Done and Delivered!

And it is delivery day! Unfortunately the lake is frozen over and we cant put it in the water today. When spring comes I expect a grand launching...

Final Varnish

Ok here we go with the final coat of spar urethane. The shop is warm and things are drying well, even though I had to put a milk house heater underneath it to trap the warm air inside... It is a challenge to varnish at 50 degrees....
Just a couple final punch list things to do before delivery!

Seat Fittings

Now that the deck and gunnels are installed and sanded, its time to fit the seats and drill for the support bolts. The seats will have 3" risers to suspend the seats about 5" below the level of the gunnels. This will lower the center of gravity a bit and make the canoe just a touch more stable. It will also leave enough room to put your feet under the seat if you care to kneel and paddle.
The punch list is still pretty long but I hope to have a pre-xmas delivery date....

Decks on!

I now have the rough decks installed, glued and screwed in place. With small hand holds to ease lifting.  Next step is to round over all the edges, sand smooth and put on a protective coating of epoxy. The epoxy will also soak into any crack or crevasse and lock everything in place that I might have missed with my joinery.

Grab some thwart!

Ok, not much of a post today. I did manage to finish up the gunnels and carved out a thwart for the unfinished canoe. I ran into a source of 7/8" thick maple and used it to make a substantial, beautiful thwart. Of course it needs to be sanded.... everything needs to be sanded... sheesh!

The final punch list is still a mile long, but progress is being made....

Inwales

I was really worried that the hull of this canoe wasn't going to straighten out when I installed the inwales. When I started this project the hull came to me without the forms so the sides were pretty floppy. In fact it had some interesting waves along the side.

I used a 7/8 x 3/4 inch inwale to give a lot of rigidity to the hull and everything smoothed out nicely. Scuppers were cut at 4" wide by a 1/4" deep, about 8 to a side. Should have plenty of wood to hang the seats from.

Shop Improvement

I picked up this vintage radial arm saw, and let me tell you these babies take up quite a bit of room! But it provides reach and angles and accuracy not possible with my old chop saw. Next project with this saw it to cut scuppers on the in-wales for the unfinished canoe. I installed the old trusty dado blade set up at an inch and will nibble out 4" scuppers on a 12" centers the length of the in-wales with the exception of 32" on either end for tapers. Problem to be fixed was in-feed and out-feed tables at the height of the saw platform... sheesh nothing is ever easy! But I got it done and am ready to start cutting....

Smooooth

Its so smooth you can see it.....

Its fairing time

Finally have all of the strips placed and glued up for the show boat. Even the cheaters are done and awaiting a bit of trimming. Let the fairing process begin! First is a pass with a paint scraper who's blade has been sharpened, this takes off the glue drips and begins to smooth the surface. Next I take the block plane with the blade set pretty shallow, make multiple diagonal passes on the bottom and the sides, alternating the direction of cut. Once I am happy with the cuts, its on to the RO sander with 60 grit for the first of a dozen passes to give it the smooth....

Inside wet out

All fun and games here in the shop today. A good 2+ hours wetting out the 6oz fabric on the inside of the hull. Nothing is ever easy, I used the last drop at the very end. Time to order more epoxy.

Inside out

Its been awhile since the last post, but lets be frank here. Sanding is boorish, sanding is no fun, sanding looks the same on any photo and makes for pretty poor blogging. If you want to know, I did so much sanding on the inside of this project I had to take a few days off just to let my hands heal up a bit. But that is behind us now and am ready to move on to the interior fiberglass! I spread the cloth out this morning and will do the initial wet out sometime this week depending on temperatures. I need time to get the shop up to 70+ degrees to get a good flow and cure, then I let it cool off while the epoxy dries. This seems to compress any air bubbles and makes a tight layup.

Ready for epoxy

Bottoms up

The bottom stripping is going well up to this point. I was using extra strips from a previous build and only have 3 left. I will have to mill a half dozen more to finish up.

Centerline

This morning I managed to get a good looking center line installed on the 12 footer. I am at the point where I usually switch from placing strips on the outside in to the inside out. I kind of had a thought about doing a different pattern on the bottom, chevrons or diagonals or something.... have to see what happens.

Fill Coats Going Down

One project complete and the next one is underway. Fill coats on the unfinished are progressing nicely. Once it hardens then I can flip it over and start fairing the inside of the hull. You can see in the back ground another 12 footer is underway with the strips up to the waterline....

