How to Build a Wooden Boat [Hardcover]

David C. McIntosh (Author), Samuel F. Manning (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1988

Here is everything you need to know to construct a carvel planked cruising boat with no more than a set of plans, a pile of lumber, and determination.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David C. "Bud" McIntosh was a designer, builder, and sailor of large and small wooden cruising boats for more than 50 years, and wrote about it for over 10 of those years. He made his home on New Hampshire's Piscataqua River, where he was teacher and friend to both amateur and professional boatbuilders.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 255 pages
• Publisher: Wooden Boat Publications; 1st edition (March 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0937822108
• ISBN-13: 978-0937822104
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #418,978 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Strongly (and provisionally) recommended, February 4, 2001

By 

"_j_p_w_" (New Orleans, LA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Build a Wooden Boat (Hardcover)

This book may well be the best book around for understanding wooden boatbuilding. However, there several caveats to this statement:

1) It is an enormously technical book. This is not light reading. The first chapter is the best explanation I have ever read of the lofting process. He makes it so very understandable and easy for the novice. However the rest of the book is dry and technical.

2) The dry and technical I speak of is worth the read for an understanding of boat construction. However, it uses McIntosh's "Merrywing" boat as a model. Every aspect of the book relates a detailed description of methods and tools he used on that particular boat, though he does generalize a bit in places. This requires the reader to make some level of abstraction to apply the information--well worth the effort, in my opinion.

3) "Merrywing" is a boat that McIntosh designed and built with great difficulty. It was not a remarkable boat, except that its construction was so difficult, that in describing the same to readers, he feels that he covers any conceivable problem or issue a wooden boatbuilder is likely to encounter.

4) The picture on the cover is *NOT* "Merrywing." This is an editorial mistake, according to McIntosh's son.

5) You will fall in love with "Merrywing" while reading the book. BUT IT IS AN ILLUSION. The plans are not available, and McIntosh's son will not release or sell them to the public. "Merrywing" is a teaching vessel in many ways. And that is all that it is.

BOTTOM LINE: This should not be your first or your only book on wooden boatbuilding. However, once you are sure you will build in wood, or are comfortable doing so, it is an informative read, and a tremendous reference.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best of Its Kind, November 30, 2002

By 

Hitoshi Noguchi (Oita, Japan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Build a Wooden Boat (Hardcover)

First written as a series of articles for the Wooden Boat magazine, this is a standard textbook for those who want to embark on the grand pastime of wooden boatbuilding. "Boatbuilding" by Howard Chapelle is, of course, the all time classic in this arena, but the pre-WWII tome does not have modern powertools in mind and the maritime language is a cypher to the modern reader. McIntosh, by comparison, uses easily understood expressions and jargon commonly found in any maritime dictionary. But if you are really about to build a boat, DO NOT let any one book be your guide. Buy as extensive a collection of books as you can get your hands on. Books are cheap, and reading them much less of a labor, than the money you will poor into your dream boat in the garage, and the back-breaking man-hours you will put in.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Build it Bud's Way!!, March 25, 2003

By 

Jim Tolpin (Port Townsend, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Build a Wooden Boat (Hardcover)

The day I first met the late New England boat builder Bud McIntosh he was down in the hold of a schooner's hull setting keel bolts--and singing Homer's Iliad in ancient Greek. He stopped when he saw me peaking through a gap in the planks (probably amused by my mouth hanging open in wonder and awe) and asked: "You like boats?" Well I did, and I was there to ask him a question about planking a skiff I was building for my family.

Bud not only answered that question, but he answered many more boat and woodworking-related questions over the ensuing years. When I began to combine writing with my woodworking, Bud gave me the most valuable and fundamental piece of advice I needed to hear: "Write what you know--and if you enjoy doing what you know, people will enjoy reading what you have to say about it."

He should know, because that is exactly what he did in his own book. Not only does How to Build a Wooden Boat offer us one of the clearest explanations of building a traditional wooden boat ever presented, it does so in a way filled with humor and lively anecdotes. (Don't miss the one about what happened when a bunch of tipsy boatbuilders volunteered to build their late buddy's coffin). Though I never went on to build boats of this scale myself, I continue to consult Bud's book whenever I want a definitive answer on how to lay out curved components, or design joints to shed water, or find an answer to any number of questions where the technology of traditional wooden boats can give us proven answers.