Drift boat build

Welding in the floor supports. My left foot is standing between two of them. this will support the center of the floor. I welded similar "L" bracket to the boat sides to support the floor edge.

 

I didn't feel like cutting a brand, new sheet of aluminum for the floor, so I seemed some scraps. The floor is getting some sort of coating, so a seem hurts nothing.

 

Shot of the seamed floor and the floor supports can be seen as well.

 

I closed off the section below the foot shelf. I figured that was no man's land. Anything that fell in there would never be seen again or could really stink.

 

I am impressed, great job.

 

Borrowed a buddies fishing boat trailer. Put the boat in for its water test. I couldn't take the boat out. I had no oars yet. No water was present after sitting for 15 minutes. I was happy.

 

Sits nice in the water

 

Started on building a trailer. This was a mistake. I found out after I built the trailer, that the material was not strong enough. The aluminum trailer has been abandoned.

I figured commenting on my mistakes is just as noteworthy as the rest of the build. I learned that sometimes a person needs to stick with what they know. I know iron trailers very well. I've built over 300, so I know my way around steel. I should have stuck with steel trailer construction.

 

I needed some oars. I was not in love with spending $300 each for new...and those are the cheap ones.

I figured I could make my own until figured out if I was going to buy ready made units. These have $45 involved.

 

I needed a base for the front seat. Most drift boat bases are built in. I decided to go a different route.

Using a Ozark Trail cooler fit the bill very well. they are very sturdy and a great price. Walmart was nice enough to let me stand on one and jump up and down on it right in the store. After learning how strong it was, I bought it.

I placed it in the boat and set my swivel boat seat on the cooler. I didn't like the height. It needed to be 3" shorter. I solved this by insetting the cooler into the floor.

 

Slight distraction:

I came across these squares/jigs on youtube. I wanted to try them out, but wasn't going to pay the money. I decided to make my own. They work awesome for guys like me. They really help with fabricating small parts that need to be fairly square.

 

Here is a shot of the front seat/cooler. I figured there would always be a cooler in the boat and I needed a base. Why not combine them. In addition, I have no issue drilling holes in the top of a cheap, Walmart cooler to bolt the seat too. I don't know if I could do that with a $300 Yeti version?

 

Very nice build!!!
Looks like a Grand Canyon dory, very stable in big water and one of the most manuverable small crafts.

 

Fabbing up the oar lock supports. I bolted the Delryn (fancy plastic) between the gunnel and the rub rail. I used stainless steel carrage bolts. The pic of the hammer is me seating the square shank of the bolt into the gunnel.

 

The delryn drills amazingly nice! Because you never really know the balance of the boat and passengers, you need a way to trim the boat. This is accomplished by having adjustable oarlock holes.

I can change the center of gravity by almost 12".

Side note. That 5/8" drill bit cost me $18 dollars. I finished up drilling the holes and promptly found my 5/8" bit that I knew I had! That's a case of beer down the drain!

 

At this time I got tired of the boat taking up space in the shop. I decided to build a STEEL trailer. Here I using my new fabrication squares to build tail light brac kets for the trailer.

 

I don't know why that last post had the rear of the trailer cropped. This is what the complete pic looks like.

 

Picked up these plastic fenders off of Amazon. they should be pretty nice for preventing scratches to the boat during loading and unloading.

 

Another shot of the boat and trailer.