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Building My Own Dory

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Why and How I Plan to Build My Own Fishing Dory.

Where This Dory Building Idea Likely Got Started

Being raised on the Oregon coast, I learned to fish at a very young age. I landed my first salmon at the age of 4 - fishing from a wooden boat my father built by hand.

That wasn't the only boat my dad built. Nor was it the only boat I've fished out of. Over the years I've owned well over 20 water craft - from kayaks to offshore cabin cruisers and everything between.

And I've fished out of every one of them, and caught plenty of fish, too.

I'm about to add another boating experience to the list - I'm going to Build a dory for pleasure, and of course for fishing.

I'm pretty excited too.

In this lens I'll be focusing on how I made the decision to build my own dory, what size and type of dory I'm going to build, and where I found the perfect dory plans for this - my first boat building project.

I'll also give a little overview of the dory and it's history, for those of you who've not heard of the boat before.

Hope you enjoy following along with me on this dory building adventure.




New Table of Contents

  1. Building a Dory
  2. What Do You Need In Order To Build a Dory?
  3. My Fishing Dory Plans
  4. Build a Dory
  5. Books on Boats and Boatbuilding
  6. New Guestbook

Building a Dory

16 Foot Wooden Dory Under Construction

This Grand Banks rowing dory is being built from the same plans I have purchased and will use for my own home-built dory.

Although my dory will have a slightly wider transom for mounting a small outboard motor.

It looks GREAT, don't you think? And the dory isn't even finished yet. I can hardly wait to get started building my own boat.

What Do You Need In Order To Build a Dory?

First, there really is no experience required to accomplish building your own dory. Of course, you've got to start with a good set of plans. That's the foundation.

Other than that, if you have the ability to use power tools and follow detailed, step-by-step instructions, you can build the type of dory I intend to build within 2-3 weeks.

What Dory Boat Building Tools Will You Need?



  • Electric Drill

  • Handsaw

  • Jigsaw with 1" Blade

  • Minimum 4 wood clamps capable of extending at
    least 35" and small variety of other clamps

  • Measuring tape


  • Hand plane


  • 12" electric planer if you have it

  • Electric Sander

  • Hammer

  • Table saw and a 1/4" adjust dado blade


  • Skill Saw

My Fishing Dory Plans

These are the set of dory plans I'm using to build my own dory.

DORY PLANS

I did my research on dory plans, and decided these dory plans were the best. They not only give me the blueprints and materials list, but include digital images of how things should look at every step of the dory construction process. I'm a visual person, so detailed pictures of each step in the building process will help things move along much faster for me.

Build a Dory

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Books on Boats and Boatbuilding

Classic wooden boats and boatbuilding.

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New Guestbook

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by

djcasey

I'm a waterbaby and true Mermaid, all the way.
Love to swim, fish, scuba, snorkel, waterski... you name it. If it's got anything to do with the water,... more »

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