The first thing to settle is if you actually need a HIN. Some states don't require a small homebuilt unpowered boat to have one.

Laszlo

From what I understand the state of Ohio requires pretty much every boat to be registered. I have a canoe that I had to pay to be registered. I guess my main question is how early in the process can I obtain a HIN? Maybe i should just call the ODNR and ask them.

Ah yes, Ohio, one of the most annoying states when it comes to registering homebuilt boats. Here's a link to their HIN requirements page which has this to say about that:

Homemade Boats/Older Boats
Owners of boats built prior to Nov. 1, 1972 that do not already have a HIN, and builders of homemade boats, canoes, or kayaks, must contact a Watercraft office. An appointment with a Watercraft Officer may be necessary to inspect the boat before a HIN may be assigned.

So on the face of it, it seems that your boat must be finished before the HIN is assigned. Keep in mind that you can leave the transom in its epoxy underwear, get the inspection since it's structurally complete and then finish the transom after applying the HIN.

Here's their picture for where the HIN should go:

I wonder what they'll make of a dory transom.

Be aware that one of the big motives for all this bureaucracy is to make sure that Ohio gets as much of your money off this deal as possible. If you're building from plans, hang onto your receipts. You'll need them to prove that you paid sales tax on the materials. Otherwise the inspector will assign a value and you'll pay sales tax on that. There's also a 5.75% excise tax in addition to the registration fee. That fee, by the way, is cheaper for rowboats than sailboats, so if you complete your hull and get it inspected before you even start your mast, rudder, daggerboard, etc., you might be able to convince the inspector that it's a only a rowboat. I'm not responsible for the results if you try this.

Laszlo

Yeah, I live in Ohio.  Laszlo has hit the proverbial nail on its proverbial head.

I built our Passagemaker from a kit, so the HIN was supplied by CLC and I didn't have to jump through all those hoops to get the boat registered.  Friends of mine who've built boats from scratch have remarked that the process was not as onerous as it sounds, and the boys and girls at ODNR want to get your boat registered so they can (1) justify their existence and (2) start colleting your registration fees, a big chunk of their revenue which, in my experience, they spend very wisely.

I bought a set of alphanumeric imprint punches (cheap at Harbor Freight) for stamping the HIN into the wood.

.....Michael

Thank you for the responses. That was pretty much what my conclusion was as well after looking at the ODNR website. I really wanted to stamp or burn it into the transom, but I suppose I'll have to bury something in epoxy instead.

For my Waterlust's HIN I conceived the idea to have a custom rubberstamp made, cost me about $12. From this I made an epoxy 'casting' that I then backed up with fiberglass cloth & epoxy, then bedded this casting in epoxy set into a milled recess in the sheerstrake just beneath the rubrail on the starboard stern side. Fairly involved process but worth it for the 'professional' appearance of the results.

Here's a link to a photo (on another forum) showing what the process wrought once completed:

[img]https://forum.fyneboatkits.co.uk/img/members/25548/Finished_HIN.jpg[/img]

Once the hull was painted the appearance was entirely satisfactory for the relatively minor effort involved.