Build-A-Bear, mountain-style canoe

[podunk]

I just built a 15' Prospector Ranger from Bear Mtn. I lofted all the dimensions out of the book "Canoe Craft" and there is some cheekiness in that area. If your building with staples it won't give you any problems holding it to the form. I did mine stapleless using the fishing line method (no holes) and it was sometimes a challenge to keep the strips tight to the forms. That's half the fun!

[Fitz]

That's the problem with canoes. You can't have just one. They are like golf clubs where you need the exact right one for the job. You need your trippin' canoes, your solo canoe, your "courtin'" canoes, your really special really old canoe, the kayak for the wife, the various canoes you are fixin' for friends, the inherited canoe, the canoe for the kids, and then all of these forementioned canoes come in various sizes...it is just never ending. 'Course none of them are plastic.

The supa dupa rack holds eight, and then there are various relicts all over the place.

[thedutchtouch]

although it seems that the form is the right size based on the previous replies- you could "fix" it by simply bending a strip of the appropriate thickness around the form and fastening it in place- wood glue/epoxy/whatever holds it there (or perhaps you'd rather just cut a new one i dunno)

[switters]

I just built a 15' Prospector Ranger from Bear Mtn. I lofted all the dimensions out of the book "Canoe Craft" and there is some cheekiness in that area. If your building with staples it won't give you any problems holding it to the form. I did mine stapleless using the fishing line method (no holes) and it was sometimes a challenge to keep the strips tight to the forms. That's half the fun!

please post pictures, esp any construction pictures you would like to share and any tips with the fishing line. I'm getting a strong back ready and have bee giving some thought to that method.

Thanks.

[Sailor]

If you take a look at my redbird progress thread, there are a number of photos of how I built mine stapleless. If you have any questions about something in particular with how I put the boat together without staples I'll do my best to explain and see if I have a photo to demonstrate clearly what you're asking and what I'm talking about with my answer. This project is fun. Enjoy it. I am.

[podunk]

Switters,
I am a little technically challenged with the pictures but I will say I thought the fishing line method worked well for me. I stapled the strip on the stem and then wound 10 lb test around it down the length of the canoe, wrapping it around screws placed inside the forms, tying off and stapling to the other stem. works great on the sides, gets a little tricky at the bilge and football area. I did have to put a few staples in this area. Pros are you can put alot of strips on in one session, 7-8 per side. cons are it gets difficult in the football area. I used some bugee cords, weights and other apparatus as needed to keep the strips down on the bottom. I did have to use some staples though. Bear Mountain Boats has a good forum and searching it you should be able to find some pictures. The first strip on each side gets stapled as it will get covered by gunwales. After that you can make some real progress.

[MoMan]

So now that I feel more confident about my station mold positions, it is full steam ahead with shaping the stems. I drew my center line, clamped the first inner stem onto the mold and started making wood curls. Then, as I re-read my plans one evening, I got a funny feeling and went out to the garage to have a second look. Sure enough, ...

Andy had already figured it out:

My bigger problem is that I'd already started carving, so drawing accurate reference lines based on the edge would now be impossible. Just then, Andy earned his keep:


Since most of the stem's edge was intact, Andy's solution worked great. I drew the reference lines and went back to carving. Brilliant!



I got a lot of help from the Stanley brothers.


I have to say, I'm not in love with the spokeshave, probably for a couple of reasons. First, I'm a total novice, so I'm probably not not using it right, and second, using it to carve the stem while it is clamped onto the mold is awkward: I have to crouch down below the stem and pull the spokeshave down. Anyway, I much preferred the low angle block plane, especially after I honed the iron and waxed the sole.

I was hoping to router my bead and cove edges today, but because of the lengths, I have to open the garage door and it rained all day today. Perhaps tomorrow, since I have MLK day off.

[floatingkiwi]

Andy is actually pretty cool looking mate. Did you make him?

Spokeshaves are different shapes for different surfaces one in working on. Flat, curved and curved every way on concave faces usually, where a plane spans the area, making them useless.. There is a feel to them as to where the weight works right for sure. But then you already know this , right?

[P.L.Lenihan]

using it to carve the stem while it is clamped onto the mold is awkward: I have to crouch down below the stem and pull the spokeshave down.

