DIY wood frame dodger

[youngson]

Any ideas or experience with a home built wood frame dodger? I just purchased an oday 27 and she's dodgerless and I was hoping I could build a simple dodger myself, considering money is tight and I'm pretty handy myself.. Let's hear your opinions!
Thanks

[Snowpetrel]

Stitch and glue plywood works well. Rough it out from doorskin ply to get some patterns. Laminate the top from 2x6mm ply for a very strong dodger, or 2x4 mm for a lighter top. Rest of the dodger can be 6mm or 9mm ply. You can probably make the whole thing from one layer of 4mm but it wouldn't be strong enough to climb over without a lot of glass. Got some pics on my ramblings somewhere.

Sent from my HTC_0PCV2 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[chouliha]

Originally Posted by youngson

Any ideas or experience with a home built wood frame dodger? I just purchased an oday 27 and she's dodgerless and I was hoping I could build a simple dodger myself, considering money is tight and I'm pretty handy myself.. Let's hear your opinions!
Thanks

We built a hard top many years ago and started with bendy ply(ply with all the layers running in same direction). We epoxied the three layers together to obtain a solid form for doing a glass lay up. But we could have easily glassed either side of the ply and had a good hard top. I wanted a lighter weight hard too so used dyvincel core with 1 layer of biaxial cloth on each side. I have some photos on our website showing the construction that may help with ideas. www.jacarandajourney.com. look under "Other Giid Stuff"

Best of luck

Chuck

[roverhi]

Will be building a hardtop out of foam core with glass over. Sides will have canvas and top supported by SS posts. Shape of cabin and cockpit sides doesn't lend itself to having a complete wood structure.

[Steadman Uhlich]

Howdy!

The very best DIY example I have seen is on the blog owned by one of CF members (Delmarrey) on his boat UGLY DUCKLING.

He made a very nice blog post (as usual) with many good photos and directions or comments. Very easy to follow.

Go to this link and look down the page a bit and you will see the photos about the dodger he built. Of course his boat is much larger than yours, but this should give you some ideas.
The Restoration & Upgrade of a Choate 40

[Charlie]

I used 1/4" starboard as the top and sides of my dodger. It worked out well. I will try to get some pictures to post this weekend.

[Cheechako]

The difficult part is the frame construction. The top is the easy part! I've seen some nice ones though. But you are still going to need $ for window material etc I wonder I end if a cheap dodger for a 27 footer might be better?
Fiberglass or Starboard etc.
Plexiglass
Wood
Caulking
multiple trips from the workshop and back.....
Devaluation of the boat if it doesn't come out looking professional...

[Terra Nova]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

...Devaluation of the boat if it doesn't come out looking professional...

On of my hard dodgers has done a circumnavigation. But a homemade DIY wooden dodger will almost certainly reduce the value of the boat.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Terra Nova

On of my hard dodgers has done a circumnavigation. But a homemade DIY wooden dodger will almost certainly reduce the value of the boat.

Well, perhaps true, TN, but really, if after some years of enjoying the protection of his less-than-professional dodger he wishes to sell, and doesn't want the degradation of value, simply removing it will restore the value to whatever it would have been.

Jim

[Fore and Aft]

Check out the blog stay gold-across the pacific. They have a wooden dodger & the more I look at it the more it grows on me. Certainly practical.

[Emerald Sea]

Saw this growing in fb
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php...5658806&type=3