question about cost

S

S Stevenson

Member
I was looking at Devlins site earlier and was frankly shoicked at the estimated cost of materials for his designs. What has been the experience of the builders here, are these numbers accurate or are they more of a high end number. Steve
 
They probably haven't been updated for a couple years. The costs are based on top of the line plywood and materials. You COULD build on the cheap but remember...with plywood you get what you pay for. You can use SS screws instead of silicon bronze and RAKA epoxy and glass .....with some thorough shopping you could probably shave 500 off the costs but stick with good plywood.
 
If you are shocked I'd be interested what you think they 'should' cost. I just went to Devlin's site and looked and, yeah, seemed a little high but then again it's been 5 years since I bought all the stuff for my BB3. At the time I had a bill of about $800 from Raka for epoxy and all the 'other' stuff I needed and a bill for about the same from World Panel for all the plywood (I drove to Florida and picked it up so no shipping). Before I was done my total was in the neighborhood of $2500 or so. In addition to the above I had to buy wood for the scantlings, hardware, wiring stuff, bilge pump, etc..................come to think of it I doubt that $2500 was enough but that is what I had reciepts for.
 
The Devlin quotes are at least 5 years old and yes, the cost in both time and money is significantly higher. But building a boat is one of those "passion" activities... you either have to do it or you don't. That's why 99.9% of the boats out there are store bought.

Good luck, A>
 
Pete, I have no idea what they should cost. Andrew, I understand the lure of wood and the lure of building something yourself. Just seems to me to be out of line for what you get, other than the satisfaction of building it yourself which I know is priceless. Thanks for the replies. Steve
 
I found the process to be nickel and dime expensive.
Plastic cups for mixing epoxy, rubber gloves, chip brushes, sandpaper, etc. Well over $100 just for those throw away items.

It all adds up in the end.

And in spite of it all, it's worth every penny. :)

Best,

Brian F.
 
And then there are guys like me that spent $1400 for the materials for a BB3.

BS1086 Okoume plywood from Edensaw with no direct shipping cost to Alaska thanks to timing my order with the standard bulk shipment of the local wholesale lumber store. The Hondurian mahogany was half the board foot price of the African stuff.

Seattle based fiberglass supplier was off loading the remaining stock of their WEST epoxy at almost 50% off retail cost. All other FG materials were about 20% lower in cost than the local supplier. During the project I found out that the local guys buy wholesale from the same company in Seattle and mark it all up about 25%. The two part foam was half the cost of the local stuff as well. Even with less-than-load shipping by barge it saved over $300.

I used 1 quart and 1 cup yogurt containers which were collected from friends over the winter prior to the build. They are PE or HDPE so epoxy does not stick to them and will pop out once hardened, however eventually the surface gets scared enough that the epoxy will stick to them after about 4 to 6 cycles of use.

Tongue depressors and gloves were free from my job due to a warehouse cleaning out event. I also made several different styles of scapers and stirrers from various shop scrap. The broken arrow shaft and sheet rock screw epoxy stirrer for the drill was a life/arm/hand/time saver.

I already had a sawhorse system that would work for supporting the boat and didn't need to build the table system most folks do. I just needed to build two cradles out of 2x8 fir.

However, the savings all vanished when I went shopping for a trailer. No craigslist at that time so this was harder than building the boat. Finally gave up on all the rusted out POS trailers in the paper and bought a new one for <ouch> $1,200. This same trailer goes for half this price in the states. The motor was last years model 25HP Nissan on winter/spring sale for $2,000.
 
SS,

Again, in the olden days, a lot of guys had to build boats to make their living fishing, ducking, etc... because they had no choice... they couldn't afford to pay for the labor quotient involved in a brand new boat.

I've discovered in very informal research that a homebuilt boat - upon completion - is worth the cost of the materials, when the boat goes up for sale.

So, in sum, building a boat is a labor of Love, and if you don't have the bug, then don't do it or you'll be unhappy throughout the whole process. It's thankless from a dollars and cents perspective. I guess it's like learning an instrument, it's fun to play, but who the hell is going to actually pay you money to play it? ; )

There is a shizzload of boats and motors for sale at bargain basement prices now... it's a great time to buy a boat.
 
couldn't find the old email. In this email address I routinely wipe out whole pages at a time when I check it because of the amount of spam I get.

David Stern, got the pics that you sent, I'm sorry I didn't check this earlier... I have to check this email more often.

Steve -- THANKS !!!!!!!!!

A>
 
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