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A selection of Free Boat Plans that can be viewed and/or downloaded.

• Construction plans (blueprints) are 2-dimensional architectural drawings that explain the details of a project. They provide a unique visual representation of what exactly needs to be built. Information such as dimensions, parts, placement, and materials for each project can all be found in construction drawings to assure the project is.
• Popular Woodworking - Woodworking Plans, Woodworking projects, Designs Patterns Download FREE woodworking plans for these projects The following projects were featured in Popular Woodworking in the last couple years. In each free plan you get a cutting list, a decription of the construction process and a downloadable construction drawing in PDF.

These free to download wooden boat plans (pdf) were first published in magazines such as 'Popular Mechanics', 'Popular Science' and the 'Boat Builder’s Handbook'.

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'Popular Science' magazine and'Popular Mechanics' back issues canviewed on line at Google Books.

All these free boat plans can be built by anyone with a modicum ofcommon senseand a few basic woodworking skills and tools.
However, if you haven't got the skills and tools yet, this is a greatway to acquire them.

One of the beauties of building yourself is that you don't have to buyeverything at once, just get what you need when you can afford it.

While some of the instructions suggest using exterior plywood, I wouldrecommend always to use marine grade.

If you need help with lofting out theplans clickhere for an article here which should help.

Canoe Free Boat Plans

Blue Bill

Combiningthe features of both kayak and canoe, 'Blue Bill' is for thoseout-of-doors-men who hunt or the sportsmen who need anultra-light-weight portable boat for use upon any waters.

Besides being usable to build a double-end paddling model, afew changes permit the plans to be used for making a canoe that willaccommodate outboard motors up to 6 hp. for swift, speedytransportation on any stream or waterway.

Weighing only 75 lbs. complete, 'Blue Bill' is easily transported atopan auto anywhere.

Canvasback

This kayak is the answer for young people who want to build aninexpensive boat for summer fun.
A shop full of power tools isn't necessary,either.
All the work can be done with ordinary hand tools and a few C clamps.
This Free Boat Plan will carry one adult but it'shandiest when paddled by ayoungster.
The boat is stable in the water and, even though it can be turned over,it won't sink.
It's also light enough to be carried with ease.
Building is so simple that the 'Jig' consists of only two blocks and afew bricks.

Hunting Kayak

Formany years a favourite of hunters, trappers and traders the kayak nowis as popular with Europeans as the outboard boat is with Americans.

Althoughthis boat was designed to carry two people, it will accommodate threein a pinch and gear may be stowed under fore and after decks.

A few strokes with the double paddle will send it gliding across thewater with the minimum of effort on your part.

Kayaksare surprisingly seaworthy, too—more stable than a canoe, in fact,because the occupants sit on the bottom of the hull which lowers thecenter of gravity.

Pintail a 10ft Duck Boat

'Pintail' drawn from plans by Wm D Jackson is another of the Free BoatPlans from the 'BoatBuilder Handbook'.
This one is being built by GregAllore.

Glide Easy

Ifyou have ever struggled with the oars of a heavy, slow-movingrowboat and then paddled a swift, high manoeuvrable canoe you canappreciate why many true sportsmen prefer canoes.

But, too often, the multi-ribbed conventional canoe is not only hard tobuild but too thin-skinned for hard usage.

This Free Boat Plan teams up plywood and fiberglass to producea tough, scrape-proofcanoe you can build in one-tenth the time it would take you to turn outa conventional canoe.

The use of only one frame offsets the extra weight of usingplywood, so that this canoe is still light enough for comfortableportage.

Little Chief

Little Chief is a canoe with many virtues, ideally adapted to quick,easy construction.

Canoesare not easy to build, but here is one Free Boat Plan that canbemade of ordinary materials for a fraction of the cost of conventionalcanoes.

It has attractive molded lines and may be built eitheras a paddling model or, with slight changes, adapted for use with smalloutboard motors.

Plyak

In all countries of the world, particularly the United States, thekayak is enjoying newfound popularity.

Here'sa nimble, lightweight craft that has its roots in the Arctic as a basicinstrument of survival, yet is branching out as a modern outdoor sporton our own rivers and lakes.

To the Eskimo, a kayak is more than a boat.

When he's laced into his whale-bone and walrus-hide craft, he's readyfor anything in the way of water or weather.

To most of us, however, a kayak is pure adventure and fun.

It'sperfect for poking around uninhabited Islands, exploring the bends of alazy, winding river, or just breaking the peaceful surface of a placidlake at sunset.

Redwood Canoe

You can build this 74lb, 16 foot canoe using redwood strips, an oldboat-building technique.

Two persons can sit side by side in the center with one person at eachend and plenty of room for gear.

This canoe is formed around plywood templates using redwood stripsglued edge to edge.

You lay up the strips, remove the form, and the canoe is complete,except for fiberglassing and putting in the seats.

The plans can also be used to build a 13-foot version ofthis strip planked canoe. Download fifa 13 torrent file.