In time, you'll come to appreciate Andy even more if you would just let him handle those tight and difficult spots. God knows Simon has earned his keep ten fold by always doing the tight and gritty work for me since I'm too big an oaf to get into small tight spaces and places. Mind you, if Simon is busy and I just have to get-in-there-and-do-it, I usually fortify myself with some bleu medicine until the pain goes away and I begin feeling like a super-hero. Never failed me yet!

Continued progress and success Mike!!


Cheers!


Peter

[MoMan]

OK, so it's minimal progress, but that's better than no progress at all, right?? Mid afternoon on MLK day (Martin Luther King's b-day, a national U.S. holiday), the sky finally cleared, so I dragged my lumber out onto the deck to sort it.





I ended up with three piles: dark, medium and light. Now for the moral question: Is it bad that I segregated my lumber according to color on MLK day? I swear I'm not a racist! Just ask my co-workers!!

[Sailor]

It's ok, if anyone asks you can say it's that annoying kid Andy from down the street that did it.

[MoMan]

CRAP!!

I really hate being the new guy/plebe/virgin/idiot. Today, the Houston weather really cooperated: 70 degrees F, mostly sunny, decent breeze. After an extensive set up, I had the garage door open and spent the entire day running my strips through the router table to cut the bead first, then the cove. It felt great to finally be making some progress! By 3:00, I was finished and getting pretty tired, so I shot off the router and the dust collector and settled onto the deck with a beer to study my Canoe Craft book to prepare for the next step. That's where it hit me: The strips are supposed to be 3/4" Don't ask me why I thought they were supposed to be 3" wide.

Now, this is not meant to be an excuse, but rather a partial explanation: I started machining my lumber a year ago according to Randy Folsom's book. But that doesn't really explain everything either: he recommends a 5/8"width to cut down on sanding.

[sigh] Looks like I got a lot more machining ahead of me than I thought ...

[Fitz]

MoMan, this issue has bothered me some too. I am not sure why you could not get by with wider strips and cut down on some of the glueing and stuff later. I am used to wood and canvas canoes with 2 to 4 inch wide planks and it seems to me one could get by quite well with wider strips. Especially, when I was turning good wood to saw/planer dust getting to 3/4 inch.

I appeal to the stripper guys on the forum. Let us know what is too wide and why.

Fitz.

[Todd Bradshaw]

In some places, it could be done if you really wanted to. Remember though, that when you plank a wood/canvas boat, you have tacks into every rib and the ribs are pretty close together, connecting the planks to cross-grained support under them. It would be tough to force 3" wide strips into a cross-section that's not just flat when your forms are spread apart so far. Once the staples or clamps came off, there wouldn't be anything holding the plank-strips into shape except the glued edges - nothing cross-grained. I suspect the design might take on a whole new personality at that point. You could certainly use wide strips in some spots on the bottom and upper sides of a lot of designs, but you had better have narrow ones in the curve of the bilge and other shape-y places. Plus, narrow strips make it easier for us to inlay images of bunnies, beaver, elk and other woodland creatures into our strip patterns.

[Canoez]

Before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, I'm talking about canoe strips here...

Well, there's strips that are too wide and strips that are too narrow. Generally, (and I'm really generalizing here...) 1/4" thick by 3/4" wide are what are recommended, available for purchase and what we use. There are a few factors that come into play - the wood you're using, the grain direction of the strips, thickness of the strips and the shape of the boat.

I've found that small canoes and canoes with lots of change in shape benefit from the narrow strips - the wider the strips get, the harder they are to both twist and bend. If the wood you are using is Western Red, it is brittle and the risk of breaking a wider strip as you are twisting and bending is greater. If you're dealing with a longer canoe, the transition is more gradual and a wider strip might be fine - say 7/8" or so. We did recently do a Wee Lassie II with 1" wide strips from the gunwale to the turn of the bilge and then went to 3/4" wide strips on the bottom as the 1" ones were difficult to get to flex on the bottom. Another problem is that if your strips are wide, so are the "facets" and you will be thinning out the hull more as you fair it. Because our strips are on a relatively flat part of the hull, we're not worried about thinning out as we fair the hull before glassing.

If your strips are too narrow - about 5/8" or less, you are just going to do a heck of a lot of stripping - lots and lots. They will deal with bend and twist a bit more easily than the wider strips and fairing will be easier.

