If you are relatively new to the craft of boat building, I strongly suggest you start with learning how to build a wood boat. The process of building even the simplest wood boat design will give you a grasp of the craft without having taken too much of a risk.

Wood, being one of the easiest material to procure makes it one of the commonly used material in boat building. Of course, there's also the fact that boat building beginners have to start somewhere. And most people seem to have a solid grasp of basic woodworking skills. Thus, wooden boat building can be just another woodworking project for some.

There are different methods with which you can build a wooden boat. Probably the easiest and most cost effective would be the popular stitch and glue technique. Several complicated processes are eliminated with this method. You'll only be involved in the cutting, stitching and gluing the boat parts together as the name implies.

This technique can be quite cost effective due to the fact that less materials are needed to construct a boat. Generally, you'll only be needing wood as your prime boat material, wire for stitching and marine epoxy for gluing. Copper wire is the most commonly used wire for this purpose and fiberglass will be needed to give the structure additional strength during the gluing process.

Another method of building a wooden boat is called the ply over frame method. This boat building technique is more tedious than stitch and glue. This would require that you build the basic framework of the boat. Afterward, wood are nailed or glued over the frame.

This process of boat building generally requires more materials than stitch and glue. Though, its advantage lies in its durability due to the framework of the boat.

Whichever method of boat building you are going to employ, it is quite an imperative that you use a good boat building plan. Either techniques would require that the wood dimensions are measured and cut accurately. It is for this reason that I'm quite particular in choosing the right plans for any of my boat building projects. I can save so much of my time that way and I can avoid costly mistakes thus keeping my expenses low.

Personally, I prefer a plan with a really elaborate illustration on top of the step by step instruction. For some people, me included, images would help a lot in making the instructions clear in ways a page full of words never can. That is why even if I have a bit of experience under my belt, I still like boat plans this way. And I'm pretty sure it will be a tremendous help for you especially if you've just started building a boat.