Test Run

Ok so I know these boats will float, how could they not? But given the opportunity to take one out for a test paddle is a no-brainier... so i took a 12 footer down to Lake Pelican and put it in the water. The wind was blowing off shore so the water looked calm. I had to stand on the painter line to keep the boat from being blown away as I snapped pictures like a fashion model....

I did paddle it for awhile, up and down the shoreline... it took a moment to get the feel of the boat and relaxed into the seat. There is a bit of rocker in the craft and using a single blade is a bit cumbersome. Using a double blade though really brings out the speed and maneuverability. Just a pleasure to paddle.

Side Job

Can a side job have a side job? Ok, so every once in a while I have to do some fixing up around the castle grounds. In this instance an entry step that I built over 10 years ago, decide that enough was enough. It even had the rudeness to collapse while the boss lady was using it... so to keep the peace, 9 boards and a couple hours... tada!!

Fixing the cracks

This is an interesting project, there are a number of cracks and splits in the hull of this canoe. The boat was taken off its forms before fiber glassing and put in storage for quite awhile. The cedar has dried out a bit and some of the seams have split. Sooooo how do you fix something like this?

The problem is how to squeeze the parts together to get the glue to stick and dry... here is the clever part. Superglue! By gluing down a couple of scrap pieces on either side of the split.

Once the glue is dry, I should be able to plane off the scraps and sand any blemishes out. So far so good, I'll keep you posted.

Another Begining

Take one out and start another one! Yes I do believe I have a problem... not enough space to build all of the canoes and kayaks I want.

So this build is going to be another 12' solo, narrow enough to use a double blade with a slatted chair instaid of the traditional seat. The different thing about this one is I am using scraps and leftover strips from the previous builds and will most likely paint the outside hull. Might even do some cool graphics on it as well.

Sunset over Pelican Lake

This is why we do it folks. A beautiful sunset over calm waters, the gentle breeze on your cheeks and the swish of a paddle making little swirls and dimples in the surface of the lake. A few bugs hum along and the birds sing their evening songs. The stress and tension of the day flow down through the paddle and into the water, a bottomless well that accepts those feelings with an indifference that calms and soothes.

Ready to roll

These two canoes are completely done and waiting for pickup. The other two for this order are so close to completion I can smell the varnish.

So here they stay until the others are ready to go... could be a week, could be less....

Final Coat

Ready for the final coat of varnish on #2 and #3. After 3+ coats, a final hand sanding and there you are. Its pretty exciting to see the project come to the delivery stage..

Lights are installed on #2 and working great. I think this is going to be standard on all of the larger canoes that I build. I have a simple switch and battery pack installed on the rear bulkhead.

The glow of fresh varnish!

Gunnels

Worked on installing the gunnels on the first of the twins. It went well this morning but some times I swear I need four extra fingers on one extra hand.

I am going to sneak this one down to the lake and try to determine the seat placement and center of gravity.

Unfinished

I was approached a couple months ago about a project that was never completed. This person's father started this canoe project some time ago, I'm not sure of the time line, but he passed away before he could finish it. When his children settled the estate they set aside some funds to finish the project so that they can enjoy this floating final memory of their father. 

As you can see from the photos, things are a bit rough but I am certain that we can make this boat shine like it was intended to. A few rookie mistakes were made but nothing that is not possible to smooth out and make solid. Fiberglass solves a lot of issues...

I will have to create some forms to bring the hull back into shape, then maple gunnels, black walnut seats and thwarts and decks should  make this project outstanding.

Canoe Seats Complete

If you are not into kneeling in a canoe then you need a place to sit. With me being hard pressed for time and wanting to finish the twins as soon as possible, I asked my neighbor to whip up a couple of seats for the twins. Because these are solo double bladed canoes what better way to paddle leisurely than with this?

Pointeee ends..

I used a method called stemless construction to build the twins. It saved me a little time and effort and has an attractive look as the strips interlock on each end. However, what to do with the pointy ends? They are extremely difficult to push fiberglass into without making a huge mess...

 


So I decided to do and end pour. Basically a cup of epoxy poured into the ends to hold it solid and give me a nice end to tuck the fiberglass into, also a solid block to drill through if I decide to connect a line through the end. Epoxy gets hot as it cures, and I was a little concerned about the wood, but it cooled off before spontaneous combustion could occur.

Inside Fairing

An hour..... one whole hour... that is how much time I spent with the 60 grit paper in my orbital sander to fair out and smooth one half of this canoe... I am starting to wonder just how many hours I can put on the RA sander before it goes into critical melt down....