Fitz - you've got to keep in mind that planking the hull of a cedar and canvas boat, the planking is much thinner - 5/32" or so, you're tacking it down and if it is balky, using a swab with hot water to get it to flex. Also, planking is very often White Cedar which flexes more easily and is less brittle. That's why you get away with the wider stock on a cedar and canvas boat.

One other note that I'll make here is that the WRC stock that we have available in our area is that it is either 1" S4S, (Which is more like 5/8" than the 3/4" it is supposed to be) 4/4" S3S ( 3/4-7/8" thick with one rough face depending on the source) or 5/4 S4S (mostly a full inch thick - and yeah, it is tough to plane that stock to the thickness you want before use - it ain't cheap!)

[Fitz]

Thanks guys. I didn't mean to imply that I was thinking 2 to 4 inch strips, but I was seriously considering 7/8's.

MoMan - sorry not to notice the width of your strips sooner. You needed that little helper in the pic for scale and it may have jumped out at us.

[MoMan]

Yeah, stoopid rookie mistake. Fortunately, cutting a board too wide is much preferable to cutting it too narrow or too short, so it's not an unmitigated disaster; just a little setback. I was really hoping to start planking this week, but now I've got to reconfigure my whole infeed/outfeed setup: Those 5/8" (or 3/4") strips are going to be about as stiff as cooked spaghetti. I guess my first step will be to trim off the delicate cove, then bust out the narrow kerf rip blade.

Since I see there are some experienced builders peeking in on my thread, let me ask some rookie scarfing questions: This boat is 16', and my lumber is all 12', which means virtually all strips below the shear line will be scarfed. With 1/4" thick strips, I'm assuming the scarf will have to be end grain-to-end grain (as opposed across the face like you would for something like 3/4" plywood). Will a 45-degree cut give enough gluing surface? I realize that the planking doesn't provide any of the strength for the boat, but the scarfs will have to hold together until the epoxy gets applied. And my second question: is it better to place the scarfs at the molds? Or in the fields (i.e. between the molds)?

Thanks for taking the time to educate me!

--M

[Popol]

Hey MoMan,

Nice job.

Keep up the spirit.

Best regards,
Paul

[Bert Langley]

Most strippers are built with butt joints and not scarfed at all. Better to do it between the molds and stagger them (more for aesthetics than strength). Butt joints can be done so that you really have to look close to see them. Of course you need to pay attention to wood color.

I just got through stripping a 15' Hiawatha (Used the offsets from Canoecraft). I used full one inch wide strips resulting in a savings of around 16 strips for the boat. I don't think I would like to try to use wider. Since I build almost exclusively in Tulip Poplar I was able to find clear 16' boards so I was able to use full-length strips for the whole boat. It did save time not having to join strips as I went. Plus Tulip Poplar is much less brittle then WRC and at least in our area less than a third the cost.

[Canoez]

You can use either butt or scarf joints, although the scarf joints will add to your work. Since you are using bead and cove, it should be a bit easier - the cove and bead will lock the end of the strip into position and you just continue to build.

If you bevel strips by hand, you'll need to take a little more care to put something clamped over the butt joint where the strips meet to keep the strip in place. This can be done by putting the joint at a form and stapling both ends to the forms. (Note - this can cause the ends to split!) Alternatively, you can to it as Bert mentions between the forms and then clamp a tape-coated strip over inside and out (until the glue dries...) so that there isn't an abrupt change in direction at the butt joint.

It is also possible to scarf and glue the strip's scarf joints off the hull before applying them to the canoe, but you'll want to stagger them along the length of the canoe as was noted above.

When picking strips to be butted together or scarfed, I think it looks best if you pay attention to grain and color to match them well - helps hide the scarf. (Purely aesthetic and my opinion only) A damp cloth will help show grain and color of the strips to help you choose.

[Sailor]

I found boards at a specialty store that were longer than the 18 foot hull I built, probably around 20 or 21 foot planks. Ripped them and milled them myself. I would consider in your position, to make up some sort of design on the ends using the different colours you have available and use that to hide the but joints. You can cut them on angles so they look like scarphs and make different designs. It'll look way cool and you'll be able to say "Yeah, I did that!".

[Canoez]

Sailor has a good point here, actually. I had a student who only found short pieces of the wood he wanted to use (Sassafrass...) One of the options was to scarf them all, the other option was to use the short strips to his advantage to create a design on the bow of the canoe on both sides with contrasting wood.

