Redbird Progress

[Sailor]

In case anyone was interested I have glassed the outside of the hull of my 18 foot Redbird Canoe. I still can't seem to figure out how to post pics but I will one day get some pics up here to show those who are interested what she looks like at this point in her construction. Now I 'll be able to get her off the moulds, out from under the lights and out of the way for the winter so I can put my lofting table under the lights ( I dont' have lights all over my shop just in front of the workbench) and loft my catspaw when it's too cold to glass the inside of the canoe. I wonder how much I'll get done this winter.

[Todd Bradshaw]

It might be wise to leave a few of the station forms in the boat if it's going to sit all winter with one side glassed. They have a habit of changing shape if they sit that way for long periods of time.

[Sailor]

Point taken. Thanks

[Sailor]

I'll tell you how much I got done that winter NONE of it!!!
I recently sanded smooth the outer hull and the next step is to apply another coat of epoxy to raise some of the lower aread to fair the hull properly. Then sand her fair and pull the moulds. Then repeat inside......... Maybe tomorrow the WX will be ok to epoxy.

[Sailor]

Epoxy on today. Fairing as soon as it's cured then OFF THE MOULDS!!!! Can't wait, that'll be a BIG step.

[Sailor]

OK, there has been some fairing done recently. Today, I moved from 60 grit to 100 to 150 grit. The hull is looking like I should have her off the moulds tomorrow. Can't wait.

[P.L.Lenihan]

That is fantastic good news Sailor!!! Pictures, however, will bring a whole new sense of appreciation for us who dream of one day building a canoe.Perhaps you should give Thornes' "how to post pictures" tutorial a good looking over or just ask your brother...... Besides, if I of ten thumbs and two neurons can figure it out, even one of Canada's finest should be able to!t!!


Cheers!

Peter

[Sailor]

MOMENT OF MOMENTS!!! She's off the moulds! And upright to boot.

[P.L.Lenihan]

Pictures or it didn't happen!


Cheers!


Peter


P.S. But just in case it did happen, congrats on moving that much closer to the end!!

[Sailor]

I know. Peter, what photo hosting site do you use? I'll have to set up an account right?

[P.L.Lenihan]

Hi Sailor, I use http://www.shutterfly.com/. Free and easy to use.Go for it !


Cheers!


Peter

[Sailor]

Awesome, I've just created an account!!!! Now what?
Just kidding, I'm uploading ALL my Redbird progress pics and I'll see about posting something soon. Maybe one day I'll be as adept at posting pics as you. Maybe I'll be able to spin a ditt like you, maybe I'll be able to weave a thread of sanding while hanging upside down in a tiny little box of a space that will one day be a motor well or cooler and make it interesting, entertaining and educational. and Maybe one day pigs will fly. I'm on my way though. Aeronautical engineers better start testing for "pig strikes"

[John N]

Ok, Just for fun I made a short video of posting pictures. Youtube made it really blurry, I hope it will be of some help.

[P.L.Lenihan]

OK I've uploaded 480 something pics to my shutterfly account. Now what? How do I get them from there to here?

This is the part where you now read Thornes' wonderful instructions, Sailor


Cheers!

Peter

[Sailor]

Pleast let this work. There's a video showing me everything for cripes sake!!!

[Sailor's Brother]

Pleast let this work. There's a video showing me everything for cripes sake!!!

And yet you're still on the phone with an engineer trying to get it to work.....

[Sailor]

Dare I say it? I may have figured this out.
The beatles come to mind...
I get by with a little help from my friends.....
OK
Here's the shop, a view of it anyway. table saw covered to protect it from the dive bombers I have in the barn. Moulds set up on the strongback and some odds and ends.

[Sailor]

Some strips layed out ready for milling.



The milling setup. The drydock is only 40 feet long so I had to open the window either end to allow enough room to feed the 20 foot strips through my 6 foot long router table!



These are the brackets I used to go stapleless in my construction.

Cherry yolk and ash-cherry-ash laminated stem bands.



Power tools all stowed away neatly. I seem to have filled that shelf in the past few years.......

[Sailor]

Here's my router table. You can see the sawdust catching area below the router, the bit storage drawer and the two 1" thicknesses of MDF used for a table top. Still needs a bit of work after only about 4 years. Gotta finish the top in the area of the gauge track and cut the hole for the shop vac to suck out the dust........ It weighs a ton though and would be suitable as a shaper table as well. It's 6X4 on top and I love it.



My brother Mark and I (Mark is not "Sailor's Brother" On WBF, That's another brother) milling the strips. PPE, Dust mask and Goggles. WRC is not too terribly good to breath in. I set it up this way to feed in and then out the other window. Note the push sticks and feather board clamped just in front of my hip. Keeps fingers away from sharp parts. Shopvac set up and helping keep the dust down.



Here's a close up of the setup. Yeah the bricks were probably not the best thing but they're what I had. We BYBB are nothing if not creative and impulsive right? Always mill the bead first. It's pretty rugged. The cove has two feather edges and you want to handle the strips as little as possible when they're in this state. Don't want to break those little feather edges now do we? Bead then Cove. Together now... bead THEN cove. Good now that we're all on the same page we'll move on.



Here you can see the packing tape surrounding the mould before putting the stem bands in place. One can never have too many clamps!



Here's the setup to ensure that the sheerstrakes are both level. Clamp a board athwartships at station 0, throw a level on it and then go ahead and fasten the sheerstrake. I used a small nail at Stn 0 knowing it would be covered by the inwale and outwale. I can't find the hole now though. Once a few more planks were in place I removed them as they had served they're purpose and were no longer needed.

[Sailor]

Here's the plank material all milled and sorted by colour (that's Color for youse guys south of the border). Gotta pair them up and make sure they go on evenly now!



