Build-A-Bear, mountain-style canoe

[MoMan]

... And retractable wheels, (I dunno why you don't have wheels like that on your strongback),on the outer corners of another. Smart.

Ahh--it just occurred to me which wheels you were referring to. Those are on the base of my homemade planer (DeWalt lunchbox style) stand. The base is from some nice, thick maple and is rock solid/stable. It's also fairly heavy, necessitating the retractable wheels, which are intended for contractor-style saws. Although they work great, between them and the splayed out legs of the base, it's a big waste of space. I might as well outfit the planer with a hula hoop. Making a more space-efficient model is on my long- and ever-growing list of projects.

[Fitz]

MoMan:

Just to keep you motivated and inspired, I think you will be very happy with the Prospector. I have a 17 foot Chestnut Canoe Company Prospector wood and canvas canoe. It is my favorite tripping canoe.

These are all Prospectors: From front to back - A 16 foot wood and canvas reproduction Prospector home built by a friend of mine, my red 17 foot Chestnut Canoe Co. Prospector, and a green Chestnut Canoe Co. 18 foot Prospector. My friends and I trip in these canoes all the time and have nothing but good things to say.



Fitz

[MoMan]

Hey Fitz--Thanks for sharing! Yes, I can use all the inspiration and motivation I can get.

[MoMan]

You-know-who did an unannounced drop in.


Well Andy, that is one of the many mistakes to come in this project. When I traced out the template, I must have placed it a little low on the plywood. Hopefully this won't adversely affect the outcome. Now, it's time to epoxy the stems. Can you mix me up a batch--one pump of resin, one pump of hardener.

Then, after thoroughly mixing and adding some thickener, I can spread it on and you can help me tighten the clamps.



There! Nicely done. If I had enough clamps, I could do the other stem tonight also, but we'll have to wait until tomorrow.

[MoMan]

So I got the inner and outer stems all laminated up with epoxy, and I'm please with the results. Knowing how sloppy and inexperienced I am, I made everything considerably wider than the finished size. When they came out of the clamps a day later, I scraped off the bigger epoxy blobs with a chisel and card scraper. I experimented with running them over the jointer, but the sharp curve made it impractical to do it safely. I did run the super wide inner stems through the bandsaw for a rough width. Then I turned to one of my favorite machines, the DeWalt surface planer. Right off, I encountered an issue. I set the depth stop to 3/4", more of a disaster prevention measure than an accurate setting. After a couple of initial runs, the crank was turning so hard, it felt like it was up against the depth stop, which was impossible. I sent Andy in for a closer look:

A little T-9 Boeshield sprayed on the four threaded posts and it loosened up like a winning slot machine!

So the stems all came out of the planer looking fine. BTW, I'm using cherry for the outer stems, in case anyone's wondering.

... continued ...

[MoMan]

Next is the task of shaping the stems. And joy of joys, I suddenly had an excuse to purchase a new tool. Even better, it is a hand tool: a Stanley spokeshave from the local Rockler store. So I started toying around with it. To properly trim the angles on the stems, I needed a fairing stick. I used some planking, clamped in place to the forms. That's where my trouble began. With the fairing stick attached, it formed a nice, consistent curve, touching each mold station. I set the fairing stick at the sheer line of station 0, and checked it for level towards the canoe end, and used a spring clamp to hold it on the stem mold. The problem is station #6: there is a 1/8" gap on each side:




I don't understand. I checked, rechecked and triple checked the mold against the plan. It is exactly according to the plan. I also checked the distance between each mold: all 12", per the plan. I also checked the opposite end: same thing. So how do I fix this? I figure my choices are 1. make the mold wider. Seems risky to adjust the original shape. 2. push the planking tight to the mold. That introduces a different bow shape. Probably not a good idea. 3. Change the station spacing distance. 4. Insert wedges between planking and station molds.



When I look down the fairing strip, the curve looks good, so I'm leaning towards inserting the wedges. So, any theories on my mistake?

