We’ll show you how to build a boat using our stitch and glue boat plans!
In the 3rd video of the FRS12 how to build a boat series we cover assembly of the hull using zip ties with the stitch and glue method. This method can be used for other boats and wood working projects.
These boat plans come with full size patterns for you to trace on plywood and cut out.
Before we Stitch and Glue the Boat
We have the pieces for our boat that have already been scarfed and sanded. If they aren’t perfect, don’t worry, we’ll cover them in fiberglass.
We’re going to start at the bottom, at the front. If you lay the pieces flat on a table, you’ll notice an inward bulge. You want to put them tangent to start. After that we’ll line them up and drill holes for the zipties to go through.
To size the drill bit pick one that’s about the same diameter as the width of the ziptie so the ziptie will go straight through the hole without binding up.
How is PVC used in Stitch and Glue Boats?
We also cut small pieces of PVC pipe. As a result, when the zipties go through the hole, the PVC will sit on top to keep the boards aligned. What happens without the PVC is that you’ll put the boards together, work your way down, and one board will slide behind the other, or one will buckle in, or buckle out. We don’t want that to happen. Instead, we want to keep them aligned, so the PVC will hold them in place.
We’ll start in the center, using PVC and a ziptie, and work our way to the front. Once we pull the front together, we’ll go back to the center portion and work our way back.
We finished stitching our keel all the way down to the transom. Then we worked our way down the chines.
How to Stitch and Glue the Boat
The spacing for our holes is about 8″ at the transom, and as we work our way forward into the compound curvature, we’ll go back to 2-3″ spacing. We used 2 or 3 pieces of PVC at the back just like we did at the front to help our wood.
At the end, we’ll grab our front zip tie without drilling any holes in the chine.
We zip tied from the transom up to the front bulkhead. The holes are about 4 inches apart at the front bulkhead, and about three inches at the front.
Don’t zip tie all the way up to the front. We’ll get close and use a zip tie to hold the very front in place without drilling any holes. For the last hole, we’ll grab the bottom and pull it to the side and sandwich the chine, so there’s no need to zip tie it to the chine.
To zip tie the bow together, we’ll use PVC to push our boards apart and at the bottom we won’t need it.