Hey WillieO. It sounds like you're past the point where this book can help much, but "Tidecraft; the boats of South Carolina, Georgia and Northeastern Florida, 1550-1950" by Fleetwood, isbn 0964251906 has some great dugout info. Its $45 retail, but you can get it via interlibrary loan, and it has a lot of detail on the woodchopping side of things. Many illustrations from the 1400-1600's of what kind of dugouts the Native American's were chopping. Then engravings and construction line drawings of the dugouts used by plantation owners in the 1700-1800's.

The Cajun Pirogue was a dugout, until sawmills made plank boards cheap and they built the same boat with boards. You could do worse than to follow those lines in making your boat. The dugout and pirogue are,,,,shall we say,,,,,somewhat lacking in stability! I've had some unplanned swims using mine. ;^)

There's several re-enacting web sites where some of the posters have built dugouts. http://blueheronmercantile.com/mb/ is available now just as an archive, and the threads of the other forums I frequent dealing specificly with dugouts have dropped off the edge.

PM me. Jeff Smith; or quicker, use ironmule@alltell.net so I don't have to remember to check my PM's