Houseboat Free boat Plans

Ultimate Arcade 2 Construction Plans Pdf Template

Budget Houseboat(Trailerable)

TheBudget Houseboat is like a camper that goes on water.

She's 20 ft. long with a 9-ft. beam, containing 300 sq. ft. of usablefloor area.

Thismeans that while she can accommodate two in outrageous comfort, she caneasily take a family of four on an extended vacation and be entirelyself-contained.

There are two full-size permanent bunks in the forward section of thecabin.

Thedining table, in the rear section of the cabin, seats four and thendrops down to convert into an extra bunk 6 ft. 4 in. long and 38 in.wide.

Cabin headroom is 6 ft. 2 in., and two cots can be stationed to therear of the cabin area.

Bayou Belle

BayouBelle is a 25' scow that can be built as a sports utility, a fishingboat, or a houseboat, depending on your requirements for pleasureoffshore.

As a sports utility, she can be used for towing waterskiers and for cruising, as a fishing boat, she offers a stableplatform with plenty of elbow room and stowage space.

As a houseboat, she has roomy interior accommodations for a leisurelylife afloat.

Constructionof Bayou Belle makes use of prefabricated sections, which means thatmuch of the work can be done indoors in the average garage during thecold winter months, and the boat completed outdoors in time forlaunching in late spring.

ClickHere for the Plans

Float-A-Home

Ahouseboat is a unique water craft in that it combines most of thecomforts of home with the mobility of a boat.

Of course, use is limited to sheltered waters, and speeds are slow incomparison to more sea worthy vessels.

Float-A-Home is a 21-footer that provides plenty of living space forthree or four persons.

Anextremely simple houseboat to build, the free boatplans feature astrong hull with a heavy keel and close-spaced framing.

This, coupled with a relatively low profile, makes it a very stablecraft.

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Thanks to James Van Horn, here is the example project panel shown on our header.

I built this loaded 4-player arcade control panel for my best friend Mark, and have everything ready to build one for myself too. We didn't hold back. We knew we wanted the best components available, so naturally we loaded it up with Ultimarc components. Andy is the best in the business and has always been extremely helpful. This control panel has:

• 52 RBG backlit buttons
• 4 buttons on the sides for pinball
• Translucent inserts installed inside the top row buttons
• 4 UltraStik 360 Oval Tops
• 2 UltraStik 360 Flight Sticks
• 2 SpinTrak spinners
• 1 U-Trak Trackball
• 4 front USB panel connectors

For the joystick selection, Mark and I believe the best joysticks you can buy for a control panel like this are the UltraStiks, period. Here's why:

• Ultrastiks can be configured to be 2-way, 4-way, 8-way, 49-way or fully analog! Fully analog means that you can move the joystick a tiny amount and your plane, for example, will only move a tiny amount. Move it farther, and it will react accordingly. In other words, fully variable.
• On-the-fly programming. Today's modern front ends make it easy to tell the joystick to switch configuration for the game that is about to launch, and then switch back after the game is over. How cool is that!
• They also allow you to decide the up orientation for players 3 and 4. This is a personal preference whether UP is the same (inward) angle as the control panel edge or the same as player 1 and 2 (straight).
• If all that wasn't enough,multiple Ultrastiks can be configured so you can have 1 stick in each hand for 2-player simultaneous Robotron style games like Smash TV and Geometry Wars! Player 1 uses both joysticks on the left side of the control panel, and Player 2 uses both joysticks on the right side.

I used SolidWorks CAD to create the layout and to make sure everything fit as this was a complicated build. Having 6 buttons for players 3 and 4 allowed for past and future game flexibility, provided excuses for having more RGB bling, and when neighborhood kids come over to play with my kid, you won't hear 'Why does he have 7 buttons and I only have 4?' We knew that putting a spinner or a joystick directly in front of the trackball is not a smart idea if you like to play games like Golden Tee Golf. Providing a clear path in front of the trackball removes the possibility of jamming your fingers into a spinner after trying for a 300+ yard golf swing. We also decided to mirror the flightsticks and spinners. For games like Tron that use a flightstick and spinner simultaneously, this allowed player preference on which hand had the spinner and which hand had the flightstick. We made sure that there was plenty of distance between Player 1 and 2 so that shoulders and feet won't be touching during simultaneous gameplay. I measured the width of typical pinball machines and made the control panel to match. Front USB panel mounts allows for even more nostalgic feel for authentic hand held controllers like Atari controllers, Nintendo controllers, etc. We have plans to add quick release mounts for a Star Wars yoke, Paperboy controller, or a steering wheel.

For our family, we will be setting the control panel on our coffee table or saw horse legs. We will use our TV and the same HTPC machine to run the gaming software. Mark wanted his to be on a pedestal, so I created one for him with 120mm ventilation fans and an access door on the back side.

For the main panel, I CNC'ed 3/4' high density MDF. For the frame, red oak was worth the premium. Mark wanted black textured vinyl on his frame. For mine (not pictured), I used black India ink which was also an excellent choice as it shows the oak wood grain.

