These days fibreglass is the most popular boat building material. Prior to the advent of fibreglass most small and boats and canoes were built from plywood or lumber. Plywood construction (or boards) is still the only really practical method for the home boat builder to build a boat or canoe.
A solid mold is required to mold a boat or canoe from fibreglass. The hull is applied over this solid mold. Such molds are expensive so they are not suitable for the builder who will build just one boat from the mold. The cost of the mold makes the total cost, for one boat, far too high. If you are going to build a several boats this cost can be spread out over the total number of boats.
Building a plywood boat or canoe is the simplest low cost way to get this work done. Ordinary exterior plywood is quite suitable for boat building and can be obtained from any building supply store or lumber yard. A small boat such as a dinghy can even be built from one sheet of plywood which makes it the lowest cost boat possible to build.
Many plans for building plywood boats,canoes and kayaks were published in the 1950s and 60s and some really good vessels can be built using these plans. These boata are are just as good now as they were in those times. You can obtain many of these boat plans from my eBay store-- take a look at all the fine plans which are available at low cost:
Free boat plans
