Self Build Virgin!!!!

[nmptwentyone]

Am i crazy?

 

My partner and i have wanted a life on the canal for some years now and have looked into various ways of doing it. unfortunatly funds are limited, i am 27 and she is 25 and there is no vast amounts of equity in property to play with. in fact there is no house! far too expensive! this being one of the reasons to look to alternatives.

 

We were to buy a sailaway from liverpool boats last year, but yet again a problem with funds arose. after an evening of surfing a week ago i stumbled upon plans for a 56 foot narrowboat on ebay. the guy had even listed it with a few pics of his project in the final stages. the plans are winging themselves to me as we speak.

 

I do quite a bit of welding with work (fork truck engineer) but have never had any formal training (though could if required). im also no idiot, usually able to turn my hand to most things. just wondered wot you people in the know think? with no experience of boat building is it possible to build one from plans.

[NB Willawaw]

Crazy ? no...

 

With enough time and resources (cash) anybody can build a boat.....badly.

 

I'm sure with your experience or may be a little more training, you could weld a lot of steel plating together to form a floating box and more or less follow the plans.

 

Your first attempt would probably look like just that.

 

Can you afford that and would you be prepared to live with the result.

 

Steel plating is heavy - do you have the space and gear to handle and clamp all that plating in to place while you weld it up without it going cock-eyed ?

 

At your age, you would probably want to sell the boat at some stage and the fact that you built it from scratch would not help its resale value.

 

The question you have to ask yourself is how much would you save on building the hull yourself (taking into account depreciation on second hand value) ?

 

Personally, I'm a great believer in the economies of scale and letting people specialise in what they are good at.

If you want to ease the financial pain of boating, why don't you buy as basic a sailaway as possible.

Use your time and skills to fit it out from scratch.

 

Failing that, why don't you buy a secondhand hulk with reasonable hull thicknesses, strip it down to bare metal and then fit it out. Compare the costs and pros and cons of new sailiaway Vs hulk refurbishment ?

 

Ok thats my two pennyworth since you asked.

 

You are definitely not crazy.

Edited April 24, 2006 by NB Willawaw

[nmptwentyone]

thanks... some very good points

[Graham Bowers]

Am i crazy?

 

My partner and i have wanted a life on the canal for some years now and have looked into various ways of doing it. unfortunatly funds are limited, i am 27 and she is 25 and there is no vast amounts of equity in property to play with. in fact there is no house! far too expensive! this being one of the reasons to look to alternatives.

 

We were to buy a sailaway from liverpool boats last year, but yet again a problem with funds arose. after an evening of surfing a week ago i stumbled upon plans for a 56 foot narrowboat on ebay. the guy had even listed it with a few pics of his project in the final stages. the plans are winging themselves to me as we speak.

 

I do quite a bit of welding with work (fork truck engineer) but have never had any formal training (though could if required). im also no idiot, usually able to turn my hand to most things. just wondered wot you people in the know think? with no experience of boat building is it possible to build one from plans.

 

I think there's a fair bit more to building a shell than the welding. I'm no NB expert, but have had a fair bit of close contact with fabricators dealing with NB sized fabrications.

As has been mentioned, you will have to move heavy and unwieldy lumps of steel around. I'll list the other tasks I'd expect you would need to do to complete a NB hull.

 

Mark out and cut parts from sheet steel. (Measure twice, cut once!) Verify compliance with design by measurement.

Bend parts that need bending, pressbrake required. Verify compliance with design by measurement.

Manipulate parts in to correct position and tack, using temporary supports as necessary. Verify compliance with design by measurement. Allow for weld shrinkage.

Continuous weld. Verify compliance with design by measurement.

Correct deformations due to welding.

 

As has been suggested, it can be done, but go in with open eyes. I'd suggest visiting some NB fabricators to see how it's done. A fab shop can look Heath Robinson, but a good fabricator has a lot of knowledge that is not gained intuitively.

Hope this helps.

Graham

[Cafnod]

Hi

I agree with a fair bit of the above, I would also wonder whether the plans would be acceptable for a boat that may or may not need to be CE marked. I could see it becoming rather a nightmare.

As you have both youth and ability, and presumably time, you do not have the last component which is money. Unfortunately this is generally the case, you do not have all the three ingredients together: Time skill and money.

HOWEVER there are ways round this. You can either pick up a 'hulk' you might even make a bit of money doing some refurbishment and horse trading a few boats, then buy a nice one to keep for yourselves.

OR you could buy a shell and source and fit a secondhand engine to it, fit your own windows, reclaim/recycle materials, make some of your own components like a stove and generally have a lot of fun doing it. I have been there that way, although not with boats and it was a great learning experience.

You would also find you would start happening on things and people would hear about what you are doing and help you with stuff they no longer need.

Some I met felt they needed to get out of London and they bought a butty which they bow hauled and fitted out over the course of a year. They still live on boat but not the same one.

Anything in life is only logistice, the trick is working them out.

 

Have fun and go for it.

[bottle]

Hi

 

I do not think you are crazy to want to live aboard but to build the shell.........................................

 

You will need a space (inside or out) big enough to store all the equipment (cranes, hoists, welding equipment, sheet steal, etc.) also a space big enough to hold the boat when completed and a space around that for workspace.