Here's how I clamped the sheerstrake throughout the length of the boat. As you can see, it holds it from falling down and once you insert a wedge, it pushes it up against the moulds. You'll see later how I dealt with applying downward pressure, or upward to the sheer if you're thinking that way, in order to keep the planks tight to one another.



Station moulds all taped up to keep the glue from sticking the planks to the moulds. Sheer holders in place, and you can make out the brackets that hold the moulds paralell to one another. The plans called for moulds on 12 inch centers. The two previous canoes built on this mould were built that way. My dad's nearly 15 years ago and my brother (the one on WBF) finished his last year after a short op-pause. Ok! So it sat untouched for over a decade! Anyway, mine has been extended. I placed the 0 mould where the other 0 moulds were placed. Then #s1 were placed 13 inches out, #s2 13 inches out, #s3 13 inches out and then #s4to stem were kept at 12 inch spacing. This gives my canoe an extra 6 inches in length, probably about 80# of extra carrying capacity at a reasonably deep draught (for a canoe) and whatever extra speed and stability this will bring. I'm dying to have my canoe next to my dad's for a real comparison test. Paddle one boat with a load of gear, pull up, swap gear and boats then paddle the other. Should make for some interesting times.



Sambuca. How'd you get in there?




So! First planks to be hung are the sheerstrakes. They area placed cove up (as opposed to bead up) in the holders then wedged into place as in the pic that I posted, YES I POSTED IT Peter!!! In order for the plank to lay fair, a bit of work with the spokeshave had to be done. I used a batten ( scrap plank about 1/2 the length of the canoe) to gauge my progress and simply pared down the stem till it fit. The pads used to protect the clamps on the stem are therefore wedge shaped as you can see from the picture that I POSTED!



Here are the first 4 strakes on. Both sides. You always plank up both sides evenly, but I didn't have to tell you that now did I?

[Sailor]

It's midnight and much as I'm loving this, I'll save some for tomorrow but before I go.... just to whet you're appetite....... Here's what she looked like this afternoon after I finished working on her.


WTF? How'd that happen? Guess you'll have to be satisfied with a pic from last week
These are my pimped out canoe stands. Do you know anyone with a canoe stand that has tassels? I didn't think so!!!! I'll get to the stands when I get there. In the meantime, I have about 3 years of canoebuilding to catch up on and for now.... It's time for dodos. Bonne Nuit les amis!

[John N]

Addictive, this picture posting isn't it?
I was wondering how you used those plywood clamps and now I see. Very clever. looking forward to seeing more historical progress.

[P.L.Lenihan]

Finally! Pictures! A language any illiterate can understand! Thank you for the effort Sailor and like John N said, I too will look forward to more historical photos. Those strip clamps look like the cats' a$$ in the neato-freato dept. too! Do you have to loft all those station molds or do the plans come with some sort of master pattern or any paterns at all? If you were to start over, is there anything you would change,avoid or just do differently? Could this canoe be built usin beadless and coveless strips?


Cheers!


Peter, breathing so much easier now that Sailors' picture faucet has been finally opened!

[Sailor]

The clamps are neato-freato for sure. I came up with the process myself but wouldn't be surprised if I wasn't the first to do it. Dad got the plans years ago. They came with a set of full sized plans. Stem and stations are all on the one sheet about 3x3 or so. It's been years can't recall exactly. You simply trace them onto your plywood mould stock and cut them to the line. Dad used carbon paper. Jigsaw or bandsaw would work for that. Dad still doesn't have a bandsaw so I'm sure he used a jig saw. And lots of Peter's favorite...... Sandpaper. As for a do-over. I have yet to paddle her. I made some changes as I mentioned and I won't know how they turned out until I have her in the water, likely with an unchanged boat next to her to try since I don't think you'll see much difference just paddling without another to compare to. I guess you could use beadless coveless strips. My first thought would be why? The beads and coves allow you to locate each piece on the frame as you build her. Cove up there's a trough to put glue into before putting the next plank on. You also eliminate the rolling bevel. Second thought would be...... This is Peter asking and he likes to do things the hard way. That would mean planing the correct bevel into each plank as you hang it. It's much easier to set my little router table up to run 60 planks through once it's set up. Way faster than having to bevel each plank. The coves make it a snap to assemble. (Sort of ) So go ahead, turn down that fancy new pair of router bits and use your trusty old block plane if you like Tenner!

[Sailor's Brother]

The clamps are neato-freato for sure. I came up with the process myself but wouldn't be surprised if I wasn't the first to do it. Dad got the plans years ago. They came with a set of full sized plans. Stem and stations are all on the one sheet about 3x3 or so. It's been years can't recall exactly. You simply trace them onto your plywood mould stock and cut them to the line. Dad used carbon paper. Jigsaw or bandsaw would work for that. Dad still doesn't have a bandsaw so I'm sure he used a jig saw. And lots of Peter's favorite...... Sandpaper. As for a do-over. I have yet to paddle her. I made some changes as I mentioned and I won't know how they turned out until I have her in the water, likely with an unchanged boat next to her to try since I don't think you'll see much difference just paddling without another to compare to. I guess you could use beadless coveless strips. My first thought would be why? The beads and coves allow you to locate each piece on the frame as you build her. Cove up there's a trough to put glue into before putting the next plank on. You also eliminate the rolling bevel. Second thought would be...... This is Peter asking and he likes to do things the hard way. That would mean planing the correct bevel into each plank as you hang it. It's much easier to set my little router table up to run 60 planks through once it's set up. Way faster than having to bevel each plank. The coves make it a snap to assemble. (Sort of ) So go ahead, turn down that fancy new pair of router bits and use your trusty old block plane if you like Tenner!

Sailor,
yes it was a jig-saw (or to be technically correct reciprocating saw...) that dad used to cut out the stations... those plans had the full table of offsets, but he purchased (as you remembered) the lines printed on tracing paper. then traced with carbon paper...

