Thread: Duck Punt

I'd been toying with the idea on making a flat bottomed boat for game bird hunting at the big duck pond. This is a largish area and often quite shallow or large tracts of fairly flat mud so I thought it would be an ideal solution being able to be used as basic boat, a gear sled and maybe even as a make do layout blind with the addition of a cover. The big aim it to make something lighter and easier to manhandle than the old 3m ali dinghy.

A quick look around the garage I discovered some downgrade 6mm ply that has been there 15 odd years and some 45mm x 45mm lengths of pine clears. Right, set for materials for my first rough draft/proof of concept model. The first job was to rip a couple of 4m lengths of the clears down to 20mm x 20mm and 45mm x 20mm (after cleaning up with the planer). Now being a bit lazy I decided I couldn't be bothered dragging one of the saw benches out of the garage so I just used the skilsaw.

Next job was to roughly cut out the bottom, sides and ends from the sheet op ply. It was a bit bowed after the years leaning up against the wall, but near enough. Basically the sides 300mm deep with a 45 at the front, the bottom is 1900 x 600, the front and back are 700 wide at the top for a little more stability and water exclusion, basically I figured that the angle and the bead I'd run around the top might flick the water away rather than in the thing. Any extra trimming I figured I could do as I go.



I used some gorilla glue (expanding polyurethane foam glue activated by water) and ran some of the 20 x 20 along the sides and back of the bottom with a 6mm gap for the ply and used some little flat heads to keep everything in place. Then slapped on the back, then the sides, then the front with the 20mm x 20mm along all the joins. Then finished off with a bit of the 20mm x 20mm around the top with the 45mm x 20mm for the front top and bottom. Then some of the 20mm x 20mm on the bottom for rubbing strips.

[img]http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/a...1e34c.jpg/img]





Got my hands on some free paint thanks to mudgripz




Just need to add a couple of fittings to attach rope to and it will be ready to see if it floats. You can see the bow of the timber in the sides, not helped by me knocking the nails in a bit far. Shouldn't have done that part in the night using the headlamp. Doh! Total cost, excluding the timber already on hand, about $5. If buying the timber about $40-$45 with marine ply or exterior ply.