Here is WHY you use good plywood! **UPDATE on pg 6 **

[Nanate]

I'll try to pick back up tomorrow to find out what you mean by heavier exterier grade. Don't have internet at the house & I'm about to leave work. I don't mind spending a little extra up front if it saves trouble for later.

[gstanfield]

What I mean is an exterior grade A/B or A/C plywood instead of the luan (or underlayment). The luan types tend to be thinner and lighter than the "exterior grade" woods. If you can find a source for marine plywood you could probably build it from meranti 6566 for $100 more than cheap home depot lumber and the quality would be much better.

Again, I understand the concept of saving money. When I initially built this FL14 I had to sell stuff to get the money to build it. I had $0 extra laying around. I also see the cost of saving money every time I look at my boat now, but it was either skimp and save or dream about building.

[wej]

You being in Mississippi should be able to find some marine plywood reasonably close, George & I are up the creek when it comes to finding "good" plywood close to our locations.

I will have mine shipped in from Joel next time, I won't even use decent "marine" fir plywood as it has cost me in time & epoxy multiple times.

[gstanfield]

I found out that one of the building supply companies in Casper (nearest actual city, 36 miles away) sells marine plywood in some of their stores. The nice thing is that means they can get it at their Casper store, but it has to be special order. It comes from the same place as their other wood though so there is no extra shipping charges and it usually gets there within a couple of weeks. This is huge news to me because the other option before was driving 500 miles round trip to buy it in Denver or spend several hundred dollars getting it shipped to me.

George

[Nanate]

I'll have to call around today and check on marine grade and exterier grades. I was wanting to go with the lauan at first because I was told it is good for exterier and it feels lighter than other plywood and I would like to keep this boat pretty light. I do a lot of poling over water hyacinth and other top water vegitations and the lighter the better. I didn't even plan on putting a skeg on it to keep the drag down when on vegitations.

[gstanfield]

mine has no skeg, no keel just a flat bottom so it spins faster when using it as a drift boat. I have a pic somewhere of me driftin across gravel bars with the water about 3" deep and the bottom was not scraping This one was in about 5" of water, but it's the one I could find quickest

[Nanate]

Wow that's some clean water! It's probably cold too! Here's the area that I'll be using my boat in the most. I put in at the little boat ramp that you can see on the dirt road on the left. There's lots of stumps and the grass is thick which is why I want it to be as light as I can get it. And I have also read on here that glass adds more weight than a little bit heavier wood. There sure is a lot to think about before building the first boat! Called around for marine ply and one store had it but only in 1/2 and 3/4. Next I'll check prices on exteriers.
Well, I was going to post a picture but don't have a clue how......

[gstanfield]

You have to have the picture hosted somewhere online (the gallery here will work) then right click on it and select "properties" then highlight and copy the URL to the picture's address. Then in your thread click the "Img" tab and paste the URL between the sets of brackets.

If that complicates it too much just e-mail me the picture and I'll post it for you

The water is pretty nice in the fall, but springtime it is violent and dirty from all the snow melt runoff (mud) I built my Fl14 VERY HEAVY with all my additions and use of heavy plywood and extra glass, heavy anchor, 250ft of anchor line, 10ft anchor chain, dual deep cycle batteries, cooler of beer, etc, etc and it still drafts about 3" with just me and about 4-1/2" with two adults in it. I doubt you will have any issues with your boat, nor should you get too concerned over saving 5-10lbs on plywood in my opinion.

Not that it hurts to build it light, but I think if you built it as per plans this boat would sit a half inch above the water when empty

[Nanate]

Maybe this?....

If this works, this is the area I tried to post. Didn't know it would show up on the main galleries page....

[Nanate]

That sounds very good. I didn't realize this boat would be that light and float that high in the water. Especially above the water! I guess I'll look for some good a/b plywood since I can't find the marine. Is the a/b exterier grade pine or what? And by the way, I've heard of stealing threads. I didn't do that did I? We're talking about good woods to build with so thought this was still related.