I still think that to extend the lenght, a more effective way would have been to have produced another station 0, and just had 2 zeros... natural curvature/behaviour of the planks between them would have contined the the redbird shape in the centre. As opposed to the "stretching" that you have created, you would have had a "adding to the middle" effect... but maybe that will be for the 4th or 5th canoe from those moulds... once I get a little more shop space... I noticed with the one independently moving ballast that SWMBO and I have, the standard boat is "just right"... with the second independently moving ballest that we're aquiring... well that will necessitate another boat.

[Sailor]

I don't know how it happens but Sambuca, puppy from heaven, seems to sneak into alot of these photos.......

Here you can see the stem setup and how the planks are wedged into place. A number of planks ( usually no more than 3 or 4 due to glue drying time) are placed in position on the previous planks. The L shaped plywood pieces are clamped into place To the left you can see how the planks are held against the moulds. Wedges. I purchased a pack of cedar shakes from the home hardware store just around the corner and cut them into strips as you can see here. The ends are held with those little wedge shaped blocking pads I made. That 15 inch bar clamp holds them together toward the stem and the.... we'll you'll just have to look at the next pic to see how they're held against one another for the rest of the length of the boat.


Wedges cut from offcuts of planking material. Use the bandsaw to make them. I used the table saw because I didn't have one at the time. It works but be very careful not to get your fingers too close to the whirling blade of death. You may recall from another post how I learned this lesson. Seems you learn lessons more than once but this one, even though I knew it before was one that I needed a refresher on apparently. Don't fret though, all 8 finger and 2 thumbs are still accounted for and functional. But MAN did that hurt. Scares the bejeezys out of you too I might add. So don't do it. Like the cedar shake strip wedges holding the plank against the mould, the plank wedges are tapped in with light hammer taps to ensure a good fit between the bead and cove of all the planks. A bit of glue squeezeout here will tell you you have enough glue in there and do ensure you wipe it off before it hardens.


Here's the resulting mess of wedges you get once you get all the wedges in. They're reuseable mostly. Just make sure when you remove them you carefully pry them loose because the glue squeezeout may stick them to the hull. Bad. Or you could wrap them in packing tape like I didn't do and avoid this problem altogether.


Here she is from one end. Planking up is progressing nicely.



The stem with 10 planks on.

[Sailor]

Here is a shot of the accent stripe. All hull planking is WRC. I chose three boards, 1x6 clear straight grain and of three very different colours. The rest of the planking was made up with leftovers from my dad's canoe and my brother's canoe.




That block was screwed to the stem from the other side and the plank wedged in as usual. It was getting a little tight up there so a creative approach was needed.



Planking proceeding apace. The beautiful shape is starting to emerge. As you can see, planking is done on both sides evenly to avoid pulling the moulds out of shape with stresses all concentrated on one side.



Clamps laid out on the bench ready for the next round of planking. Those little odd shaped blocks were used to hold the stem bands on. Clamping blocks if you will.



The shape of the hull required a bit of creative clamping and such. Here's a solution to the problem that I came up with. Had I thought of using cargo straps at this stage I might have. Didn't think of it till the very end though.



Another creative solution to the clamping pressure problem. The single screw allows the plank to rotate to the angle of the plank wedge, NEATO!!!
Now you're probably all asking if I remembered to smooth and sand that stem band's inner faces before planking up. Why yes I did thank you for asking!

[Sailor]

One side, then the other. Back and forth. Keep it even.



Station 6 is there as you can see and the planks are evened up again.


Eventually after planking up the turn of the bilg on both sides, you continue on one side only. This allows you to cut the Center Line CL of the boat. Once the planks start coming into one another in a V shape as opposed to meeting either side of the inner stem as they had been doing all this time, you'll know it's time to finish one side.



Here's how the CL planks were kept in place while the glue dried. The further wedge was tight so the plank wedge could be made tight enough without the whole hull being lifted off the side of the moulds as you apply the pressure. Balance between the plank wedges and the cedar shake wedges is what's needed here.




Proud Pappa. I've grown my hair back since then and now sport a "Fine Mooostache" as the US customs guard said!



Betcha wanna know what that string is for don'tcha? I'll tell you another time, I'm tired and need to get some sleep. Early day tomorrow don't ya know?

[Sailor's Brother]

First of all Sailor... you're welcome (for absconding with my excess planks...)
Secondly... I am glad you've given up the Q-ball haircut.
Thirdly.... The customs guy only said that was a fine Moustache AFTER (yes I repeat AFTER) mocking you about the thin, little thigh ticker you were sporting.... I believe the conversation went something like this...

Customs agent : hmmmm you're passport here says nothing about a moustache....
ENTIRE Crew of boat (excepting you of course...) : ROTFL
Customs agent : (once he regained his own breath from laughing)... no no, I'm just kidding (snicker snicker snicker) it's a "Fine" moustache... (and yes you could HEAR his finger quotes around the word "Fine")

at least that's how the remainder of the boat's crew remembers it... (and how the captain wrote it in the logbook...)

Looking good though bro (the boat of course) can't wait until you get to the point where you bought the new camera!!! (yes everyone, his photos get better, I promise)

Night night big brother...

[Sailor]

Here I am sighting the CL for true. It was marked with the aforementioned tight string just above the boat and a pencil. Then EVER SO CAREFULLY, using a VERY sharp chisel, the CL was trimmed. Ensure when you cut the CL that you have all your planking from one side overlapping where the CL will be. You'll have a feel for it by the time you reach this stage in the construction.




