just an update as the strips go pretty slow.



started to add strips to the other side

added a few mpre strips. using pieces of innertube to hold the wood strips tighter to the form.

Bri had friends down for the week so work has been slow

cutting beads and coves on the router table
Put the gang to work attaching the first few strips





brian adjusts the first strip which was screwed to the form. screw to be removed later

never sure what we are doing, looks a little rough but we will see if we can smooth it out later without sanding thru it. a lot more work than you would think.

trying to cut tapers (scarf joint) in the strips to make long strips. not happy with the way they are glueing together but we will keep trying

ripping strips

I had bought some cedar boards ( i thinks its cedar) from the potters house farm. random widths and lengths and was not clear but didn't have too many knots.
We tried to rip them into 5/16+ thick strips and having made a spacer for two thin kerf saw blades figured we could get two strips from every pass down the table saw. A fingerboard is used to hold the stock tight to the fence.


Even at two strips a pass seemed to take forever.

rainy weather is keeping the production slow. which means more tiger woods and call of duty. but we did manage to get the bent strips for the bow and stern glued together, one was a disaster so we re did that. We did manage to get all the glue scrubbed off ourselves in less than an hour so am proud of that.

we took one set of the glued up bow and got it attached to the strongback.

used a block and pencil to mark the centerline on it.

We ran a piece of fishline from end to end to establish centerline. Brian checks alignment and height as we screw them in.







covered for the night with a tarp, it almost looks like a canoe

the start so far 5/19/09

Well my son Brian and I have decided not to be complete slackers while he is here for the summer from college. So we have decided to build a canoe.

Have not a clue what we are doing, gonna do it on the cheap, so mostly scoured web sites and are going to just give it a go and think through it as we get in trouble.

In the last week we have done the following:

used a cad type program to draw out the forms. printed them out to scale and transferred them by spray paint to plywood.








Sanding the form smooth seemed like a lot of work, so since there are usually two identical forms (the canoe is symmetrical fore and aft) we got smart and cut and sanded half of one form , used a flush trim router bit to use the sanded half as a guide to cut half the other matching form. then by flipping the two halves we could cut the rest of each form.
We soaked thin strips in water and clamped them to the bow and stern forms so they would bend and follow the form. We will not use all the strips shown, just wanted to have them all bent close to the right shape. Dry they tended to split.



we then built a strong back to hold all the forms. cleanliness is the key to organized and efficient work. we are neither organized or efficient.

we then mounted the strong back on four post cemented in the ground, made sure it was level.
It is good to be working with Bri, don't think i could this blog without him