folding boat

[wyomoose]

I am thinking about building a small boat. My dad used to have a friend that built a small row/fishing boat maybe 8 or 10ft long out of what I thought was 2 or 3 sheets of ply-wood. The thing folded up and fit in the back of his old Volvo. Any body have any idea what this might have been and where I might find some plans for it? I know this is kinda sketchy but any help would be appreciated. Thanks
WyoMoose

[gonzo]

Folboat makes them with fiberglass panels. The design should be very similar. I saw a set of plans for one many years ago in a Popular Mechanic.

[Jeff]

Two links:

"Handy Andy" A 10-foot folding boat
Length: 10'-0"
Beam: 42"
Depth: 15" amidships
Weight Complete: 80 lbs
Capacity: 3 Passengers
Construction: '3/8" super-harbord' marine plywood over shape forms
Tipe: flat bottom, canvas bound edges

http://www.svensons.com/boat/?p=RowBoats/HandyAndy


Micro Folding Dinghy
"The Micro Folding Dinghy is based on one of Matt Layden's early folding dinghies; however it incorporates some of Matt's ideas as well as a few of our own to create a cheap and sturdy boat. The Micro Folding Dinghy is best suited to smaller people or for children, but it can be enlarged to fit larger folks by increasing the beam and the freeboard by around 2 inches. The MFD is made up of 3 pieces of 1/4" exterior grade fir plywood- two side pieces and one bottom piece. The ends (bow and stern) of our boat are white vinyl, but canvas may work better. One of the most interesting features of this little boat are the 2" wide cloth hinges made from heavy duty #4 canvas which are reinforced by a series of interlocking finger joints/tabs every 6 inches. At the stern the tabs are elongated to form skegs."

http://www.microcruising.com/ding1.htm

Originally Posted by wyomoose

I am thinking about building a small boat. My dad used to have a friend that built a small row/fishing boat maybe 8 or 10ft long out of what I thought was 2 or 3 sheets of ply-wood. The thing folded up and fit in the back of his old Volvo. Any body have any idea what this might have been and where I might find some plans for it? I know this is kinda sketchy but any help would be appreciated. Thanks
WyoMoose

Wyomoose, there are many designs on the Internet for various styles of simple boats made from 2 or three (or less!) sheets of plywood. Depending on what you want to do with the boat, you can build a simple dory (flat-bottomed) design in a weekend, suitable to carry one or two (at a pinch) adults for a day's fishing on a CALM lake or similar water. If you have just a little more experience or wood-working skill, you can modify these designs to add internal flotation compartments, which will make them safer. I have a couple of links on my own (very new and primitive) site <www.wolfmeister.tk>, and these may lead you to others.

What you are looking for is "one sheet plywood boat" (in quotes, as shown) in a Web search engine like Google, or Altavista, or whatever (they're all pretty good, in my opinion). I recently built a 12 foot canoe-style dory in around 12 hours, real-time, and most of that was waiting for glue to set up! It took two sheets of 8' by 4' quarter-inch ply. I used wbp (wash and boil-proof exterior-grade) ply, not marine ply, and it cost me all up around $100 (in Bahrain, in the Arabian Gulf, where I was stationed at the time).

Good luck. If you get to my site, try leaving a message to let me know how you went, I'd be interested.