 

When complete, how will you get the boat to the water? (rhetorical)

 

I am not saying it's impossible but do think carefully, the suggestions of buying a pre-used shell and refitting is a good one, but if you go down that route ensure you get it surveyed.

 

Good Luck

[charles123]

I would be very cautious, it must be enourmously difficult to build a hull and much of the fit out is also very involved such as wiring plumbing engine fitting etc.

 

Why not consider a cheap small used boat that you can afford then gradually improve it, you may even find you could sell it for more than you paid for it

 

Charles

[ChrisPy]

NO!!!!!

 

if you are not already a skilled fabricator, your first attempt will not satisfy you - as you progress you will become aware of deficiencies and you will never be entirely happy about them.

 

and the cost of setting up for a once only build will probably outweigh buying in a shell - even without adding the cost of your own labour.

 

believe me. I tried boat hull fabrication as a business for 2 years.

 

a bare shell bought from one of the big fabricators can be very good value for money.

 

if you stand and watch a Liverpool shell coming together you'll understand what hard work and well-practised efficiency can achieve. it would take you at least 3 shells before you learned the same tricks (and had made mistakes on the first two).

[nmptwentyone]

Thanks for all taking the time to post. Definatly giving me something to think about. already paid for the plans off ebay. dont hurt to look. dont plan on doing anything till at least september anyway. am coming round to the way of thinking the low price tag of building from scrath may not be as good as it seems but have to wait and see?

 

Anyone know the best place to look for an old hulk in need of gutting, and what sort of price i should be looking at?

[Sir Nibble]

Since BW's boat survey last november there seem to be a fair few hulks for sale, presumably because it's either that or section 8, so take a walk along the towpath.

[Pat]

Thanks for all taking the time to post. Definatly giving me something to think about. already paid for the plans off ebay. dont hurt to look. dont plan on doing anything till at least september anyway. am coming round to the way of thinking the low price tag of building from scrath may not be as good as it seems but have to wait and see?

 

Anyone know the best place to look for an old hulk in need of gutting, and what sort of price i should be looking at?

 

I don't know about steel boats, but you can pick up ex broads GRP hire cruisers for under ten grand. They make perfect liveabords. Once you've done the interior and painted the exterior you sell it for a profit and move up the boat ladder. The trick is to find something that is structurally sound, but needs a lot of work. That way you can make a good profit on it, and before you know it, you'll own your dream boat. I think that is a cheaper and safer way of doing it than building your own.

[Supermalc]

 

Anyone know the best place to look for an old hulk in need of gutting, and what sort of price i should be looking at?

 

Like many things today, doing it yourself (not DIY) is not always the cheapest, due to bulk buying of the builders etc.

 

There was one from Boston recently on ebay. Price was around £1500, hull looked sound from the pics. Good change the engine was ok, as it was not running of course.

 

One way could be to travel around the small marinas. The country seems to be littered with these 'hidden backwaters' and all contain what appears to be abandoned boats. Mostly small cruisers, but even these if the owners could be found, could be bought cheaply, then quickly cleaned and resold. In less than the time it would take you to build a NB hull, you should make some, if not all the money for a sailaway. You may even come across a NB hull, or one the owner would part with, even if it was a bit expensive.

[DHutch]

Yeah, i bealeve theres a 'failed project' boat for sale in market drayton, assuming its for sale, that i had a good look at while we where there for a month.

 

I would have though thats the best way to get a relativly cheap entry into the narrowboat world.

- Pick up someone failed project, or derelict boat.

- Even if you totaly gutt it, you have yourself a hull.

 

Have look at moley 'build-blog' on Talpidae, here

 

 

 

Daniel

[onionbargee]

Don't let them grind you down, heres a fact, a freind of mine just built a widebeam, after a 6 month welding course at a local college, in 2 months it was in the water.

 

Building a reasonable hull is not rocket science, in fact it's basic fabrication on a large scale, none of the welds are difficult, the only special tooling you'll need is a gantry, or a fork lift, and a couple of chain pullers.

 

And if you look at the tacked together skips being launched as £60k boats you can't get much worse.

 

DO IT.

[nmptwentyone]

thanks onionbargee!

 

was begining to wonder about the forum. the title being boat building and maintainance! and theres not many good words to say about the boat building side of it.

[Guest]

thanks onionbargee!

 

was begining to wonder about the forum. the title being boat building and maintainance! and theres not many good words to say about the boat building side of it.

It really depends on how fussy you are I suppose. There are two completely self built boats where I moor both of which I would be perfectly happy to own. Another good friend of ours built a 50 ft NB called Jaguar which is on the Leed Liverpool last seen at Scarasbrick Lancs. It is a lovely looking boat. The builder was a mechanic by the way. My wifes uncle, a fabicator built a tug style boat for a customer a few years ago without any great problems. Our previous boat was a one off built by a non-builder; it had slightly unusual lines, one or two rough edges so to speak, but was built like a battleship. It is still going strong at twelve years old now. It must be possible or no-one would have ever built a steel NB, but you wont get top builder type results on your first attempt. There again have you seen some of the dodgy boats by so-called builders?

Good Luck