Summers gone, still floating

Me and doggy in Portugal.

3/6 She´s floating

Ahhh, that was nice. No problems at all. We loved the quietness of the canoe. Its fun to build boats. I wanna build more.... This is my first boat and I´m very happy with it. I made it very fast. I learned a lot and some things I would do in a different way. I will make a few photos more of finished thing

Some days ago

Finally outside. drying time

27/5 base coat is on

I filled the outside of the hull and painted it with a base coat.

24/5 09 Seats are are in

I have varnished the inside of the hull and I have made the seats and installed them. The inside is ready....

18/5 09

So, I´m fiished with the building of the hull. I need to make seats, paddles, varnish it on the inside and Paint it dark read on the outside. Before I can do so, I need to wait a week to let the epoxy "gas off" During this time I will be sanding the hull and making the seats.

17/5 09

Yesterday I decided to do some little extras on the canoe. I made a laminated wood bow and stern. Its in the plan as an optional. I decided to go with to pieces of pine 10mm wide and 4mm thick. The reason I use Pine for this project is that its what I can get. I would have prefered ash.
Bending Pine thicker than 4mm is difficult.
On the pictures, you can see how I bent on a (homemade) hot tube, fitted the lamination and did a dry run with the rope before gluing. It all went quite easy. On the last photo you can see how I glued the short side runners using another very traditional method.

16/5 09 She´s all tied up

I glued the central runner today. Still working with old fashion tecniques.

15/5 09

I glued the outwhales today. I didn´t have enough clamps, so I made some more Spanish rope tricks.

14/5 09

I glued the fore and after decks today. First, I routed, chiseled and sanded away 5 mm of the hull in order to get the decks flush with the hull.
Then I glued the decks. First with tape in order to secure that they were positioned right and afterwards applying a bit of pressure with cotton rope. Thats the traditional Spanish method for gluing bindings and purflings on guitars.

12/5 2009 part 2

I prepared the wood for the inwhales. And did a test fit with just a few clamps. Its not going to be easy, so I left it like it is and will see how it looks tomorrow.

12/5 2009

Back on the track

Yesterday I cut out the bulkheads. I used a piece of scratch to meassure the size and shape before transferring onto the Okume plywood. I glued it in with tape on the backside and a bit of epoxy "spot welding"

This morning I finished off with an epoxy fillet on the frontside and I cut out some pieces of wood and plywood to reinforce and to give enough area to glue the decks on.

day 9

I have taped the seams on the outside, and I have covered the outside with epoxy. That was yesterday. Today I have sanded the outside of the hull and have given it one more layer of epoxy. I have also taped the centerseam on the inside with two layers of tape and epoxy and I have covered the inside of the hull with one more layer of epoxy....
I now consider phase number 1 finished. The creation of the hull. Its now sealed and its very stiff, exept on the gunwhales where the inner and outer whale will be glued on to reinforce that area.
This means that I will go a little bit slower the next period. I have to concentrate some more on the 3 guitars I´m building and I´m very tired of "playing" with epoxy. So dont expect a daily update the next couple of weeks. I will continue building but on a slower rythm.

day 8

I´ve finished the filling of the chines on the outside and I have sanded the inside of the hull and sealed it with epoxy. Its looking better. I like the color of the okume plywood better than I thought.

day 7

Ok, a small update.
I´ve been filling the chines and making fillets with epoxy thickened with wood flour. Sticky stuff. The stich and tape way of building is relatively easy but it also means using a lot of epoxy.... This I dont like so much, but ok, its something that has to be done.

I´ve turned the hull upside down and worked the outside a bit for the first time. I lokks good in my eyes.

day 6

Not much to say. Yesterday I glued some fillets with a mixture of epoxy and wood flour. Looks ok.

day 5, gluing the hull

I glued the hull yesterday using a mixture of epoxy resin and wood powder from my dust extraction in the workshop. It takes a while, its sticky and the mask irritates me. But well, thats life if you want to make this kind of canoes.

This morning I took out the cable ties and the molds, and the hull kept its shape. (yahooo) As you can see on one of the photos, I found a way of "lifting" the the central part of the hull. Simple is often the best. I´m very happy with the shape. It looks very correct.

The canoe will be a 14,2" Selway Fisher Prospector. The plan is for a 15,8" so I have shortened all the panels in the central section.
I wanted a 14" canoe because its easyer to transport on top of a small car. and its easyer to move around as well. Its going to be used mainly by 2 personas and a small terrier. Total weight of 140kg. My girlfriend is from inland Spain and she knows nothing about water, boats and canoes, so the choice was a stable design. I was choosing between the 14" Raven, which I dont like to much, the 14" Peterborough which is very pretty but with a total of 14 planks also pretty advanced. Besides its a bit narrow and with a very sharp bow and stern. I´m sure its a delight to paddle, But I wanted something with a rounder bow and stern and a wider hull. Thats the reason I´m doing what I do. It looks like it will be some 4,35m long and 86cm wide.

Just some thoughts

I had a look at the hull this morning. Everything fine. Its almost in perfect shape. It is not as flatbottomed as the plan say and this you can see when you fit in the molds. There are 1 - 1,5 cm gap below. Nothing serious.
I have a feeling (I´m quite sure) that planks number 2 are a bit to straight. I wasnt really sure which angle they should be when I glued the two halfes together. I decided to look along the plank to find a fit without sudden changes in the curve. Maybe I should have left them a little bit more curved.

Its tecnically a better idea to join two plywood plates and cut the planks in one go, but it means having to cut almost 5 meters of planks. In order to do that you need lots of space and a lot of tables

Day 4 stiching

I´m tired, so this will be mostly photos. Basically I´ve drilled a lot of holes and put a lot of cable ties in them.
The result you can see on the photos. She´s almost the desired shape. Its going to be a canoe

Day 3, gluing

Untill now everything has been simple. But here things can go wrong. The planks must be glued together in the right angle. I chosed to trust my intuition and look along the planks to see that they didn´t have any sudden changes instead of just gluing them together in the right angles that were left after cutting out the planks. I first glued I side of planks together using wooden epoxy glue. And when it was finished, I layed the planks for the other side above the first ones in order to get the exact same shape for both sides.

Total time day 3, 4 hours.

Day 3 Scarfjoints

I decided to join the planks using scarf joints. The reasons are that, if well done, they are stronger and also that I find them more attractive han butt or glassfibre joints. I hope to finish the canoe without any glassfibre in the inside (except the center joint) I´m also used to doing scarf joints. All the guitars that I build have 1 scarfjoint in the neck.
In order to do a good scarf joint, its important to have a good plane, but even more important that its very sharp and that you know how to use it. Planing in 45 degrees help a lot on plywood. Its a good idea to "glue" the two parts together with double stick tape. It helps controling a lot.
If you use a orbital sander in the end, use one which is well balanced. If not, you´ll end up with round joints.

cutting planks

Day 2,
5 hours

Just some photos. I´m tired. Lots of cutting. Lots of dust. Especially when I aligned the planks with the belt sander. I´m happy with the result