1. Steven Todd
Ms. Tillery
British Literature
11 March 2012
Building a Wooden Jon Boat
Have you ever experienced the way a wooden boat rides up a little river. Building
wooden boats have been around forever, to transport people and their cargo and help catch more
fish. Since I love spending so much time on the water, I decided to use some low costing
materials and hardware to build my own boat by hand. This project was successful and fun, yet it
will test your skills with wood work.
Once I decided that I would build a wooden boat for my senior project, I did some
research on wooden boats and how they are made. The main thing was to come up with a good
building plan. I did not choose building a boat because of my future. I am going to a mechanic
college in North Carolina, I was interested in joining a marine college for boats and yachts but
there is a bigger demand in cars in this economic time. When reading about how to build a
wooden boat some articles will tell you what step to do first and how you can add strips of wood
to stiffen the boat. There are so many different types of boat all having different lay out
depending on what you plan on using them for.
When I chose my project facilitator Jim Bauch I chose him because I knew that he could
teach me how to lay fiber glass and give me advice throughout the process of building the boat.
Jim works on cars and also does restoration on older car, planes, and boats. Which means Jim is
well experienced with fiber glass, bondo, painting, and wood work. Within this project Jim was a
lot of help and taught me many things with how to mix up the fiber glass resin and mixing up

2. bondo. Also how to apply them to my jon boat. Another helpful thing was if I was to not have
the tool needed then most likely Jim had one. Except a belt sander. which I bought at Lowes.
When building the boat I went to Lowes and started off with two sheets of 1/4 inch of bc
pine. This type of wood can be used to build boats which is a marine grade wood. On the sheets I
drew out the plans of the sides and floor. Which I then cut the sides and floor out of two sheets of
wood with a table saw. Then I took the side walls and floor and sanded one side on each sheet
with a belt sander to get a smooth equal angle. Where I then joined the two pieces together to
make two 12 foot long walls and one 12 foot 30inch wide floor. For an example a standard sheet
of ply wood is four feet by eight feet. So for the floor I combined a eight foot by three foot piece
to a four foot by three foot to make one solid floor. Which is a 12 foot by three foot. When
combining them I used an adhesive (liquid nail) to hold it together and added an extra piece of
wood for extra support across the joint. While it was drying a cut the bow plate and transom out
of a special 3/4 in ply wood that has to be ordered and is round 70 dollars a sheet. Then I took
the two sides and clamped them together and on one corner every six inches i measured and
drew a line for the shape of the bow. I then cut along that line with a jig saw so each sheet would
have the same curve for the bow. That is when I started to connect the sides to the bow plate and
transom. After the boat was taking shape I added several strips of wood at the front of the boat to
push the sides out called cleats, which really helped it take the shape of a boat. Then I screwed
all the strips on and added the seats in using 3/4 inch bc pine ply wood. I Used a four by eight
foot sheet of wood to draw my seats then cut them out with a table saw. After completing that I
laid the floor starting at the bow, pushing it down and screwing it in place about every foot. I
also screwed them to the cleats and ran the adhesive along the sides and floor. Then trying to
decide what I would add to the bow I flipped it back over and decided that I would add a deck to

3. the front. I took some measurements three inches from the top and every six inches across. I
drew it out on a 1/4 sheet of ply wood then tried to cut it with the table saw since it was 1/4 wood
and I was tired of the jig saw. But I almost lost my finger because trying to cut an non straight
line in a table saw is a bad idea. Once I had it cut out I reinforced the bottom of the deck to hold
some weight. Then the floor where it was attached to the sides, I had to cut the excess floor off
with a jigsaw. It was a little tricky trying not to cut into the sides since I could not see where I
was cutting. After cutting the excess wood of I went around with a belt sander to smoothen all
the corners and any wood that I missed. Shortly after I used a disc cutter and put a sanding disk
on it to smoothen any screws that were not flush with the wood. I then decided I would add
some gussets to the transom to help make it stronger for a motor. So I cut the triangle out and cut
some angle out so they would match the side perfect. Then I showed my project facilitator my
progress and he was satisfied. yet Jim my project facilitator told me to go back and add wooden
rails along the side of the boat and to add support under the seats. After adding the rails and extra
support I went to Jims shop in Woodstock and Jim taught me how to lay fiberglass and then I
fiber glassed the whole outside hull of my boat. The next day I came back and used a random
orbit sander to smooth any high rough spots of fiber glass, which was pretty itchy in a t-shirt and
also added a little extra fiber glass to the corners to take the impact of underwater debris. Then
the following day I then bondoed, which is a filler used on cars to smoothen out dents. But the
whole outside of the hull was bondoed and then sanded with a orbit sander, starting at 80grit
sandpaper which is ruff to 320grit which is smooth. I brought the boat back home where I
finished fiber glassing the entire inside of the boat with just the resin. Also I fiber glassed the
deck in permanently and fiber glassed the gussets. When I stuck the boat in the garage I got in
trouble for stinking the house up because the resin puts out a strong odor. Eventually I took the

4. boat back down to Jim and he taught me how to mix the paint and primer the boat. Once the
primer dried I went back and did some touch ups with bondo and then re primed it. Before I left
the shop I sanded the rails and taped them so they would just be sprayed with a clear coat. Then I
brought the boat back home where I then primed the entire inside and got it ready for paint. I
mixed the paint with a 2-1-1 quart ratio and sprayed it in the back yard. The only mess up was
when the boat feel when I had it standing up to paint the bottom. I had to take a wet rag to wipe
the grass off. Then gave the boat a clear coat. I let the paint dry over night then I took bed liner
and painted the top of the fishing deck and gussets. I then decided to go to Tractor Supply and
buy three black handles for the boat and put two on the back and one on the front.. The day
before I took my boat on the water I added a transom saver and sanded the wooden rails again
because I taped them bad and then painted the rails with a clear coat. Also I added a piece of
wood and sheet of metal because the motor is too big for the boat and so it would not rub into the
wood. When I took the boat out for a test run there was one small hole leaking which I fixed with
fiberglass resin. Other then that the boat ran great. Building a boat was a great project and a lot
of fun. During the past few months I have learned a lot about how a boat is made and how to
build them. This boat took 109.5 hours to build and approximately around 600 dollars just to
build not counting any material I already had. I would enjoy working on boat as a job in life but
I am going to school to be a auto mechanic and boats will always be my hobby whether I am
relaxing, fishing, or building them.