New Canoe - First Build - Based on Dave Hadfield's "Levitating Canoe"

[marshallx4]

I note that this is my first build for a few reasons.
1. It's my first build. (obvious)
2. I have made mistakes already and in a couple cases, I just pressed for the sake of time/resources.
3. I have read that you can either have 1 canoe or more than 2, :) I suspect that there will be more builds in the future (eureka possibly, maybe down the road a S&G kayak.

Here are some of the details of the build.

Materials:
Bottom: 1/4 inch Marine Plywood (fir)
Sides: "1/4" inch Birch Plywood (pretty sure the glue is indoor only, the whole lot is getting an epoxy coating) the thickness is actually 3/16th or 5mm it's not a full quarter.
Gunwales: Started as: 2"x6"x20' Spruce
Stems: Started as: 4x4 Western Red Cedar


Notes on Materials:
Marine ply chosen for the bottom was picked for a few reasons: I'm like 215 lbs, and I wanted the bottom to be a bit thicker.
The birch plywood was not what I preferred honestly, but it was better than underlayment as far as durability goes, the downside is the glue. I have read that the epoxy, if done right , can seal it up.
The cedar was chosed mainly because when I went to find hardwoods in the size I wanted, they either didn't have it, or they wanted a ton of money. Secondly, it looks good and I see whole canoes made of cedar. There are probably many reasons why I should not have used it, but I did, and it ought to work.

Dimensions:
LOA: 18' 6" (will double check, I think that's right)
Beam at Gunwales: 38"
Beam at Chine: 31"
Depth at bow and stern: 18"
Depth amidships: 16"

Rocker: About 1.5" But I have not measured it yet.
I was feeling like I wanted a little less rocker and after a slightly incorrect scarfing job I sort of had to. I achieved my depth by a batten which was positioned 1 inch from the top (sheer) of the side panel and 1 inch from the bottom. Actually in my case, it was 1 3/16th inch because of my incorrect scarf.

The reason for less rocker: I'd rather not have the ends out of the water, for straighter tracking, although maybe this will hurt the performance, we will see. Performance is probably not what this canoe is made for though, and I knew that going in.


Construction Methods:
Side and bottom panels were scarfed with a router, you will see the scarfing jig when we get to pictures.

Stems are nailed and epoxied to the sides. (using bronze alloy nails made from melted down, heavily taxed, Olympic medals, .. ok not really, they are brass from CLC)

The bottom of the hull was measured out by stretching an inner strand of paracord (550 parachute cord) along the bottom to determine a center line. And then at 6 inch intervals, offsets were measured out and marked onto the plywood. It sounds error prone, But it seemed to work for me because I took my time.

I cut the bottom of the hull as close to my batten line as possible (leaving myself no room for error) with a jigsaw, which previously had not been very accurate for me, but I gave it another chance and it worked very well.

I stitched the bottom to the sides with copper wire through 1/16 holes
Gunwales are scuppered and have almost equal width for spacers and for the actual gunwale portion..

I dont have the exact dimension of the gunwale at the moment but they are roughly an inch square, and to start them out I made a 2"x1" x 19' strip, and then I cut the scuppers on that piece using a router jig and then I ripped that piece in half to have two identically scuppered pieces ( for now )

A tip which Dave gave to me was to get a 2x12x20 which should yield a board with less knots since the cut would most likely be made from wood which is closer to the center of the tree. (know what I mean?) Well, after I ripped the scuppered gunwales, one of them broke in two spots and then subsequently, broke again in a third spot. New gunwales? Nope, the big orange store had nothing suitable on Friday night, and it's easier to patch it like I did the first two breaks. (oh well)

That pretty much brings it up to date.

What's Next?: Fillet the chine with my own custom blend of wood and epoxy (it is so secret, not even I know the combination of wood is in my powder/sawdust that I mix in) I started this today, but I ran out of time. I smoothed them with a stir stick and then made them look good by putting down a bit of wax paper for a nice clean radius, I'll see how it looks tomorrow, but test 1.0 of this method resulted in a really strong joint.. I took a chisel and the back of my axe to my test piece today and it was super strong, the wood was breaking but the epoxy stuck to every bit of wood which it had contact with. I'm satisfied.

After doing the fillet the rest of the way round, I'll clean it up a bit and then put down a strip of fiberglass on the seam too. (overkill? idk, I think I should)

Once that is done, I'll flip it over and trim the wires off, and work on sealing up the outside of the hull with some 4oz fiberglass and epoxy.

After fiberglass, there is a small outwale that needs to go on. then varnish, varnish, varnish, then the yoke, and seats.


Pictures:

Side profile, no stems yet: the bow has the short board stretcher with the design in the wood., it should look neat.


My router scarf jig , it's tough to make out, but the sides at 7.5 degree (or so) and are made of wood, with aluminium (3/4) to span between the sides.





More scarfing:



Scarfs look pretty good.. I'm satisfied.



Scupper cutting jig, it works well, I modified it the other day and added a shop vac port on it.. i estimate that i capture around 90% of the waste material right into the vac. It's just all thread, some wing nuts, and some regular nuts out of view to provide a cmalping system... it's not the best and it sticks sometimes, but it works.

Scupper Jig from afar with shop vac attachment.


More photos tomorrow perhaps.

