The BO-AT Single Sheet Plywood Boat

Step 3 Assembling the Boat

Once all the parts have been cut to size, the assemble quite quickly.  In the video they recommend that you glue and use brads to hold the boat together.  I used screws instead but think the brads would work a bit better as you would not need to pre-drill the holes as I did to keep the screws from splitting the wood.  I only used the screws because I was too lazy to drag out my air compressor!

I began by attaching one side to the bottom first.  After this I attached the stern and here is the order I followed (not sure it matters but this was the way I did it):

1. Left side to Bottom
2. Stern to bottom and Left side
3. Right side to bottom and stern
4. Bow to Bottom and both sides
5. I then used trim (1 x 2) at all the joints to give me something to screw into

For each part attached, I used the Gorilla Glue and then clamped and screwed together.  Having a second set of hands is great for helping to flip the boat over and back several times as you build it.  It also comes in very handy (pun intended) to fetch and open the Beer.

The last items I attached were the 1x3 trim parts on top of the box and stern - these were added as much for looks as for an easy hand hold for carrying.

I also made a change to the seat design that he had used on his boat.  Because my son is about 100 pounds lighter than I, our ballast in the boat needs to be arranged in a much different manner.  He can sit much farther back than I without taking on any water in the stern.  For this reason I used the 1 x 2 boards strung together and laid in the base of the boat on the 1 x 2 rails.  We can slide this front to back without any issue.  I also was not comfortable with how high his seat sat and feared it would create a too-high center of gravity in an already wobbly boat.