In my experience the best and strongest material to use is either aluminum or styrene tubing stuffed with wooden dowels. You will have to drill pilot holes...which will take a bit of patience. Then screw together with appropriate sized screws ( I got mine from the local Ace Hardware(ask the clerk for special sized screws) Here a a few pics.
ORIGINAL: Sharkbait8181
The only thing with this one. Is the towers fell apar in shipping. and no battery's.. Other than that this boat looks awesome.. lead rudders, brass props. twin astroflight motors. Futaba power driver(?), speed control, servo, riggers. All the stuff for the towers, just gotta put them back together, all the chairs, all the railings, windows, ect. it is a complete RTR minus batery's. Not to mention all the wood has been coated in resin. I mean this thing will never rot............ NOTHING LIKE THE OTHER ONE. only got a hull and part of a deck, and 2 dumas motors that dont work......
You cant tell by the pic to much. But i just painted the rear deck with anti-slip additive.. It looks very scale.