How to Build Glued Lapstrake Wooden Boats

The book takes your through the process from building the mold to building the boat. It also gives instructions for adapting the mold to boats of different sizes and designs

This is a great book for any boatbuilder, especially the home builder like I am. I have built 3 lapstrake boats, 2 hard chine boats and 1 cedar strip and I like glued lapstrake the best. John's book has a great amount of detail. I wish I had this book years ago. I really like his method of planking without clamps. He screws down battens instead. The building frame and mold set up allow you to get underneath to scrape excess epoxy before it cures. He focuses on minimizing sanding after the planking is all done. Sanding can easily take as long as building if you do a sloppy job. Many shopmade jigs and neat ideas are shown like such as: angle gauge, gain-o-matic, circular saw batten guide when ripping strakes, and many others. I was very interested in the section on finishing. I saw one of John's boats in person at a Mystic seaport small craft event and I thought for sure the finish was sprayed. It was not. It was beautiful. John's craftsmanship is first rate and probably the best I have seen in glued lapstrake boats. His attention to detail carries over into his writing. Ruth Ann Hill deserves a lot of credit too for the high quality boats and this book. Not many people can do both building and writing well, but they pull it off. I hope he comes out with more boat plans in the future.

i am using this book to help me build my first boat.

The book does live up to its expectations, although I would have preferred color photos and/or illustrations. At times, I found it difficult to fathom just what the authors were referring to from the captions or text accompanying certain photos. Otherwise, I couldn't imagine a better treatise on the subject. It takes the mystery out of the process and presents a very clever alternative to the traditional strong back. In fact, since my son and I are building the same boat from a different designer, one in Florida and one in California, I'm ordering a second copy for myself and giving him my already annotated copy.

Fantastic. The information in this book is what gave me the confidence to begin my first boat build. When I first read through it, some sections just did not make any sense to me; but as I'm getting into the building process, and re-reading pertinent sections of the book, those same sections are now proving to be very helpful. Boat building is somewhat complicated both in term of the methods and the nomenclature used, but when you get your head into it, things become clearer.I particularly liked the chapter on useful techniques. I'd read the book a year ago, and found myself using many of the tricks and techniques for other woodworking projects. I do wish that some of the images had a little more contrast, but overall this has been a very helpful book.

Some say" God is in the details" and others say "the devil is in the details". Boatbuilders often may find both statements to be true, but with this book in hand ,the chances are going to be much better that the former is the case in your boat building experience..The authors' voluminous attention to detail will be extremely helpfull to many boat builders,with many diagrams, photos , hints, jigs and seasoned observations that will smooth the way to your next succesfull launch. All this and an interesting read, its a bargain and one of the best boat building books I have used.I don't know the authors personally but I'm glad they took the time effort to distill their experience into this great book. Thanks, E.

This is a really good book for the newcomer to boat building. The authors are very through in the technique for building wooden boats. They do an excellent job. They are professional builders so they have the best of tools. Unfortunately, the beginning wooden boat builder may not have all of these tools available. I believe that for the creative person, if they spent some time, they can find ways to build a boat with a lot fewer tools.

I own this book. It is exhaustively detailed, with hundreds, perhaps a thousand or more, of details and tips and tricks and warnings gleaned from a life time of cutting wood to shape and fastening it to create useful artifacts. If you build anything, especially of wood, especially boats, this book will pay for itself many times over. I collect how-to books. This book is in the top 1% in terms of value. A tour de force.Incidentally and completely irrelevantly, the author is a dead ringer for the character Ned Flanders on _The Simpsons_ television show.

This is a lovely book to read from cover to cover, or to dip into, or to just dream away an afternoon. Great building tips and techniques.

excellent detail, great condition, superb

Well written book. Clearly about their own experiences and practice and the way they do it, and why. Rather than an encyclopaedic, and confusing, record of many different ways you can do it.Even the opening chapters about boat/project selection has been great & made me rethink things before I have made a single cut.

Very well written and comprehensive. Well worth what I paid. Thank you.

This book gives a very complete description of how to loft, trace, cut & build a ply lapstrake boat.Even a well versed boat builder would find this book to be of significant assistance.Congrats to the writer and his assistant. A good job.