Devlin BB3 in aluminum

M

Mark Buechle

New member
I've been lurking here for two decades, and have been going to post this about that long too. I found this site while researching duck boats. It was a wealth of information. Eric had just built his BB and posted pictures, I fell in love with it. There was another fellow who built a Scaup around the same time up in the St. Ignace, MI area. I poured over Devlin's website. I didn't think I could build a wood boat at that time as I had a major house remodel going on and I have issues with finishing big projects. Since there are no compound curves in stitch and glue building it occured to me that the process could also work with aluminum. An email to Sam Devlin confirmed my thoughts so I ordered a set of BB3 planes and 6 sheets of 5052 Aluminum. I started this in July and made the second week of duck season in 2005. I like the instant gratification of welded construction and the boat has been very durable. I have a blind that I built for it but not pictures. It's higher profile for sitting in however after two lumbar disc surgeries, I can't sit for very long so I'm going to build something different. Something more like the flaps on the field lay down goose blinds so I can lay instead of sit. I've included some pictures of the project.
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First hunt.
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Current configuration. Changed the 9hp GoDevil for a 25 Merc.

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Mark,
Beautiful! I've read of others who have constructed Devlin boats out of aluminum but have never seen the work in progress. Would you mind enlightening the rest of us what kind of welding equipment you used? Thanks for sharing!
RM
 
I TIG welded it with a Miller square wave unit. That's not the best way but at the time it's what I had. MIG is the better way but a pulsed welder is required for thin material and they were expensive. I used .080 aluminum which is thin for MIG welding. The problem with TIG is that the weld deposition rate is slow so the aluminum absorbs lots of heat. When aluminum gets hot it moves. Distortion was a constant battle. I now have a MIG unit although not pulsed, I'm going to play with. The only thing I would do different in a future build would be to add stringers to the hull plates to stiffen them. I bought the book, Boatbuilding with Aluminum by Stephen F. Pollard and read it before starting, it had a lot of good information.
 
Mark Buechle said:
I've been lurking here for two decades, and have been going to post this about that long too. I found this site while researching duck boats. It was a wealth of information. Eric had just built his BB and posted pictures, I fell in love with it. There was another fellow who built a Scaup around the same time up in the St. Ignace, MI area. I poured over Devlin's website. I didn't think I could build a wood boat at that time as I had a major house remodel going on and I have issues with finishing big projects. Since there are no compound curves in stitch and glue building it occured to me that the process could also work with aluminum. An email to Sam Devlin confirmed my thoughts so I ordered a set of BB3 planes and 6 sheets of 5052 Aluminum. I started this in July and made the second week of duck season in 2005. I like the instant gratification of welded construction and the boat has been very durable. I have a blind that I built for it but not pictures. It's higher profile for sitting in however after two lumbar disc surgeries, I can't sit for very long so I'm going to build something different. Something more like the flaps on the field lay down goose blinds so I can lay instead of sit. I've included some pictures of the project.
View attachment 74056View attachment 74057View attachment 74058View attachment 74059View attachment 74061View attachment 74062View attachment 74063View attachment 74064View attachment 74066View attachment 74067View attachment 74068View attachment 74070View attachment 74071View attachment 74072View attachment 74073View attachment 74074View attachment 74075View attachment 74076
First hunt.
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Current configuration. Changed the 9hp GoDevil for a 25 Merc.

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Great build, thanks for posting. Is that a Bonanza tail next to the boat?
 
SJ Fairbank said:
I'm gonna guess about 1/3 less, but a guess is all it is. I hope the op can provide a weight. Very cool.
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Super hard to gauge the appropriate metal thickness as a builder, go a little heavy and it would get heavy fast. Many aluminum builds we have seen in the past were HEAVY.
 
Mark Buechle said:
I've been lurking here for two decades, and have been going to post this about that long too. I found this site while researching duck boats. It was a wealth of information. Eric had just built his BB and posted pictures, I fell in love with it. There was another fellow who built a Scaup around the same time up in the St. Ignace, MI area. I poured over Devlin's website. I didn't think I could build a wood boat at that time as I had a major house remodel going on and I have issues with finishing big projects. Since there are no compound curves in stitch and glue building it occured to me that the process could also work with aluminum. An email to Sam Devlin confirmed my thoughts so I ordered a set of BB3 planes and 6 sheets of 5052 Aluminum. I started this in July and made the second week of duck season in 2005. I like the instant gratification of welded construction and the boat has been very durable. I have a blind that I built for it but not pictures. It's higher profile for sitting in however after two lumbar disc surgeries, I can't sit for very long so I'm going to build something different. Something more like the flaps on the field lay down goose blinds so I can lay instead of sit. I've included some pictures of the project.
View attachment 74056View attachment 74057View attachment 74058View attachment 74059View attachment 74061View attachment 74062View attachment 74063View attachment 74064View attachment 74066View attachment 74067View attachment 74068View attachment 74070View attachment 74071View attachment 74072View attachment 74073View attachment 74074View attachment 74075View attachment 74076
First hunt.
View attachment 74077
Current configuration. Changed the 9hp GoDevil for a 25 Merc.