Here you can see a few planks ready to be inserted. Better word in this case than hung because they really are inserted into the space left over. As you can see in the foreground, the ends are trimmed to the appropriate angle and planed smooth. The other end is left a smidge long. Trial and error and your trusty



block plane should do the trick. Take your time here and ensure you have a good tight fit. This means the planks are long enough to fill the curve where they belong. You don't want them too short. Neither do you want them too long or you risk wedging apart the last planks that were fit or opening up the hull shape and ruining the designed shape of the craft you're itching to paddle.



And before you know it, you're planked up to the middle and ready for the next step. The next step is what you ask? Glad you asked. Here it is.



Basking in the feeling of having moved that much closer to the end product. Also a nice cigar doesn't hurt as long as it's accompanies by a glass of that throat lubricant that seems to just drain it's self from my house as soon as it comes in the door......


Port! Yes one of the great pleasures in boatbuilding. But this picture is years ahead of it's place in the pecking orde so disregard that lovely canoe shaped object resting beside that strikingly handsome young man who is so obviously enjoying the fruits of his labours.

[Sailor]

Next I went around and removed all those brackets. The lowere ones were clamped for alignment then screwed into place. I would rather use up a bucket of screws at a few dollars than a million clamps at $5 a piece. Here I am removing screws to get the clamps out of the way for the next step.



This is an extremely effective method of getting rid of all those offcuts you produce when building boats. This little number will go through as many baulks of timber as you can scrounge up. Even the good ones. After you've shaped and trial fitted them if you let her. Good company though. Sits there quietly gnawing on leftover bits of wood while I work away.



Sharpen the plane and set it up so you can fair the hull. It's coming up soon but not before



We (I) trim down the inner stem and fill in the stem above the sheerstrake. Here I am shaping the stem above the sheerstrake in preparation for hanging the last few planks.



Here's some of the creative clamping I used to plank up the last little bit. I used the special order quick clamps. You order them special like. They open instead of close when you squeeze then handle. If you're lucky they'll be in the same store as you got the regular ones at only they're in another section of the store. I once saw a pair of them tucked away between the left handed hammers and the board stretchers. Keep a sharp eye out for them, they're trick little buggers. Anyway, I set up the workmate below the stem and simply squeezed the handle on this clamp to push the plank up into place. I was able to get away with many more planks at a time here because they were so much shorter. The top most were mere inches long and didn't even need to be held against the mould as there is no mould at that point and they tend to follow the plank below nicely. Make sure you pair up your planks before you start this one. You need to have them colour coded all the way up, both sides, fore 'n aft. Otherwise it could look like you didn't take the time to do it right and we all know that even if you didn't do it right you still took a hell of a long time getting to this point. There's no point in taking short cuts here so do it right and make her pretty. For me.


Looks like somebody got a new camera!!!!!

An old cereal box cut open had the shape of the sheer traced out on it. You can get this from the plans or take you're dad's old cheerios box pattern and use that. That's what I did. Draw the shape of the sheer on the hull once both stems are planked up both sides. Then cut outside the line. You're not going to use this line for your sheer anway in the end. Once that's done, we're back to fairing the hull..... Oh joy oh joy.

[Sailor]

Your razor sharp block plane will come in handy here. The idea is to take off the high spots only. With the block plane carefully make beautiful curls of wood at the joints between the planks because of the curve of the hull, that's where the high spots will be. Take off as little as possible and still have the hull come out fair. You're basically increasing the number of faces just as you would when turning a square timber into 8 then 16 then 32 sides before rounding your spar. It's amazing to watch the hull come out of the multifaced shape you just planked up. Next is the part Tenner would most likely enjoy more than anyone I know. Fairing board, torture board, longboard, big sanding block, whatever you call it, it's a task that will keep you warm in the winter if you're shops heated like mine is. (Solar power beating off my tin roof)



Here's my home made torture board but once again, I'm getting ahead of myself.



Is that beautiful or what? (If anybody says "Or what" they can consider themselves "unfriended")





Wet the hull with water from time to time. It shows the beauty of the wood. It also tends to raise the grain. This allows you to sand out the high spots to produce a fair hull. Looking good so far don't you think?



I just love the shape of the Redbird. It's the most beautiful canoe shape out there. She's sweet on the eye, sweet on the water and a sweet project to undertake.

[Sailor]

The epoxy hasn't been on more than 30 minutes here. Didn't get every step so I'll explain how we went from wood to glass like that.