On other projects..... this is the first attempt to make a caring yoke for canoe #2. Cut from a black walnut stump I had laying around.

Inside out

Yesterday we flipped the canoes and removed the forms from the inside... I am VERY happy at how the epoxy flattened out and the how little sanding I will have to do to the outside. Today I trimmed off the excess fiberglass and made the first pass with a paint scrapper on the inside. This helps to take out the glue drips, splinters and starts the fairing process. Right now I would estimate that the hulls weigh no more than 20 lbs...

Things are good enough that I think I can jump right in with 60 grit paper on my random orbital and give these babies the smooth..... another day of sanding.... oh well.....

Fiberglass and epoxy

Sanding is finally done and its time to move on to fiberglass and epoxy. You can see by the mat finish that the glass is in place and the first coat of epoxy has wet out the glass. With the two canoes it was about a 6 hour process from start to finish.

Next comes two fill coats of epoxy that, as it says, fills the weave of the glass and buries it a bit so that we can sand and smooth before the final varnish goes on.

Now its starting to look pretty shinny.... but we are not done yet! One more fill coat to go then we can flip them over, pull out the forms and start this process again.

Scraping, Planing, Sanding

Now that the canoes have complete hulls, the next step is fairing. This is a process of scraping, planing and sanding all the little ridges and bumps out of the strips to give us a nice smooth surface for the fiberglass to stick to.

The simple tools I use for this process are simple indeed. A paint scraper takes all of the glue drips off and some of the real rough edges. One side of the scraper is sharpened flat and the other side is sharpened with a convex curve to fit inside the hull. A low angle block plane is then used at an angle across the strips to level them and give us a nice smooth surface. This will take care of the majority of problems and makes a lot of cedar curls.

And then its time for the random orbital sander, starting with 60-80 grit paper to finish grinding smooth an then a final sanding with 120 grit to remove the last of the scratches.

This is also the best part of the building process to really get a chance to know the canoe, because it is a canoe now, no longer a pile of strips or empty forms. With each wisk, wisk, wisk of the plane you are in constant contact with the boat. You feel for ridges, check for smooth. Your fingers explore all of the joints, what your eyes can't see, your fingers will expose. As you smooth and shape you get a feeling for what the final hardware and rigging should look like, what materials should be used... call me crazy but it talks to you, tells you who it is and what it wants to be... 

Closure

Hay folks, we have closure at last! The hulls are complete on the two solo canoes. Next step is to spend the day fairing the hulls in anticipation of fiberglass!

bottom view

I just love this picture, it shows the strip construction on the bottom of one of the double bladed, solo canoes i am working on. Just a little further to go before we can do fiberglass and epoxy.
Its nice to see the progress. Still in rough form, soon will be lots of sanding, fairing and smoothing of the hull. The joints look pretty tight although i might have to fill a crack or two.

Today's Progress

Each strip adds another 3/4 inch to the bottom, the hole is getting smaller and smaller.... wont be long before it is complete!

Strips, strips and more strips

So here we go... the shop has been humming with all of the strips that have been going on. We are have turned the corner and are quickly advancing on that ever elusive "whiskey strip"

Once again this is a time lapse video... do try to stay awake...

Twins!

please read the following with the voice of the "Count" from Sesame Street...

I see TWO, TWO CANOES! ah hahahahahah!

Inwales

Here we are gluing on the in-wale spacers with epoxy. These will have another piece of maple glued on the inside portion to create the entire in-wale. Once its all in place, screws will be put in from the outside to reinforce the whole construction. Would hate to have it pop off at some critical point.

I don't have enough clamps to do both sides at once... have to put more clamps on my x-mas list...

Rough Lumber

Here is a pretty neat deal... I purchased an Alaskan saw mill attachment for my 20" chainsaw. Finally had time to set it up and install the ripping chain I bought from the local saw shop. After carefully reading all of the directions and safety information I managed to make a few black walnut planks. These will be used for the front and rear decks on the canoes along with accents and spacers...

Turned out pretty cool....

Glass Wetout

Finished the wetout on the inside of the canoe yesterday... here is a most boring video of a time lapse I did to see how the trail cam would work in the shop...

Shop Setup

The next two canoes will be 12 feet in length. I think it will speed things up a bit if I use two sets of forms and strong backs.

 

The design for these 12 footers are for a double bladed solo, with a couple design features from a two different craft. I am combining a more pronounced tumblehome with a two inch increase in width. This should add a touch more initial stability and a flare of style. Next step is form lofting and cutout... stay tuned for more adventures in canoe building...