If you stopped by and took a look at this craziness, Thank you for checking it out. I do things a bit differently and am learning a lot on my first build. Lessons learned: find a bigger work area, and don't work in the garage in the summer in Texas, don't use boards with knots for gunwales. Use the correct plywood from the start (next project is going to be the good stuff, meranti or okume,, I did finally find a supplier for it in dallas (garland actually), or I'll buy from CLC. Line up scarfs better. Oh the list goes on.. Till next time!..

[andrewpatrol]

Those scarfs are amazing considering the tool. At least you're doing it. I'm reading George Beuhlers book at mo and that has some good philosophies on boat building

[marshallx4]

[mcdenny]

Looks great so far. Are you having fun? Thats the real goal, isn't it?

PS: I hate routers so I make gunwales like that by gluing spacer blocks to the boat, then gluing the long piece to the blocks and breast hooks.

[E.Johnson]

Welcome aboard! (Said one n00b to another.)

I lived in Plano from 1999 - 2010. I hear ya about the heat, however, the up side is that you'll be able to work in your garage longer than say, I would (if I had one) here in Wisconsin. Invest in some fans and you should be able to tough it out except maybe for those 100F+ days.

As for mistakes, now is the time to make all of them. Then future boats will all turn out perfectly and you can say "unlike my first build this time I [did whatever differently]" with pride.

[upchurchmr]

Marshallx4

There is nothing wrong with Plano heat in a garage, compared to Ft. Worth. Same pain.
Of course I was whinning about the heat a couple of threads ago.
Glad to see someone else is working locally. You are the first person I have spotted in DFW.

If you can get a squirrel cage fan from the replacement of a house airconditioning system, it makes a great fan for the garage. put it in a plywood box, set it about waist height and point it to where you are working. Another forumite asked an airconditioning replacement company and he was told he could have as many as he wanted, free, just go out back and get it. Don't forget to get the starting capacitor mounted on the side of the fan.
I'm thinking about getting one of the patio misters to spray into the inlet of the fan, should be even better in the outlet blast of air.

Please let me know who had okume in Garland!

Good luck, and keep posting your pictures.

Marc

[marshallx4]

Thank you Everyone, So far I am having fun. It took me a while to get to the point where I have something resembling a boat, but now things are progressing a little faster. Once the inwales went on, it gave me a mental boost. I forgot to take another picture with the clamps removed today.. but it looks good.

I will have to look into a source for the squirrel cage idea. I have also seen them used to filter air for the shop (where intake air has to pass through a filter). I'll Make sure to grab the capacitor (not literally) when I get the fan if I'm able to find a shop that will give a couple away.


The okume source in garland is: Wood World http://www.woodworldtx.com/ I called them a few weeks ago or more, and they said they could get it but there was a 3 week lead time on it. they stated that it was BS1088 hydrotek, and at the time was 110 /sheet and it might have actually been meranti (but they still call it Okume). According to them, the supplier switched and no longer offers them actual okume. The real difference in my opinion would be weight, I have heard that Meranti weighs a bit more.

Thanks for the tips

Oh btw my brother lives in Wisconsin, I think i'm heading up there within the next month.. Probably not with the canoe.. but My brother and I are going to do some fly fishing, and maybe even get out on the lake with his wenonnah if he repairs the hole his ratchet strap made in the hull :X

I definitely will get a longer season here in TX, and when I take a break from the canoe building (if there is one) I'm going to build a teardrop trailer, as that is also something I have been wanting to build.

Till next time.
Marshall

[upchurchmr]

Marshall,

I have used the squirrel cage with a filter, but my use was to clear the air when I was trying to spray paint. Works just fine but the cheapest filters were completely clogged after 2 spray passes. Those filters don't catch much, I saw where they were rated at 17% removal of normal dust per pass thru the filter. Might work better for sanding, etc, since the particles (some of them) are bigger.

Marc

[marshallx4]

Here is a little update, I made some seat bottoms, but I didn't take pictures of them.. they are made from scraps of the marine plywood. I made another router jig to put some slots in the seats. Then I couldn't find my angle finder so that I could keep working on them, and I got frustrated because I didn't want to make another trip to the store.. so instead, I spend most of the rest of the day epoxying.. Epoxying what? Fiberglass I used 4oz, yep it's pretty thin, but I think it will suffice. The bottom of the boat got several layers built up over time and each layer was not really allowed to get past the "tacky" state before i dumped more epoxy on it so that I could pull the epoxy down over the sides. This worked ok... but It was a huge pain.. I ended up with some epoxy on the floor.. oh well. pictures:



I Missed a couple spots, but that's ok I can fill them in, and most of them are underneath the out wale anyways...(not yet installed)
You can see in the second picture i started a bit of sanding.. I wasn't able to fill the weave completely on the sides before I just couldn't epoxy anymore... also some of the side seemed to be getting past the point where it was tacky.. and I didn't want to chance it.. but After looking it over today.. i think i would have been alright if I just kept going in some of those spots. I don't remember If I mentioned it before, but this canoe isn't getting paint. It doesn't matter what seams or imperfections I see, I think that the wood grain under epoxy is one of the best things ever.. and a good few coats of varnish is all she will get. Even that marine fir plywood looks excellent under the epoxy. well I'm done rambling for tonight. Going to go catch up on my other threads I have been reading.