First, the cloth is cut to length and width. I took a strip several inches wide probably 8 or so and cut it from the length of the cloth. This was then place down the centerline of the boat to add ridgidity strength whatever to the hull. Then the large cloth was placed over top of the thin strip. This part requires care not to move the center strip out of place. The cloth was smoothed carefully not to create runs in the cloth.
The epoxy went on pretty easily. I know I'll do a better job next time I do it though. There's room for improvement with us BYBBs for most projects we do isn't there? (Certain catboat builders excepted of course)
Heat your epoxy. I don't mean pour it into a frying pan but placing the epoxy and hardner cans in a pot of boiling water to raise the temperature of them will increase the viscosity (how runny it is) and allow it to penetrate the wood better.
Start about 3 feet from one end. Mix a 5 shot batch of epoxy. If you don't know what a "5 shot batch" is, I'll take this opportunity to explain it to you. Epoxy is mixed to precise ratios of epoxy to hardner. When you purchase your epoxy and hardner, get a set of pumps calibrated to your epoxy product. Then by pumping one shot of epoxy and one shot of hardner, you know you have the correct ratio. Always go from epoxy to hardner and back that way if you start at Epoxy and finish on hardner, you'll never lose count of how many pumps you've made. Even if you do lose track, you'll still have the correct ratio just maybe not the size of batch you were looking for. Ensure you're not pumping half shots........
If the epoxy has settled in the pump or drained out into the can during storage. Pump out a bit till you have a clean stream of product, discard that 1/4 or 1/2 shot (Or if you're cheap, pour it back into the can) and start in a clean mixing container. ( yogurt or butter containers work very well and there's always a ton of them around the house) Stir sticks can be tongue depressors, odd scrap pieces cut up. Larger batches you could use paint sticks. Ensure whatever you use is clean and dust free.
How do tongues get depressed anyway? Is there medication for them? "Take two of those big red ones and call me in the morning"
SO!!! Mix your 5 shot batch and start to apply it. I dumped a bit on the hull then used a soft autobody filler type squeege thingy to spread it around. Have a couple of them on hand. Also have some cheap paintbrushes. I had at least 6 of them probably more. You'll use them to dab at the hull to push out the bubbles and stuff. Another thing to have on hand is a number of empty concentrated juice cans. You know the cardboard ones you peel the little tab ( if it doesn't come off in your hand) and remove the metal lid........ Yah those ones. Cut a slit in the top about an inch long. You'll use this to clean the epoxy off your squeege. The epoxy will drip into the can and start to go off. It'll get pretty hot so a bucket of water may come in handy to throw it into without burning down your drydock/boatshop/bar/garage/bowshed/basement/yougettheidea.
So back to that spot 3 feet from the end of the boat. Hurry up, this stuff won't last all day you know! Spread it and work towards the near end of the boat. Then hurry yourself up and get to the other side and work it as well. The idea is to progress down the length of the hull on both sides keeping a wet edge. This means you'll be in quite a hurry here. If you have a helper or 5 mixing your batches it goes much better. If you have anyone who can help apply it, even better. Bigger batches can be used because more people are applying the epoxy. Time tapes till tell you when it's time to stop mixing and applying batches and start squeegeing. THE BOOK (Canoecraft) will explain this in more detail because I prefer pictures and I don't have any of this part. The general idea is to put 3 coats on. The first coat penetrates the hull and bonds the glass. The second coat fills the weave. The thrid coat gives you something to sand to ensure a fair surface once the boat is finished. Apply your epoxy and when it's been long enough, squeege it off into your orange juice can. Once you've done the parts you've epoxied, get back to mixing another batch of epoxy and continue. If you have several helpers you can continue to apply while the squeege boy follows along astern of you. You're other helper is mixing epoxy for you.
This first batch will do a bit of the hull and once you get the idea in your mind, you can have him increase the batch size. Don't go too big though or you may end up with the epoxy going off before you've got it applied. Little risk on the first coat but on subsequent coats it could happen. Work till the other end is reached. Carefully cut the glass at the end and fold it over it's self at the stem to give a neat finish to the stem. Don't worry, it'll be covered later with a brass half oval strip. When you run out of canoe, you've finished......
For now. Wait the prescribed time and repeat for coats 2 and 3. Then you end up with this


A hull that is fairly fair and roughly ready for final fairing. Let it cure for a while. Take this time to leave you're project for 2 years and do something els. Or you could just wait till it's cured and get right back to it.


I took those two years to have Gabriel. He'll be paddling with Daddy soon enough I hope.


Start em young I say!



Here's one of the handles carved out of a piece of cherry leftover from

The yolk. The interesting little curve at either end is to rais the canoe off my head. The benefit of having used this model before is that I know I wanted more carrying capacity (see earlier posts) and I knew that the yolk as designed would not leave enough space between the yolk and the bottom of the boat for my long necked head. By curving it up a bit, I hope to get a bit more clearance so I don't have to duck my head in the boat when I'm carrying her.

[Sailor]

Bird's eye maple decks. This piece was ripped so the light colour on the edge could be inserted between for a nuce symetrical appearance. Not nearly enough bird's eyes but there never are, are there?


Faying surfaces were beveled to allow for a bit of camber to the deck. There will be keying pieces inserted in the slots to hold the pieces together. More on that later (Much later, I have yet to touch those decks, handles, yolk or seats in many years. They reached the state you see them in years before I even owned a house and shop to set up for the canoe.)
Speaking of seats....



They were made of cherry as well. It came from the wainscotting on the wall in my mother's living room. True story!
Andrew and I (Sailor's brother) wove the pattern once he figured out the weave. We made 3 or 4 pairs of seats. They're easy to make but the rawhide is not too terribly pleasant to work with. Stinks like wet dog and is slippery and slimy. Makes for the best canoe seats going though. Several coats of varnish and the cherry will darken to a beautiful dark colour as you can see from the pic here.

Here you can see how the high spots are sanded leaving the low spots because of that torture board. I found I had a few spots where the weave was starting to show through and I hadn't reached a fair hull yet. I chose to apply another coat of epoxy to build up the thickness. It will add a bit of weight but I sanded most of it back off again afterwards.



Half the hull pretty much faired. You can see the drips and runs in the epoxy that the torture board will sand down fair as I progress. Better to improve your glassing skills and not have them there at all though if you ask me!!! Unless, Peter, you WANT to sand for nothing. I know how you enjoy sanding so much.



See how much better the hull looks now? And that little guy is getting bigger too. He's 3 now..... Where does time go?

[Sailor]

Here's the hull faired and ready for finish sanding. Once the whole boat has been sanded with ever finer grits of sandpaper it's time to remove her from the moulds. Before we do that though, we need somwhere to put her. I was thinking in the kitchen where everyone can see her as they come in but a few measurements told me that wasn't going to happen without a small home reno project. I didn't have time that day to knock down the back wall of the kitchen and move all the cupboards and counters back 8 feet or thereabouts so I decided to take the easy way out and build stands I could place it on in the shop. Turned out to be a bit easier too. Here's how they went together.


Scrap cut to size.

Scrap nailed together.

Repeat, repeat, repeat.


