Dear Uncle John,
       Here’s my 12 foot jon boat built with your plans!  I’ll tell the story and reference the pictures.  I bought everything for the boat at Home Depot, Lowe’s, Wal-Mart and West Marine.

       I printed out the plans and put the pages in a binder, with a print of your home page on the cover of my binder. 
but when you look over my shoulder you see what I’m really reading!

cutting out a side board

 
cutting the bow tapers. 

A close up of the rabbet joint for one of the side boards.
I cut a 3 inch rabbet in each piece and used an exterior construction glue to glue them up.

My son and I sitting in the completed upper hull (no bottom) and it is now really looking like a real boat!

 
Cutting the rabbet and gluing the bottom pieces together.  I cut 4 inch rabbets for the bottom.      

Bottom installed and fiber glassing  the exterior side of the seams.

Sea trials and the first time I threw it in the water.  This was when I found all the leaks so I could seal them before painting.  I applied two coats of Kilz 2 primer/sealer and painted it Laurentian green.  The paint is Glidden flat exterior latex house paint, available at Home Depot, and chose it because it looks like “Jon boat green” color that commercial boat manufacturers paint their aluminum boats.

the maiden voyage of the Heche A Mano (Spanish for Made by Hand).
 

The boat is light enough that I can load it and launch it by myself, exactly what I wanted!
I now have a transom dolly and roll it around where ever I need to move it.
That saves the paint job on the bottom.

shows the boat with its seat installed and

The pedestals without seats.  The flanges on the pedestals are 7 inches on a side.  I cut out base plates from ¾ inch plywood, 14 inches on a side and centered the pedestal  flange on the base plate securing it with size 10 x 1 inch hex head wood screws.  I used your bench seat placement measurements to place the pedestals.  The rear side of the rear pedestal is about 25 ½ inches forward of the base of the transom.  The rear side of the front pedestal is 41 ½ inches forward of the front side of the rear pedestal. 

A dear brother at church gave me a trolling motor, a Minn Kota Endura 50, and it pushes my boat around just fine!

Installing the motor, working it while fishing and motoring up a local creek.