[P.L.Lenihan]

Alrighty, where the heck is Andy and what the blazes has he done to MoMan?! Is it too cold down there Mike or have ya run out of some of that there Texas thinkin' juice?! Summers just around the corner............somewhere........you folks must have BIG corners!


Cheers!


Peter

[MoMan]

WELL Welll well well well. I suppose it's time for a little update. Despite my lack of WBF updates, I actually have been working on stuff ... OK i've spent more time thinkin' on things than I've spent workin' on things, but that's all water under the bridge at this point, so on with it already!!

My first task was to strip off my last mistake: run all the planks thru the table saw to remove my prematurely machined bead.

Next, re-rip my too-wide boards down to the appropriate 3/4-ish width.

After that, take an undeserved snowboard vacation, return to a chilly, actually-freezing gulf-coast city and procrastinate for a week, then start the real machining.




Yes, I spent the last 2 days running my strips thru the router. I figure I have between 130 and 150 strips--mostly 12 feet long. I also have some shorter accent strips( pine and mahogany). If you wanna submit a guess, I'm offering a baggie full of unidentified sawdust as a reward for the most accurate answer.

I know you'll feel tempted to feel sorry for me, and I can't blame you because a couple of my fingertips are really raw, but I do realize that the vast majority of the work lays ahead of me.

P.S.--as soon as I feel up to it, I'll update you on Andy's latest escapade. I'm not happy.

[P.L.Lenihan]

I'm not happy.

Hi Mike,
Lots of good work done there and I think I have found the reason why you are not happy......................








your signature line,"I hate fun"



Cheers!


Peter

[JimConlin]

The planking stage is great fun. Really!

[Sailor]

You see the shape start to come to life. It's awesome. Though, glassing brings out the colour and that's cool too. And who can forget taking it off the molds? There's a milestone then there's...... Never mind. Planking's fun!

[MoMan]

So, you go outta town for a day or two and the whole shop falls apart. When I got back from vacation, it was clear that Andy had gotten into the wood alcohol and invited the neighborhood over for a party. Here are a few scenes downloaded from the security cams:





... and it didn't end there ...

[MoMan]

... Andy's wood alcohol adventures, continued ...



Thank God my nosy neighbor heard the commotion and called up the retired General Warning!


... and when I got home, the juvenile was delinquent and was doing a little Mike's Hard Time!


But I have made a little progress since cleaning up Andy's mess!!

[Sailor]

LOL, you waste even more time than Tenner. If going by his time wasting versus productivity graph, you should be done your whole build by next month. He seems to waste plenty of time yet still manages to make lots of sawdust hence lots of progress. If you waste even more time, you should make even more sawdust and even more progress right?

[MoMan]

I spent all last weekend machining the bead & cove edges and was determined to start planking this weekend. I thought about the project all week and made a couple of significant decisions: First is glue. I was really intrigued by what Todd Bradshaw had to say about Weldwood plastic resin powder glue (in Fitz’s Nymph canoe thread). I found a 1lb. container at a little Houston hardware store that seems to carry EVERYTHING (Southland Hardware) as opposed to the other stores that carry only the standard fare.
So I did some experimenting and for the most part, I really like it. I like the way that it blends in with my western red cedar, I like the way that it sands (Titebond does tend to gum up), and I like that I can vary the batch for filling gaps vs. adhesion. I’m not crazy about clean up. The little glue brushes I use don’t wash out easily with water like they do w/ Titebond. But the brushes are cheap, so I’ll live with it.






My second big decision is to use staples. As Fitz said, it’s a canoe, not a piano. And considering this is my first boat-type project, this canoe will be riddled with mistakes, so who am I kidding?

I fretted quite a bit about the first strip, mostly because it wasn’t one strip, but two: As I’ve mentioned before, my strips are all 12 feet max, and my canoe is 16, so virtually every plank will have a joint. I call it a scarf, but these will all be butt joints. Again, there’s no point in me trying to dress up and hide these joints.





So I got the first one stapled on, one on each side.



Then came the real commitment: gluing on the second strip. But it went as well as I could expect and I successfully proceeded with a third strip on each side, and that’s where it stands tonight. I’m pretty excited to reach this little milestone. I know--my milestones, like my gronicles, are very small!





So the fun continues!! ( oh wait, I hate fun).

[MoMan]

LOL, you waste even more time than Tenner. If going by his time wasting versus productivity graph, you should be done your whole build by next month. He seems to waste plenty of time yet still manages to make lots of sawdust hence lots of progress. If you waste even more time, you should make even more sawdust and even more progress right?

