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DIY Projects

For the love of Drift Boats- a floating project

By February 23, 2023July 26th, 2023No Comments

Many years ago I spent a couple summers guiding in Alaska. I met some great guys and was invited out west steelhead fishing and after I was exposed to drift boats I was hooked. I love how durable and stable they were for navigating western waters. Here in MN we didn’t have many rivers suitable for driftboats but I was still enthralled with them.

While attending college for manufacturing we had to do a hypothetical project to help develop timelines and plans of procedure. I ordered this McDrift 14′ boat plan and used it for my research project. I spent five years in manufacturing w=and went back to school for teaching. Ten years later I was teaching in Henning and still thinking about the driftboat plans. Brunswick manufacturing is a local company that makes Lund Boats in New York Mills. They had donated scrap materials to the school in the past so I reached out to Brunswick to see if they might have any aluminum sheets they’d donate, sure enough they gave us several large sheets of the same aluminum they use for fishing boats.

Although the plans I had were for a plywood boat we gave it a shot and began to build some wooden jigs to hold the boat parts together and then began to cut out the floor and sides. It was hard to cut such thick aluminum but we used jigsaw and shears.

My fishing partner and good friend Chuck worked at Lund for many years and was invaluable for information on cutting, shaping, fastening and building boats.

We were able to clamp the boat into position and spot weld it to hold it in place

Next we proceeded to make full length welds using the spool gun in an attempt to make the boat watertight. There were many holes burned in the boat along the way that needed to be be filled.

Many of the welds were globby and ugly, one of the kids, TJ suggested that we go over the welds with a TIG welder to smooth them out. At first I wasn’t sure but I told a welding instructor on my advisory board about it and he agreed with TJ.

 

TJ, the man behind the mask and my lead welder. His idea for using the TIG to smooth out MIG beads worked great, we were able to make the boat watertight.
Adding stringers for support
Cutting the rod storage
After fighting to put the gunwales in place it was time for building the seats
First day testing on the water , there were a few small leaks that we circled with a sharpie to patch
Cardboard Templates for the flooring

 

Marine Plywood in place
After the paintjob
Jason mounting rod holders
Otto with a wizzer wheel
Taking Mom out in the drifty at Gates of the Mtns Montana
My nephew on the oars
Missouri Brown

 

I put a product called Wetlander on the bottom to help the boat slide over rocks. It’s been on the Crow Wing and Mississippi Rivers in MN as well as the Big Hole, Missouri and Yellowstone River in Montana.

I really enjoy rowing and am planning on bringing the boat back to Montana this summer to hit up some new river stretches. Although building my first boat was stressful, it was also really rewarding and both my students and I learned alot along the way.