My own horrible logo!
by Duane on Oct.19, 2010, under Odds and Ends
I haven’t done much on the canoe lately. I decided to go back to college and it’s taken most of my money and time. I was really hoping to have the canoe done before fall set in but school has taken up a lot of my time since late July. After 15 years it’s a little hard to get back into the swing of things. It’s been fun though. A couple stressful moments before I figured out how to organize everything but pretty good. I’m starting to get the hang of it and I should hopefully get the strips finished and start fairing the canoe pretty soon.
I did find a cool site recently though. Horrible Logos is a site that creates….well horrible logos. I love the idea of the site. He needs beer. I need a logo. For $5 he creates a logo and then uses your money for beer. Pure genius. I couldn’t pass up the chance to get one for the site.
I thought it was a great idea. Probably a little better than I could have drawn on my own. I’m in graphic design at school and could have come up with something on the computer that would have been great but why spend all that time fiddling around with it when I can get one that’s so horrible for only five bucks?
Thanks Horrible Logos. I hope your beer tasted as bad as my logo looks!
A different way to build a cedar canoe
by Duane on Aug.18, 2010, under Odds and Ends
I found this video after searching about the show “How It’s Made”. The music is a little bizarre and she says “gunhales” which I’m guessing is the correct term somewhere? It’s a very different way to build a canoe than the cedar strip method which I’m currently using but I love the finished look. Looking at all those ribs makes it appear much more traditional. I imagine it would take an amateur longer than 30 hours to build a canoe like this but probably not nearly as long as the 150+ hours that I will have into mine by the time it’s done.
I will build a canoe this way some day. Maybe not the next one but all that bending and banging nails looks like a lot of fun. I can’t imagine it would be very cheap to get the metal bands made up for the form but I have seen other ways of doing this process and if you were going to build several canoes it would probably be worth the expense.
Stripping continued
by Duane on Jul.25, 2010, under The Hull
So I took a long break after I started stripping. I got to the walnut accent strip and due to it’s hardness, being wider than the other strips and that it had machined a little differently than the cedar. Cedar is a dream to work with. It machines, bends and staples easily. The walnut didn’t look that different after machining the bead and cove but there was a considerable difference on the cove side. I already had them in with the glue drying when I noticed the problem. I had to change the strips on one side which didn’t go very well when removing them. I lost some little parts of the cove edges on the cedar strips below it. I wasn’t enjoying the process, became very frustrated with it and walked away from the project for a while. After calming down and realizing that it won’t be the most perfect canoe ever built in the history of boatbuilding I started stripping again and it has been enjoyable. I didn’t worry to much about the thickness of the lumber when I went to cut the strips and didn’t plane them down to the same size since they were pretty thin boards. If I build another one I’m going to definitly plane them down next time. I like the idea of using recycled lumber pulled from the walls of a remodel but it has caused some big headaches.
Stripping begun!!!!!
by Duane on May.06, 2010, under The Hull
I spent some time reading Canoecraft
Shaping the stems
by Duane on May.04, 2010, under The Stems
Once the stems are bent and epoxied together it was time to shape them. I didn’t have a spokeshave and was considering purchasing a Kunz spokeshave
Milling the cedar strips
by Duane on Apr.12, 2010, under The Hull
200 rips on the table saw
It was a long wait getting a few things together before I could mill the strips. I had all the cedar I need for the boat stored in the garage since December. I was working on a water damaged condominium and the homeowner had a lot of cedar on the walls that they didn’t want so I salvaged a lot of the 1×4′s. Generally you need 60-70 full length strips for a canoe. Most of the boards I had were about seven feet long. After ripping them all I ended up with about 200 strips which should cover the boat. It wasn’t too hard I just had a friend help while I ripped the boards into 1/4″ strips. I made them a hair big since this is my first canoe.
Steaming and bending the canoe stems
by Duane on Mar.02, 2010, under The Stems
Drying out
After waiting and fretting I finally decided to steam-bend the stems for the canoe. This process went much easier than I had anticipated and wasn’t worth all the apprehension I felt leading up to it. In preparation I machined 12 strips of walnut 1/4″ x 7/8″ x 4′ for the laminates. As suggested in Canoecraft
Waxing your table saw
by Duane on Feb.20, 2010, under Shop Tips
Smooth and protect your table
I have a little contractor style table saw. It has an aluminum table with some kind of coating on it. It’s pretty smooth but I wanted to make it a little smoother before ripping all the strips for my cedar strip canoe so I grabbed a piece of beeswax I had laying around(great for push saws) and applied it to my table. There are several types of wax or oils that can be applied to smooth and protect the table of your saw. I chose the beeswax because it was sitting in my toolbox. Most anything is safe if it won’t transfer to the wood. Anything containing silicone is not good. I have even seen people use candle wax for the table. If your saw has a cast iron top it is a good idea to put some kind of coating on it to protect against rust. (continue reading…)
Making a steam bender for the canoe stems
by Duane on Feb.20, 2010, under Shop Tips, The Stems
High tech steamer
I have seen several different setups for steaming wood. There are some pretty elaborate setups to be found online but I decided to go with a setup I’ve seen several other strip builders use with success. I took a trip to the local lumber store and picked up a 10′ section of PVC pipe for $6. I then went to the local thrift store and picked up a tea pot for $6. I had a little butane burner sitting on a shelf in the garage that someone had given me a couple years back. I wanted to do a test run here as I was unsure whether the PVC would handle the heat. Some people have had problems with different types of PVC tubing and I didn’t want this thing melting when I was ready to bend the wood. It’s the type that is solid white on the outside and black corrugated on the inside. I could have picked up some metal dryer ducting but it was three times the price. I cut the PVC down to about 6′ and shoved a few rags in the top. After cutting the lid off the teapot I just set the pipe on top of it and started heating the water. It took a while with my little butane burner but made some pretty good steam!
Before I actually steam the laminates I’m going to screw a block to the bottom leaving a little hole for the teapot spout to keep the strips up in the pipe.
Checking the canoe forms
by Duane on Feb.19, 2010, under The Forms, The Strongback
Marking the centerline
Once all the canoe forms were finished it was time to mark the center-line and station lines on the strongback. I started by marking the center on each end of the strongback. It doesn’t have to be perfect just get it pretty close. I then tacked a nail on the center-line at each end and stretched fishing line across it. I made a few marks directly under the center-line and then used my 6′ level to connect the marks. I then checked it with the fishing line to make sure the whole line was nice and straight. I then marked all the lines for the station molds. I took some time here and used a mechanical pencil to make the most accurate lines possible. I didn’t have any lumber thick enough to make the station blocks but my neighbor had some short 2×6′s laying around and donated them in the interest of seeing this thing keep going. I ripped them down on the table saw and then screwed them to the strongback from underneath. (continue reading…)
-
Boatstrips.com
Hi and thanks for checking out my site about building a cedar strip canoe. I'm currently building a 15' Ranger from Bear Mountain Boats. If you are planning a canoe and don't have it already I highly suggest purchasing their book Canoecraft