To be perfectly honest, the canoe is just an excuse I use to justify garage time to my wife. I have to show some fractional progress once in a while or she gets suspicious!

[Fitz]

Woo Hoo! Nice progress.

Man, I thought cats in the shop were bad, but you have a party goin' on!

I manage about 3 or 4 strips a session. I am within about a dozen of buttoning up the hull. I should be dealing with the bottom and trimming to the centerline soon.

If you have not found canoez's blog already, here it is.

http://canoez.blogspot.com/

Lots of helpful tips imbedded there.

[Terry Haines]

To be perfectly honest, the canoe is just an excuse I use to justify garage time to my wife. I have to show some fractional progress once in a while or she gets suspicious!

- same with mine: I wanted to hire a professional stripper to help with my canoe but she said no way! At least you got Andy ...

[MoMan]

So I’m still making progress planking, at a snail’s pace. But that’s not why I’m posting tonight. I’ve reached the point where I think I am ready to install an accent stripe, and I need advice/opinions. So far, I haven’t found much in the way of instructions on accent strips (Canoecraft, InterWeb, etc.), so I’m turning to you.

I started with the idea of an arrow design, like so:


(note: these are scrap pieces for experimentation purposes. Actual pieces will be white pine and mahogany) But clearly, I would need to build some sort of jig because my lame attempts didn’t line up well:


I decided to dumb it down to my level of skill, and simply cut 6” strips at 30-degree angles:



I experimented cutting them on the bandsaw, the table saw, and finally, the compound miter saw, which seemed to work best because I could cut several at a time.


My plan is, after cutting all the pieces (which will be white pine and mahogany), I will lay down a bead of glue, drop in each piece and slather each end w/ glue, then quickly follow with another strip above to lock the smaller strips in place. Is this how it’s done? Am I missing something important?

Here’s my other question(s): Will this look stupid? Is this in an appropriate location? Right now the strip would appear about 8” above the waterline at station 0, and about 14” above the waterline at station 6. (the waterline is the light blue line under the clamp)


Opinions? Criticism? Ridicule? I'm open to suggestions. Thanks!

--Mike

[Sailor]

Be very careful about where you place your accent strip. If you look at my thread, redbird progress i think it's called, probably at the bottom of page 2 or 3 by now, So much for progress, you'll see where I placed my accent stripe. I look at it now and think if I could redo it, I'd place it one strip lower,or closer to the sheerstrake. I may reassess that judgement once I have the outwales on and the boat closer to completion but I think my accent stripe might be one strake too low on the upright boat. Be sure you take into consideration the fact that you'll have outwales on covering the first and at least part if not most of the second strake at the 0 stn mold location. None of this is critical. The boat will obviously still float but it's the aesthetics you're after and really that's one of the reasons we do this right? Give it some time to sort it's self out in your head, plan it well and then think abit more. Then go ahead and don't worry if it doesn't come out right. It's not a piano right?

[Woxbox]

A repeating geometric pattern can look really sharp, but I think you'd want to put some time in with a graphics program of one kind or another to work it out. Here area couple of examples:



In place of that duck, you might just want to shave down that annoying little helper of yours and glue him in there for all times sake.

[Canoez]

Well, here's a few bits of light reading for you... This, this, this this, this, and finally this.



There are two major ways of making feature strips. Because you are cove-and-beading your strips, one way is to build it up from pieces of cove-and-bead stock of various colors and widths. If you do this, you'll need to make two symmetrical strips on the boat. Alternatively, you can glue up a feature strip from solid stock that is about 3/4-7/8" thick and a maximum of about 1-1/2 to 2" tall (Depends on hull shape and length - the wider the feature strip the more difficult it is to get it to lay against the curved shape of the forms and to twist it into shape - if too wide, you can get bad "flat spots".) Once you've got the feature strip assembly that is 3/4" wide, 1-1/2" tall and a bit longer than the hull, you rip it to get two strips and mold it with cove and bead features to match your stock. Be aware as you build the assembly, you will lose a portion of the "face" to the bead cut - you will need to allow for this to avoid an asymetrical feature strip.

The arrow detail is neat, but don't make it from a single strip - make it from two - just with mirror cut bevels. Works like a charm.

