EASILY CREATE PLANS FOR A WOODEN BOAT
A desire to learn and will to perform makes any arduous task easy. So, with a little determination one can easily create plans for a wooden boat. A standard boat plan is about creating a plan to cater to the needs of any amateur or professional boat builder.
To begin with, you need some basic instruments like a few mechanical pencils, an eraser and heavy-duty cartridge paper. Further, some design implements are also required to draw lines and curves, lik3e a long straight ruler and a T-square. With the help of these instruments and implements you can give shape to your idea of a simple profile of a boat, which is the basic design.
The next step is slightly more complex because in creating plans for a wooden boat, you have to understand ‘LOA’, ‘LWL’, and ‘D’, which are the terms for “length overall”, “length on the waterline” and “depth of the boat at its deepest point” near the centre; respectively. This will help in drawing the overhead view of the wooden boat and providing the required measurements.
After the designs are complete, it is the turn of making the actual boat. You need boat-building plywood of standard dimensions, which are normally in 8ft x 4ft sheets and epoxy to join the sheets. You can adopt the ‘butt joint’ or ‘scarf joint’ method to glue the plywood pieces. The joint can withstand stress more than the plywood sheets, once the epoxy has hardened.
Next, is the process of lofting, which is the drawing of full size portions of the wooden boat on the construction materials taking the dimensions of the plan. The materials are cut as per the dimensions and the process of joining commences by the process known as the technique of ‘stitch and glue’ with copper wire/plastic cable and epoxy. After the boat takes final shape, paint is applied and the boat is ready for use.