Gathering materials

The worse part of any project is picking up the materials, at least it is for me. I'd rather build than shop.

I got the worse of that out of the way for my boat build project. Hifalutin fancy boat builders will look down their noses at my choice of materials. For one thing, it's a plywood boat, not some work of art constructed from rare tropical hardwoods. It's not even marine grade plywood, but regular exterior plywood. The closest supplier of marine grade plywood is about 150 miles away. Even if it was closer, it's just too darn expensive.

I do want the boat to last and be strong enough, so I'm using plenty of good quality epoxy. My experience has been that good epoxy and fiberglass work more than make up for any plywood shortcomings. That's where my money is being spent.

One of the fun things about this build is that the plans are all metric. Living in the land of feet and inches, that's an issue. Sure, I've got all the handy dandy conversion charts and computer programs, but who wants to do a conversion for every measurement? Fortunately, the lumber yard had a tape measure and a metal yardstick that have the metric units also. That will be a time saver.

Anyone who's ever built a boat of any sort knows there's never enough clamps. The lumber yard had a big bin of clamps on sale so I bought ten. Then there's disposable gloves, sanding paper, dust masks, saw blades, screws -all the little odds and ends. That stuff adds up.

The converted ambulance/motor home/materials hauler worked fine. Tables can be removed from the inside, leaving a good long flat area. There was no problem loading up plywood and even 12 foot lumber slide right inside. Materials stayed clean and protected on the drive home. By the time I got home darkness had fallen. No problem, the materials are safe in the van until daylight.

Now that most of the materials have been bought, it's time to do the fun part, actually building the boat.

-Sixbears