I'd use basswood or very blond poplar instead of the white pine - while the white pine will work, if you choose to use it look carefully for pitch pockets and avoid them. Instead of mahogany, we use Spanish cedar - it looks a lot like mahogany in grain and color, is a bit lighter and cheaper and is a bit softer. If you put hard wood (I avoid saying 'hardwood' - basswood and poplar are technically hardwood) next to soft woods, the softwood will sand away more quickly during the fairing process and can leave low spots adjacent to the hardwood. look for colors and contrasts that will really "pop" when glassed. Oh, and don't put the feature strip so close to the sheer that it will be shadowed or hidden by the gunwales when applied.

[Canoez]

In place of that duck, you might just want to shave down that annoying little helper of yours and glue him in there for all times sake.

. .

[Popol]

Hello Mike,

I found this on a Dutch forum and had it translated by Google Translate ;-)

Hope it helps,
Paul
--------------------------------------------------------
Wood inlay’s

Your canoe or kayak with a wooden inlay is a labour intensive job but gives a very satisfied feeling once it is ready. It is definitely worth the extra time to spend. Whether you're making a simple or more complicated inlay, it is and remains an eye-catcher.
There are several ways to make an inlay each with their own specific characteristics. I will describe below the 3 most usual inlay's all that I've applied in the construction of my Voyager;

Inlay during construction
Inlay during construction is by far the simplest and least labor intensive inlay. It is the inlay that you create during the building of the hull. The disadvantage of this inlay is that it must be a relatively simple figure and can be applied only to the wood-strip method.
In this method, you simply create a part of the wood-strips of another wood type (color), which gives you a kind of striping that gets into the side or bottom of the canoe. Remember or find a picture that you want to apply as inlay.
Do this before you start your Canoe and note that the seams where the different wood types (colors) comes together have an angle of between 15 ° and 45 ° otherwise the weld joint is too weak. An inlay of more than 4 slats is very busy. The best part is between 2 and 4 slats.
Draw the picture on paper (scale 1: 1). Find a few attractive contrasting wood species for the inlay. Saw all components. Create a saw mal, so that the oblique angles are exactly the same (Photo 01 and 02). Glue the parts to each other so that you get back a complete "woods trip". If you have already finished your strong back, this is an ideal work bench (Photo 3). Foresee the new trips of a woods hole and a scoop. This can be done simultaneously with the milling of the normal woods trips.
Please note that at the planking of the fuselage that you begin on time to your inlay. Not too soon because then might runs later the gunwale by the inlay, and not too late for then is the inlay (partly) under water. You can scour the inlay along with the rest of the hull (photo 04).


Inlay afterwards
Inlay afterwards is a slightly more complicated inlay. The inlay or a in which the figure is inconsistent with the wood strips, can you identify this retrofitting. The inlay remains, as with the previous inlay, to both the outside and the inside visible. It goes without saying that this inlay takes more time and that there is still work to be more accurate. All in all, it is with a bit of patience to do good.
Search again a picture from which you want to use for the inlay. In my Voyager I opted for a compass rose. Drawing the picture on paper (scale 1: 1) Search a few beautiful contrasting wood species for the inlay and sawing the wood for the picture on thickness. Saw the wood 1-2 mm thicker than the wall thickness of the canoe.
Create the figure separately from the canoe and make it ready. When sawing the components use as much as possible saw malls, so that the different angles/forms are identical (Photo photo 05 and 06).
After the hull of the canoe is completely close (all woods trips are made), draw the figure on the hull (photo 07).
Now comes the most critical moment: saw the picture in the fuselage. Let the signed lines. Barn, file, plug the hole further tailor the image until it fits exactly into the hole. Take your time. A large opening gives afterwards an ugly seam (Photo 08).
Now glue the picture in the hole and let it dry thoroughly. Make sure that the figure to both the inside and outside stick a bit out so that you can still scour (photo 09). After sanding the inlay is ready.
The epoxy makes the whole thing again firmly (Photo 10).
Unilateral inlay
To create a inlay f.i. "text", "a Dolphin", "an eagle" etc. in the canoe that the best you can do so at their own discretion. You can download the inlay than just on the outside. With this method, you can insert the most beautiful pictures. It goes without saying that it is very labour intensive and you very accurate. In my Voyager I laid on both sides of the bow an Indians head.