View attachment 74078
Click to expand...

Very nice boat. I like your approach for the knees under front deck, some good ideas there.
 
Not gonna lie..... I would own this boat if it was in fact lighter than a wood hull. Not like I need a 3rd boat, but ive always loved a sneak boat. What kind of speeds do you see with a 25 ob on it? What is the hp rating of these boats? Im going to sign up for a welding class this summer. Maybe Ill get mine done before @HenryHawthorne gets his done lol.
 
Awesome stuff, very interesting to look at. Man that’s a massive amount of TIG!
Appreciate you posting after all those years,
What’s this? Circled in picture.
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I'm guessing weight at around 300#. I bought 320# of aluminum, I still have some left. The floor board is 1/2" ply. Two men can lift easily.

Devlin lists 25hp as the design limit. It goes 27 according to GPS. Much better than the 6-7 with the mud motor. It makes an awesome fishing boat also.

Matthias, that's an anchor rope port. Its connected to a 5/8" tube that goes back to the cockpit. It turned out to be one of those things that works better in theory than practice. The anchor drags in the water at low speed, flails around and beats the crap out of the boat at speed in chop. The rope is hard to pull and tie off due to its location under the side deck. I wouldn't do it again. Yes, I got really good at aluminum TIG with this. I went through 5-6 bottles of Argon if I recall.

No, the "oops that's a log/rock" marks are in the hull plates underneath! There are at least 3 of them.

SJ Fairbanks, that's a 1960 Bonanza that shares its hangar with the boat.

Tod's right, you could get heavy in a hurry with thicker material. I looked at what GoDevil listed in their build specs for their John boats and they run 12ga. with the option for .100" on the hull bottom. I'm happy with the 12ga. If really trying to save weight, you could go 14ga on the sides and deck but would be more difficult to weld. I wanted the decks to be walk-able, hence the stringers under the front deck. It makes a really nice casting deck for bass. Like I said, the only thing I would change is to add stringers to the hull plates

I've thought about building another with a jet drive from a PWC for river use. When I used this in the river with the mud motor I could run on plane in 12" of water. Less than that and the prop would cavitate and then you were done. That being said, I've got my eye on Devlin's Curlew. I think it would make a very good Great Lakes boat. Big expensive project though.
 
300 lbs.... Im IN! Gosh this is a super cool build! Light enough to get it off anything, and back into places thats pretty shallow. 25 hp merc with a wetlander bottom. I can see it now! Sir you did very good.

Im assuming it doesnt draft hardly anything when you get out of the boat and need to tug it around places as well. I get my havoc 1756, with a big mudmotor, around pretty good by myself. This would be a cakewalk!
 
Mark Buechle said:
The anchor drags in the water at low speed, flails around and beats the crap out of the boat at speed in chop. The rope is hard to pull and tie off due to its location under the side deck.
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Mark,
First off, let me say I am impressed with your work. That's coming from a retired machinist that spent a career working in a custom fabrication shop.

I have the wooden version and I anchor, move, re-anchor, a lot when river fishing. My wood hull runs 22-24MPH with a 25hp engine.

I added a stainless steel rope fairlead to the very front top edge of the bow on my BBIII. The height gets the anchor above the waterline and when pulled right up tight, the swinging and banging is minimized to where it is not an issue. When I wish to anchor in place, let the anchor rope out to the desired length and simply secure the rope to a deck mounted cleat. Same cleat is used to secure the rope when the anchor is fully retracted against the fairlead.
If I am making a long run I will bring the anchor to inside the cockpit.

Again nice looking build. I like how you incorporated the flush grab/tie offs into the hull, both front and rear. Smart thinking. :cool:
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William Reinicke said:
Not gonna lie..... I would own this boat if it was in fact lighter than a wood hull. Not like I need a 3rd boat, but ive always loved a sneak boat. What kind of speeds do you see with a 25 ob on it? What is the hp rating of these boats? Im going to sign up for a welding class this summer. Maybe Ill get mine done before @HenryHawthorne gets his done lol.
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Good chance!
 
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