[Lazy Jack]

Nice! My first boat was a cedar strip canoe. Those end molds are always a bugger for some reason. There are a couple of approaches to solve this. First, was your stem completely beveled? ie, the strip is not being held away from the mold by a stem that isn't beveled all the way? Secondly, are you sure that this mold isn't there to introduce some reverse curve towards the end. Press the strip into the mold and see if it produces a nice sweeping hollow. If the hollow isn't 'fair' then its a mold error. Doing whatever the batten dictates is the best approach in my opinion. Have you checked the shape/position of the previous mold to make sure it's not too far towards the end? If thats in proper position, know that nobody will place you under arrest if you simply skootch the aberrent station mold forward a titch until it contacts the fair batten. Then run several battens across this mold to be sure that now lumps are being introduced elsewhere. I'd probably check this same mold on the other end as well.

[Sailor]

I'd move it forward as well.

[floatingkiwi]

Yup! Mike is one smart rascle Kerry, with a shop full of nifty tools and stuff but ya know something, Andy ain't too shoddy either! He knows enough to be prepared for waterloggeddom should Mike toss him out of the canoe miles off some shoreline, just before they get to the last bottle of that Texas Thinkin' Juice ......


Cheers!


Peter

As long as Andy hasn't eloped with the bloody cork again!

[Fitz]

Secondly, are you sure that this mold isn't there to introduce some reverse curve towards the end.

What Lazy Jack said. I would check into this first. If you look at the photo of my Prospectors above, there is some "hollow/cheekiness" in these canoes. Take a good look - especially if it does it on both ends.

[MoMan]

What Lazy Jack said. I would check into this first. If you look at the photo of my Prospectors above, there is some "hollow/cheekiness" in these canoes. Take a good look - especially if it does it on both ends.

Yeah, the concave curve was the first thing I thought of, but I can't see from the plans that this model is supposed to be like that. The lines on the plan look straight. When I get back home, I'll take a closer look at the plans and my canoe craft book.

Any other prospector builders out there who have encountered this?

[Fitz]

I just took the trash out to the garage and there was a strip laying there next to my Prospector. I taped it onto the canoe and sure enough, a gap is right there. The gap is probably closer to 1/4 inch on my canoe. This canoe is a 17 footer.

I suspect you and your little wooden companion are right on and your accuracy is paying off.

[Terry Haines]

... If I had enough clamps, I could do the other stem tonight also, but we'll have to wait until tomorrow.

I hate to get serious even for a moment but the gardening section of your local hardware store should have bundles of plastic cable clamps sold for tying up plants. They only work once but they're cheap, cheaper and longer than the identical ones sold for electrical use. Should work on the stems of the next boat; also perhaps on Andy. There's all sorts of el-cheapo ties that are great substitutes for clamps, but I'm scared of the Net morality police ...

On the hollow entry issue, amke sure the batten is along one of the planking lines. I have several FreeShip file of Rushton's Wee lassie that I took a look at; from certain viewpoints there are places where the planking looks sharply concave, but none of the plank curves actually reverse.

[MoMan]

I just took the trash out to the garage and there was a strip laying there next to my Prospector. I taped it onto the canoe and sure enough, a gap is right there. The gap is probably closer to 1/4 inch on my canoe. This canoe is a 17 footer.

I suspect you and your little wooden companion are right on and your accuracy is paying off.

Thanks Fitz--That's a big relief for me. That's some canoe addiction you've got going. How do you store them all? That's one little problem I haven't tackled yet, but I'm guessing I've got a few months before I really need to start worrying about it.

[MoMan]

I hate to get serious even for a moment but the gardening section of your local hardware store should have bundles of plastic cable clamps sold for tying up plants. They only work once but they're cheap, cheaper and longer than the identical ones sold for electrical use. Should work on the stems of the next boat; also perhaps on Andy. There's all sorts of el-cheapo ties that are great substitutes for clamps, but I'm scared of the Net morality police ....

Great idea Terry. I make liberal use of the electrical sorts. I gotta check out the plant versions. I also have some giant 36" ones that I've used to strap some drainage pipe along my garage rafters (great for storing long, light pieces like trim and dowels). I discovered that I could reuse them by unlocking the ratcheting mechanism with a small knife or screwdriver which allows you to reverse the strap back out. It's good when you're desperate and run out.

[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.