· Search (eg on Internet) again a figure (picture) what you want to create as inlay. How detailed the figure, the harder you make it yourself.
Identify where you are going to use wood and cut them in strips about 3 mm thick and less than the width of the woods trips.
Sand off the hull smooth.
· SRI carbon paper drawing the figure on the hull of the canoe. You can best do if the kayak is upside down on the mold is. But watch out that you also figure on its head (photo 11 and photo 12).
· Cutter now with a small side cutter (I used a Makita 3707F) part of the figure out what should get the same color (2 mm deep). In my example I have all milled out what "red" should be (photo 13).
· Glue a piece of transparent paper (tracing paper) on the drawing on the trunk and take this to the milled portion of the figure and on the seams of all trips Woods (photo 14).
· Draw with the lime-drawing each slat and cut it off carefully with a jigsaw. Unclean, files, etc. to fit exactly right.
· Glue the lath made in the hull. Possibly slightly terminals. When the glue is aangedroogd make the next piece ready etc. etc. (photo 15).
· When all pieces are made to shed up this part of the "inlay" smooth with the hull.
· Paste again drawing on the body and draw the next part of the back inlay on the body using carbon paper.
· With a new piece of paper, chalk this area including the seams of the woods take on trips.
· Cutter now this part and fill it back in the same way with the following type of wood (photo 16 and photo 17).
· Repeat depending on the complexity of the figure until it is completely filled.
· The inlay is ready (photo 18).

A few general tips;

· If necessary to test piece if you're unsure whether it will succeed.
· Always use sharp tools and which avoids a lot of disappointments.
· Make sure you are well prepared before you start, so you do not find out halfway through that something is impossible. Then it may be too late.

See remaining pics in following posts.

Regards,
Paul

[MoMan]

In place of that duck, you might just want to shave down that annoying little helper of yours and glue him in there for all times sake.

Thanks Wox--I like the way you think! I did try out your suggestion this evening, but I'm sorry to say it looks AWFUL!


Now, the good news: The best part about having a Neanderthal-sized brain is you get more "a-ha" moments, which are like candy for my ego. Looking over suggestions from Wox Box and Paul, plus looking at the Bear Mountain boat store while pretending to work, something smacked me right in the forehead. I believe it is called "logic."

By stacking my 30-degree-cut pieces on top of one another, the two pieces together form, you guessed it, an arrow! So my new plan is now my old plan, assuming I have enough mahogany and pine pieces to pull this off.

Here, you can see my initial attempt on a single strip (top)




Onward and upward. Or in my case, sideward.

[Sailor]

Love the Pillory.

[Old Dryfoot]

[MoMan]

Well, here's a few bits of light reading for you... This, this, this this, this, and finally this.

Thank you SO much Canoez! That was exactly the info I'd been searching for. I guess I didn't read your post until this morning, after I'd made the discovery about using two strips to make the arrow. Looks like I may have to make a trip to the lumber store for some basswood and peruvian walnut tomorrow. I was hoping the mahogany would be soft enough. From your blog posts (all of which I've just finished reading), it sounds like you recommend assembling my butt-jointed arrows off the forms, sandwiched/glued between some rails and then machining to size vs. trying to assemble them in-line on the form piece by piece as I was planning. Am I understanding you correctly? Thanks again for taking the time to post!

[Canoez]

You can do it either way - on the boat or off. Really, it depends on the shape of your boat forms where you've chosen to apply the feature strips. If the hull has lots of curve and twist, do it on the hull. If not, do it off the hull. We use a fixture that we cover with packing tape that is like an old type-setters board, but bigger. (A long board with a ledger strip screwed to it.) We then assemble the feature strip on the board, glue and either tape or clamp together. (Fair note - long pieces of Peruvian Walnut are difficult to come by - you'd have better luck finding long Spanish Cedar. - Whatever stock you pick, think about how the color and grain will tie in with or contrast to, your gunwales, thwarts, seats and decks)

Be a bit wary of your cut the arrow together thing - you'll note that on the face of the canoe, one piece sticks out just a hair more than the other once adjacent strips are in place. They are fractionally different in length to make up that one arrow!

There are many ways to skin this cat - choose the one that works best for you.

[Popol]

See above my post on wood inlay's.

[Popol]

[Popol]

[Sailor]

You're kidding right! That is beautiful. You've got much bigger Gronicles than I do. Now, some pics of the progress and some descriptions of how you pulled it off are in order.

[MoMan]

Wow! That's impressive, and out of my league!