Scrap assembled into canoe stand using old shelves removed from house. If you don't have old shelves, you can use new ones or if you fear SWMBO when you pull down all her Daniel Steele and romance novels and stack them in the corner of her sewing room in boxes, you could use scrap for that as well. It's up to you.




Now these stands aren't just any old canoe stand. As you can tell, they're the delux model. Da tings got bling yo! (for the rest of us, they're dressed up and pretty like) How many of you canoe builders out there can say they have tassels on theire canoe stands? Anybody, Bueller? Bueller? Didnt' think so. After wandering around the house looking for something of the wife's that may be appropriate to make a canoe stand out of ( I didn't want to use anything of mine now did I?) I went out to the barn. Nothing. Shed.....
found some old carpet on the shelves in there that were cured harder than concrete. I doubt they would even bend to shape without breaking. Then, I looked down at my feet. I have no idea where this pink tasseles carpet came from but there it was. Right at my feet calling out to me "I can support a canoe, pick me pick me!" You can see how lucky I am to have such good hearing and in three shakes of a lamb's tail, the thing was cut up the middle and screwed to the stand, forever to be part of a pimped out canoe stand. BLING BLING MY HOMIES!


After removing all but the stem moulds and station 7s (attached to stems) as shown above, I was able to do this:

[Sailor]

And this my friends is where she lays at this time. Work progresses at the usual molases in January pace that my drydock has become accustomed to and I can't see to overcome.
I'll continue to post progress reports and PICs for Tenner as progress is made. The issue I face now is that the drydock isn't heated and the cold weather seems to have descended upon us for the foreseeable future and I won't be able to glass. The shortness of my kitchen won't allow me to glass in there. There's room in the living room if I only didn't mind cutting a hole in the side of my house to get it in. The doors don't line up and I can't see myself maneouvering the boat around corners to make it fit. Small things like decks, yolk, even the inwales and outwales are portable enough to bring in, but the hull...... not likely.
So... What's left?
Not necessarily in the order it will happen but these things all need to be finished before Gabriel and Daddy can go for a paddle.
1 Glass and sand the inside of the hull.
2. Scarph shape and fasten the inwales and outwales.
3. Install trim: seats, decks, handles and yolk.
4 Sand the bejeezes out of the whole thing
5 Varnish
6 Sand
7 Varnish
8 Varnish
9 Varnish........you get the idea.
Final sanding with 90000 grit sandpaper and the application of a flawless sprayed on finish coat of varnish.
Ok, It'll probably be 300 grit wet sanded and the varnish brushed on but I can dream can't I?

[Sailor]

About that last pic. There's a 5 inch random orbital sander at the far end of the boat. It works well on the relatively flat spots. Basically from the two darker strips about half way outboard on each side, down to the very bottom. It also works from the sheer down about 4 strakes. About to the light accent stripe. The near sander is a 1/4 sheet random orbital sander. I cut a grout sponge in half and just wrapped the paper around it.
A note about the sandpaper I've been using. The torture board uses pieces 3.5 inchs wide and it comes in rolls 25 feet long. I cut off what I need and simply staple it to the board when I need a new sheet. The old one tears off easily when it's used up. The same paper is cut to length to attach to the sponge sander. The 5 inch RO sander in the background uses hook and latch (velcro) fasteners and the paper is therefore a bit more expensive but the ease of changing out the sheets is great.
The Sponge Sander or, "Sponge Bottom Square Sander" is used for that area between the light and dark accent stripes where the curvature of the hull is too great for a flat sander to be used. I hate Sponge Bottom. He doesn't work very well. I'm about to try using a 1 litre pop bottle with paper wrapped around it to get into the curved areas. Apparently if you fill it with water (or rum ) it adds weight giving it some mass to work with. Solidifies it if you will. That's an experiment for next time I'm out there taking all the fun sanding work away from our Bi-neuroned friend, Sorry Peter, But if you were closer I promise I'd let you do all the sanding you want.
(Don't tell him but I'd only give him 220 grit or higher to make sure he had lots of sanding, I'm a nice guy like that!)
To the right of the boat you can see my strongback ( Actually my dad's but he hasn't seen it in a while) It's made up of 2x10 shaped like a T section with shallow, (1/8th, 16th or so deep) grooves run from end to end, say 5 or 6 of them. The top piece is planed perfectly flat and there are blocks on the underside to keep the thing aligned. you can see them if you look carefully. They're triangular in shape. The legs just slide in since they're also 2x10 only they have a 2 inch notch cut out of them to slide the strongback into. It's all in the picture, check it out. It's dead straight and level. The station locations are measured out. Station 0 is drawn in athwart the top piece exactly mid length on the board. Then each station is measured out from there in either direction. You can play with the shape of the boat giving her a fuller stern by closing the spacing at the after end say. Or do like I did and add length in the middle. You could add length just for lengths' sake and stretch the outer ones. That would give you a finer entry but no more carrying capacity. The canoe is fairly fine in the ends as it is so I chose to leave the ends alone. You could also stretch each station mould out a bit to give you a certain percentage in length increase in the boat overall but the experts say no more than 10%. That's still a nice bit of extra canoe. It wouldn't be as much increase in volume as I got by stretching the middle but it may be what you're looking for. My brother thinks he might have build an extra station 0 mould and insert it next to the other one. Hadn't thought of that but I think I prefer doing it the way I did it. I didn't change the rocker at all. Rocker is the curve of the bottom of the boat fore 'n aft. You can increast the rocker and thereby increase maneouverability by raising the middle moulds a bit. Or you could flatten it out by making all the moulds the same height. This would make her track like a freight train. You'd have a tougher time turning as a result. That's the fun of building her yourself, she's exactly what you want. A tweak here, an inch there. Don't do too much with the boat if you don't know what you're doing though. Unless you don't mind maybe ending up with a lemon after all your work. Trial and error are what advances the art and science of design and construction of boats so don't hold back too much either.

