, they're enough to get you started.
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The dory is formed from four panels of wood: two sides, a bottom and a transom. Once assembled, they form a rigid structure which needs little framing.
Each side is fabricated from a 4x10-foot section of 1/2-inch plywood sawn in half lengthwise and butt-jointed together end to end (see Figure 2). Four-by-eight-foot pieces will work as well, but require an extra butt joint.
To loft the curved bottom line, lay out one side on a flat surface. Drive in nails at points A, B and C (Fig. 3). Then bend a long, straight-grained, thin piece of wood around these nails and draw the bottom line as shown. Once the line is marked, cut out one side and use it as a pattern for the other.
After cutting out the sides, butt-join them together using flathead bolts and glue. (We like Weldwood Recorcinal resin. It's expensive, but very good. Follow directions.) Don't skimp on either, because the strength of this joint is crucial to the boat's design.
It must accept all the strain of slapping over waves and plowing into surf. In fact, the joining plate shown in the diagram (Fig. 4) probably represents the inside limit on size. You could easily extend yours to reach all the way between the two nearest ribs. The bigger the plate, the firmer the joint. Next, fasten a beveled 1x2 chine along the inside bottom of each side. (Remember, you'll have a "right" and a "left"!) Each chine is beveled so the sides will slope up and outward from the floor at a "flair angle." Then, 1x1 ribs can be joined to the chines as shown. The transom is also pictured here, but should not yet be fixed in place.
Now attach the bowstem to one side as pictured (Fig. 5). The stem is a 40-inch-long 2x3 that is beveled on both sides at 25°. This diagram shows a cutaway view, looking down on the plywood frame at the bow.
In order to shape the hull, you'll need a center frame around which you can bend the sides (Fig. 6). This frame should be 48 inches wide at the top, including the thicknesses of the two sideboards. At the lower end of the guide, fix a substantially longer piece of wood. This will be used to maintain the angle of flair during construction. C-clamps are used all around: on the top for firm clamping action and on the bottom to permit easy adjustment of flair as the hull is trued.
Bending the sides together is a little like stringing two 20-foot longbows at once (Fig. 7). It helps to soak the plywood and keep it wet while it's being curved. Luckily, when Hina was at this stage, we got four days of steady rain.