My garage is just an average garage, so I don't have any way to hold odd angles while the wood glue dries. I found Blokkz universal clamping blocks does the trick nicely for any angle. I strengthened it even further with 90 brackets everywhere. I probably went overkill with all of the metal supports and even glued the frame to the main panel. This control panel will be with us until we die hopefully.

I designed the overlay in Photoshop and had GameonGrafix print them on textured vinyl. As usual, they do great work. My control panel is slightly different than this one. I went with all Tron colors (red and blue from the original Tron movie, and yellow and white from Tron Legacy).

Currently, UltraMap software can only handle 4 UltraStik 360 ID's, so having 6 of them in this control panel presented a problem. To solve it, I used a pair of Yepkit Ykush USB Switchable Hubs. This essentially allows me to unplug any USB device via command line. This is better than disabling a USB device in Windows. To the computer, it appears as if it was physically unplugged. At any given moment, I only have 4 UltraStik 360 joysticks active. In the future, Andy may update the UltraMap software to handle more joysticks, but for now, this works perfectly. I used a traditional powered USB hub to handle the large number of devices that are used in this control panel. The hub needed 12V and some Ultimarc boards needed 5V, so I use a Mean Well RD-125 dual voltage power supply. The power supply sits outside of the control panel. I only have 2 quick connectors coming outside of the control panel: 5/12V and USB 3.0. This makes it quick and easy to set up in front of our TV.

For the brains of this control panel, I used:

• 1 I-PAC Ultimate I/O
• 1 PacLED64
• 1 U-HID

Technically, I didn't have to use the U-HID because the SpinTraks come with their own USB interface board, but the U-HID allowed me to put both spinners on the same mouse ID (one on the X axis and one on the Y axis). I've seen a small number of spinner games (like Richet Inifinity) that look for the mouse to be on the same ID. So if I'm going to make the ultimate control panel, I'm not going to hold back on anything. I found a program called EitherMouse that offers the ability to set each mouse/spinner speed independently of each other. Windows does not offer this.

For the buttons with RGB LED illumination, Ultimarc offers GoldLeaf RGB buttons with the optional black insert which gives this effect. (The painter's tape on the trackball is only there temporarily to prevent any dust from getting inside the trackball during construction.)

Ultimate Arcade 2 For Sale

I'm so glad that Andy chose to use the Sanwa JLW as the base for his UltraStik 360's. Compared to the JLF joysticks, JLW's are much heavier duty, and use metal pivots instead of plastic for smoother action. As a fanatical RC racer and designer, we know the importance of perfect suspension components and it was natural for me to polish the JLW joystick shafts, pivots, and washers. This allowed them to have butter smooth action and allowed them to center better.

For the front end, I recommend LaunchBox + BigBox. LaunchBox is the power behind maintaining your games, emulators, and hardware configuration. BigBox is used to bring it all together and to protect your hard work with a foolproof interface that family members and friends can use that will not allow them to get into any trouble.

LaunchBox and BigBox have so many powerful features. For example, when I fire up the control panel, it uses an attract mode that I created. LaunchBox and BigBox will do a colorful startup sequence, then go to specified default colors that I created, then when I select Street Fighter II (for example), it will change the 6 buttons to match the original arcade button colors (red, white , and blue), set the UltraStik 360 joystick modes to 8 way, disable the Flightsticks, send the Street Fighter II marquee to the 2nd monitor, and launch the game. With the help of LaunchBox and Ultimarc hardware, each game launches it's own set of RGB colors, joystick configuration, marquees, etc.

Special thanks to Andy and his team for their support and great products. Contact me or Andy if you have any questions.

-James Van Horn

This is a superb panel, we have had many comments asking about this since it appeared on our site.

Just to offer some suggestions which are not intended as improvements but alternatives:

Pushbuttons: James built this panel before our black-center pushbuttons were available. We now have add-on black button centers for our Goldleaf RGB buttons.

The two Ultrastik 360 FS offer full analog so some people might want to look at ServoStiks for the main 4 joysticks, as these offer a hard 4-8 way restriction which many people prefer. They can be configured to auto-switch from the front-end.

That would add 16 extra switches to the panel. So the suggested interfaces would be 2 X I-PAC Ultimate I/O boards. These would also handle all the LEDs and trackball and spinner.

One board would be mounted on each side of the panel thus eliminating any short-wire issues.

The use of the U-HID for the spinners is not really required, as James suggests. Definitely not needed for Mame. Its best to have the two spinners as different device IDs to avoid Windows randomly swapping them, but that's easily accomplished by connecting one to each of the Ultimate I/O boards. In some other configurations this could best be done by having one use its own interface and the other via an I-PAC board.

Optional extras would be:

• Joystick mounting kits (5mm)
• PCB mounting feet x 2
• Goldleaf logo inserts (Please note these are on the way, not yet in the store)
• Extension wires are unlikely to be needed in a 2-board config but otherwise, the 'Extension harness pack' handles 10 longer pushbutton wires and '200 mm M-F 4-way extension' handles spinner and trackball (two needed for trackball).

Cheers
Andy