A Beginner's Guide to Boatbuilding Tools
After selecting the plans for your first boat and finding a suitable location for a shop, it’s time to round up the tools to build it. No question about it—having the right tool for the right job can make a project flow easily and expeditiously. Most people contemplating building a boat will probably already have some basic household tools, and some of these will be useful in boatbuilding. But setting out to build a boat will probably mean supplementing your tool inventory.
Some tools—a few planes and chisels, for example—can be acquired even before choosing a particular boat to build. But if you’ve settled on a boat, the place to begin is with a look at the plans. If your boat is to be built from a quality kit with just about everything accurately precut, you will need little more than what might be found in the kitchen tool drawer. For everything else, you will likely need to own (or borrow) a small kit of dedicated woodworking tools.