[Sailor's Brother]

Looks like somebody got a new camera!!!!!

An old cereal box cut open had the shape of the sheer traced out on it. You can get this from the plans or take you're dad's old cheerios box pattern and use that. That's what I did. Draw the shape of the sheer on the hull once both stems are planked up both sides. Then cut outside the line. You're not going to use this line for your sheer anway in the end. Once that's done, we're back to fairing the hull..... Oh joy oh joy.

Thank god we're finally into the quality (ish) photos... I hope you didn't throw out that cheerios box... it's a crucial part of those moulds...

[Sailor's Brother]

The epoxy hasn't been on more than 30 minutes here. Didn't get every step so I'll explain how we went from wood to glass like that.

First, the cloth is cut to length and width. I took a strip several inches wide probably 8 or so and cut it from the length of the cloth. This was then place down the centerline of the boat to add ridgidity strength whatever to the hull. Then the large cloth was placed over top of the thin strip. This part requires care not to move the center strip out of place. The cloth was smoothed carefully not to create runs in the cloth.
The epoxy went on pretty easily. I know I'll do a better job next time I do it though. There's room for improvement with us BYBBs for most projects we do isn't there? (Certain catboat builders excepted of course)
Heat your epoxy. I don't mean pour it into a frying pan but placing the epoxy and hardner cans in a pot of boiling water to raise the temperature of them will increase the viscosity (how runny it is) and allow it to penetrate the wood better.
Start about 3 feet from one end. Mix a 5 shot batch of epoxy. If you don't know what a "5 shot batch" is, I'll take this opportunity to explain it to you. Epoxy is mixed to precise ratios of epoxy to hardner. When you purchase your epoxy and hardner, get a set of pumps calibrated to your epoxy product. Then by pumping one shot of epoxy and one shot of hardner, you know you have the correct ratio. Always go from epoxy to hardner and back that way if you start at Epoxy and finish on hardner, you'll never lose count of how many pumps you've made. Even if you do lose track, you'll still have the correct ratio just maybe not the size of batch you were looking for. Ensure you're not pumping half shots........
If the epoxy has settled in the pump or drained out into the can during storage. Pump out a bit till you have a clean stream of product, discard that 1/4 or 1/2 shot (Or if you're cheap, pour it back into the can) and start in a clean mixing container. ( yogurt or butter containers work very well and there's always a ton of them around the house) Stir sticks can be tongue depressors, odd scrap pieces cut up. Larger batches you could use paint sticks. Ensure whatever you use is clean and dust free.
How do tongues get depressed anyway? Is there medication for them? "Take two of those big red ones and call me in the morning"
SO!!! Mix your 5 shot batch and start to apply it. I dumped a bit on the hull then used a soft autobody filler type squeege thingy to spread it around. Have a couple of them on hand. Also have some cheap paintbrushes. I had at least 6 of them probably more. You'll use them to dab at the hull to push out the bubbles and stuff. Another thing to have on hand is a number of empty concentrated juice cans. You know the cardboard ones you peel the little tab ( if it doesn't come off in your hand) and remove the metal lid........ Yah those ones. Cut a slit in the top about an inch long. You'll use this to clean the epoxy off your squeege. The epoxy will drip into the can and start to go off. It'll get pretty hot so a bucket of water may come in handy to throw it into without burning down your drydock/boatshop/bar/garage/bowshed/basement/yougettheidea.
So back to that spot 3 feet from the end of the boat. Hurry up, this stuff won't last all day you know! Spread it and work towards the near end of the boat. Then hurry yourself up and get to the other side and work it as well. The idea is to progress down the length of the hull on both sides keeping a wet edge. This means you'll be in quite a hurry here. If you have a helper or 5 mixing your batches it goes much better. If you have anyone who can help apply it, even better. Bigger batches can be used because more people are applying the epoxy. Time tapes till tell you when it's time to stop mixing and applying batches and start squeegeing. THE BOOK (Canoecraft) will explain this in more detail because I prefer pictures and I don't have any of this part. The general idea is to put 3 coats on. The first coat penetrates the hull and bonds the glass. The second coat fills the weave. The thrid coat gives you something to sand to ensure a fair surface once the boat is finished. Apply your epoxy and when it's been long enough, squeege it off into your orange juice can. Once you've done the parts you've epoxied, get back to mixing another batch of epoxy and continue. If you have several helpers you can continue to apply while the squeege boy follows along astern of you. You're other helper is mixing epoxy for you.
This first batch will do a bit of the hull and once you get the idea in your mind, you can have him increase the batch size. Don't go too big though or you may end up with the epoxy going off before you've got it applied. Little risk on the first coat but on subsequent coats it could happen. Work till the other end is reached. Carefully cut the glass at the end and fold it over it's self at the stem to give a neat finish to the stem. Don't worry, it'll be covered later with a brass half oval strip. When you run out of canoe, you've finished......
For now. Wait the prescribed time and repeat for coats 2 and 3. Then you end up with this


A hull that is fairly fair and roughly ready for final fairing. Let it cure for a while. Take this time to leave you're project for 2 years and do something els. Or you could just wait till it's cured and get right back to it.


I took those two years to have Gabriel. He'll be paddling with Daddy soon enough I hope.


Start em young I say!



Here's one of the handles carved out of a piece of cherry leftover from

The yolk. The interesting little curve at either end is to rais the canoe off my head. The benefit of having used this model before is that I know I wanted more carrying capacity (see earlier posts) and I knew that the yolk as designed would not leave enough space between the yolk and the bottom of the boat for my long necked head. By curving it up a bit, I hope to get a bit more clearance so I don't have to duck my head in the boat when I'm carrying her.

Looking good here Sailor... quick question... did you get the cherry handles from the "traditional spot" ie... 100 year old wainscoting from when we re-build the chimney back home??? or is this new cherry???

