Dustspeck the MouseBoat

How to Build a MouseBoat

Step One:  Get the Plans Fortunately, this is easy. Gavin Atkin, the designer of the MouseBoat, gives the plans away for free!  If you have never seen boat plans before, these pictures may look intimidating but it's really quite simple.  The drawing at the upper right shows the hull parts drawn onto a sheet of plywood (8' x 4').  The numbers on the plans tell you how far a particular spot is from the lower left corner of the plywood sheet.  For Example:  x = 1.0, y =1.7 represents a point 1 inch from the left edge of the plywood and 1.7 inches up from the bottom edge.  Using a tape measure to plot all of the points on your plywood and then connect the dots!  For the curved edges, bend a long, thin piece of wood so that it lines up with all of the points and then trace the curve with a pencil.

The drawing above shows the hull panels of a MouseBoat drawn onto one sheet of plywood.  (Click on the drawing to download complete plans)

The "original" MouseBoat consists of less than 10 basic parts and can be constructed from 1 1/2 sheets of plywood.  The above animation shows the building sequence.

See pictures of how I built Dustspeck!