Just Glued! - Aaron RankinStitch and Glue Boat Building is a fun and easy way to make your own boat! Learn the basic ideas behind stitch and glue construction. Stitch and glue boat construction is an efficient and easy way to get started in the world of boat building. While even the simplest canoe can take weeks to build, many stitch and glue boats can be built in a weekend. I've constructed a couple of them now, and I would like to relate the basics of what I've learned.
First off, what is "Stitch and Glue Construction"? Well, it's a way of making a boat hull, by taking pieces of plywood and "stitching" them together with copper wire pieces, or zip ties, or anything else you can use to hold them edge to edge, and then "gluing" the resulting hull shape together with fiberglass strips and resin. The result is a contiguous hull that is very light and ridgid
OSBs, or One Sheet Boats, are boats made from one sheet of plywood and little else. I've included some pictures of a one-sheet Pirogue style canoe I made. The hull is just three pieces of plywood stitched together with cord, and fiber glassed over. The gunwales are cedar 1x2s, and were kerfed where they had to bend the most. This boat is only good for about 125 pounds of load, but it provides a good outline of construction technique and allows for a lot of possibilities.
Once I cut out the three basic pieces of the boat, I drilled ¼" holes every four to six inches down the edges to be joined together. I attached the pieces by running a cord through two matching holes on the different pieces, and tying a knot. Once all the holes where tied together, I started lying in strips of fiber glass on the inside of the hull. Give the inside fiber glass overnight to dry. The next day, I rough sanded the outside of the hull, cut any cords that were in the way, and fiber glassed the outside of the hull. I just used strips of fiberglass woven mat on the joints, but one could choose to cover the entire hull. Covering the entire hull with fiber glass and resin increases the overall weight of the boat.
After the hull had been allowed to dry for another day, I added the gunwales and seat. These took one more day to dry before I could start painting. All told this boat took me four days to make.
One of the greatest benefits of making boats with the stitch and glue method is the lack of need for exactness in making the hull. The basic shapes of the hull pieces can be worked out on paper, and drawn on the plywood sheets. I used 1/8" birch plywood, which seems very thin but provides plenty of strength. One could choose to use 1/4" plywood for a much more substantial construction. Any gaps between the edges of the pieces of plywood are filled in by the fiberglass, and contribute to the overall solidity of the form. Boat hull shapes are then limited only by your imagination, but here are some sources of inspiration.
Joel Mill. "Stitch-And-Glue Construction" published in Boatbuilder.org, accessed 5/26/11Gavin Atkin. "Free Designs" published on Clara.net accessed 5/26/11Copyright Aaron Rankin. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.
Just Glued! - Aaron Rankin 
Gunwales and seat attatched. - Aaron Rankin 
Ready to paddle. - Aaron Rankin $(function() {$(".imageCarousel").jCarouselLite({btnNext: ".next",btnPrev: ".prev",visible: 3});});
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