[Sailor's Brother]

Bird's eye maple decks. This piece was ripped so the light colour on the edge could be inserted between for a nuce symetrical appearance. Not nearly enough bird's eyes but there never are, are there?


Faying surfaces were beveled to allow for a bit of camber to the deck. There will be keying pieces inserted in the slots to hold the pieces together. More on that later (Much later, I have yet to touch those decks, handles, yolk or seats in many years. They reached the state you see them in years before I even owned a house and shop to set up for the canoe.)
Speaking of seats....



They were made of cherry as well. It came from the wainscotting on the wall in my mother's living room. True story!
Andrew and I (Sailor's brother) wove the pattern once he figured out the weave. We made 3 or 4 pairs of seats. They're easy to make but the rawhide is not too terribly pleasant to work with. Stinks like wet dog and is slippery and slimy. Makes for the best canoe seats going though. Several coats of varnish and the cherry will darken to a beautiful dark colour as you can see from the pic here.

Here you can see how the high spots are sanded leaving the low spots because of that torture board. I found I had a few spots where the weave was starting to show through and I hadn't reached a fair hull yet. I chose to apply another coat of epoxy to build up the thickness. It will add a bit of weight but I sanded most of it back off again afterwards.



Half the hull pretty much faired. You can see the drips and runs in the epoxy that the torture board will sand down fair as I progress. Better to improve your glassing skills and not have them there at all though if you ask me!!! Unless, Peter, you WANT to sand for nothing. I know how you enjoy sanding so much.



See how much better the hull looks now? And that little guy is getting bigger too. He's 3 now..... Where does time go?

Ahhh yes the seats... I think you're canoe will represent the last of those seats we made (also with old wainscoting)... I remember it took a couple of hours to figure out that triple weave pattern... of course like dunces, we didn't write down how it's done... so if we ever do it again, we're back at square one... Of course I was only like 13 or so at the time...

[Sailor]

Here's the next bit of progress. I started milling my inwales and outwales. I started with 4 boards.


Then I cut two edges off one, one of another and ended up with three boards (don't worry about the math, I never did well in that class anyway) There were four boards that were left over and will be used for other projects. Possibly blocks..... We'll see. The results were to have materials to make two boards about 21 feet long 1 1/8" x 2 1/4". These will be ripped half and used to make the wales. Here's one about to go through the saw. As you all know, my shop is ONLY 40 feet long so I have to open the window to mill.... Wait, nope, it'll fit. I'm just too lazy to move my bandsaw so I opened the window instead. Provides a nice support for the infeed chair. You all heard about infeed tables? Well I have an infeed chair!

Next step is to run it through and here's the results of the first piece off the saw.


Marked for scarphing.

Here are the four pieces rough cut and marked. Scarph will be cut next.


Four of them ready for scarphing.


More to come.

[Sailor]

Here are the four pieces



Here's the scarph cutting operation underway.




Here's the latest shot. Canoe and scarphing work.


So there's the work so far. I spent several hours on this today and it was slow going. It was my first scarph so I wanted to go slowly. Any thoughts?
Well more to come later. I think this whole posting pics thing is good for progress. I enjoy seeing everyone elses progress and if I'm to reciprocate, I need to make progress. Keeps me working. I'm sure if I were to leave the project for months on end now Tenner would be on my back right quick to get some progress pics up and he'd be right. That's if for now. Hope you like it.

[Sailor]

Oh, almost forgot. I think my shop is suitably messy that I might be trusted? I was planing on cleaning it up some time soon. If not. I'll leave it a bit longer.

[Sailor's Brother]

What are the dimensions of those boards??? they seem pretty massive for in-whales and out-whales...

how did the bandsaw ripping go??? is it a little better tuned than the last time I was there? personally I'd use the table saw... but...

[Sailor]

It went ok. Could have been better. I think I'll adjust the tension on it before I have a go at something else. If you read the thread, they're a CH over 1 inch thick and 2 1/4 inches wide. They'll be ripped into a CH over 1 inch thick by 1 1/8 inches minus a saw kerf which will leave me with something just under an inch. 7/8 x 3/4 is the size in the book so I'm good to go.

[Sailor's Brother]

It went ok. Could have been better. I think I'll adjust the tension on it before I have a go at something else. If you read the thread, they're a CH over 1 inch thick and 2 1/4 inches wide. They'll be ripped into a CH over 1 inch thick by 1 1/8 inches minus a saw kerf which will leave me with something just under an inch. 7/8 x 3/4 is the size in the book so I'm good to go.

So what's a CH in metric measurement??? Metric is of course originally French, so I'd expect a metric CH to be much much bigger...

Anyone know the actual conversion? between American and Metric CH ???

Sailor's Brother

[Sailor]

The French don't have CHs!

[P.L.Lenihan]

The French don't have CHs!

You wanna bet, tabernacle de CHrist!

Lovely progress and fine work Sailor!!! But I can see you're wimping out with the sanding!! You've really gotta get into the zen of sanding, it's magical.....and if you need a carrot to chase after, promise yourself a nice round tumbler of Port.....after you're done!!

Cheers!

Peter

[Sailor's Brother]

You wanna bet, tabernacle de CHrist!

Lovely progress and fine work Sailor!!! But I can see you're wimping out with the sanding!! You've really gotta get into the zen of sanding, it's magical.....and if you need a carrot to chase after, promise yourself a nice round tumbler of Port.....after you're done!!

Cheers!

Peter

hmmm how to respond to this one!!! LOL

[P.L.Lenihan]

However, in all seriousness les frères,we do refer to stuff like "un poils sur bords de la ligne"(your CH) or if we cut on the line we "bouffe la ligne"...............or at least we do around these parts


Cheers!


Peter