(LAST ENTRY) - And it worked...Was there any doubt?

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for joining me during this build, it was an adventure.  I hope it has inspired you to start your own project, regardless of how out of your grasp it may seem.  Just go for it!  

At any rate, the boat floats, and it cuts through the water like a shark on steroids.  It continues to move forward even if you stop paddling for a while.  If the wind is blowing to your back, whoo-wah...free ride baby!  It handles well, and goes where I want it to (and I haven't been in a canoe in about 15 years or more).   

It is about 28 pounds finished, about 8 pounds over what the plan says it will run in at, and I knew it would be.  That was my error in wood selection that caused the weight-gain.  Next time! 

The paddle worked well, but it was absolutely too short, again, my mistake.  I will get some new wood and make the paddle the length it was originally supposed to be, but now I know I love that style of paddle.  There is hardly any resistance, it is quiet, and it does this sweet little popping thing just before the paddle comes out of the water (I can't even begin to explain it).  

It was a great experience and I can't wait to start my next boat project, it will have to wait until the end of winter though.  Epoxy doesn't cure very well in the cold, and my garage is cold. 

I will focus on building furniture, bows (for archery), and maybe I'll finally get my fishing net project on the go.  Who knows. 

Anyway, thanks again.  If anyone wants to come take the boat for a spin, or wants to see it on the water, just drop me a line.  Cheers...

    

(Entry 14) Paddle progress.

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Hmmm, this is a lot tougher than I had originally thought.  Who woulda thunked that makin' a paddle woulder been so dang hard?  On the left is the Poplar blank, on the right is the very roughed out paddle that still needs to be shaped a little more and then sanded.  I figured using Poplar would have been an okay choice, as it tools really nicely and it's a cheap beginner wood, haha...stupid Brad, Poplar is for cabinets.  It isn't a bad wood and I'd love to make some furniture with it, but as far as boat and paddle building are concerned, I'll be using something else next time.  Poplar has no resistance to rot, I'm completely relying on the clear coat to extend the life of the wood.  It is heavy, brittle, and kind of on the ugly side (it has an unpleasant greenish' yellow color that looks worse when clear coated).  Oh well, that's part of learning new skills I reckon.  So anyway, the paddle was going to be 94 inches in length, but now it's 84 inches long.  I started cutting the rough shape with a hand saw and my body decided it would rather use power tools instead, so I borrowed a circular saw (thanks Duane).  I accidentally angled the saw incorrectly with my first cut and ended up cutting past the center line on one of the tips of the paddle.  Apparently it is easy to cut wood off of a board, but very hard to put it back on...next time I'll practice on a piece of scrap to get comfortable with using a different saw.  Since I ended up only messing up the end of the board, no real harm was done, and the project could be salvaged by removing 5" from both ends of the blank.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the other piece of lumber, it won't be used for another paddle though, I'll try Basswood or Cedar next time.         

There is the piece of Dacron I added to the Stem of the canoe to make it more durable.  It was a giant pain in my arse!  It is actually 3 different pieces, there is a 1 1/2 inch wide piece on the very front of the stem, then there are two of the larger quarter eclipse type shapes you can see there (one on each side).  I ended up reading the instructions that came with the boat plan, which are not very clear (at least not to me), and I did a few extra steps.  Oh well, it will be nice and durable now, and when I hit the first tree I'll be glad I can't read and follow instructions.  I think it gives the boat a little style, it kind of pops when you look at it now...haha!

Well, next time you hear from me, the paddle will be complete and the boat will be taking a bath.  Until then, toodaloo!

(Entry 13) Okay, maybe I'll launch next weekend instead. ;)

Welcome back, maybe I will write a few more posts before ending this blog with the boat launch.  Yesterday I applied one very thick coat of Varnish/clear coat to the canoe hull, it finally decided to dry for me.  I'm hoping that after I apply a few more coats it will become a little less patchy looking (never clear coat in poor lighting, lol).  If it doesn't fix itself after a few more coats, I'll apply a white outdoor paint and chalk it up to another valuable lesson learned.  I finally read the information on the can of Varnish, it recommends waiting at least 3 days to allow it to properly cure (it also made mention of being careful with whatever you coat for the first week as it is still curing), I guess I'm waiting.  =(

I'm going to add a Dacron piece to the front and back, just to reinforce the area at the stem that was cut and then folded over upon itself (I'm sure it's water tight, but for how long?).  The doubled up material will also add a touch of abrasion protection in case I run her up on the beach by accident, I may even triple it and add a strip all the way down the center.  That's the good thing about this material, get a hole in the canoe, just cut a patch and clear coat it on and your problem is solved.

There is my two paddles.  I ended up settling for Poplar lumber, I know it's a terrible choice for marine lumber as it has to rot resistance, but it's cheap.  I used Poplar for the longitudinal stringers on the boat, I may as well use it for my paddles too.  I had originally asked for Basswood, but Craftmen Hardwoods doesn't carry it in a 1 1/2" thick stock (they will get it, but I don't want to wait), so I settled for the much heavier Poplar.

The dimensions of this rough cut board are 1 1/2" thick X 9 3/8" wide X 8' 2" in length, it weighs about 300 pounds and cost $27.  Tonight before I drop that lovely table saw off at my buddies house (thanks for letting me borrow her), I will rip that board right down the center to give me two pieces at roughly 4 1/8" wide.  I will build one paddle and set the other piece of lumber aside until I know what I did wrong with my first paddle, and then I'll build a second with my new skills.

Well, that's about all I can think of to write down.  I can't wait to get this boat in the water and see how many mistakes I've made that I didn't realize were made.  I'm hoping I can start the new boat soon.

Cheers!

(Entry 12) Now isn't that a sexy thing?

I guess I managed to get a lot of work done over the last few days.  Now she is Dacron covered and ready for sealer (Varnish).  I'm very impressed with the way it has turned out, my only hope is that I enjoy paddling it around.  After seeing the skin on the frame today, I have no doubt she'll float, instead I find myself asking...Will she track straight in the water?  Will she be tippy?  How long will she last?  Either way, I'm very happy to have made it this far with only minor errors (mostly from lack of experience/knowledge), and I think I can live with that.

There are two things I need to do and I'll be floating around on the lake, errr, make that three.  I need to coat the boat with Varnish/Clear Coat, about 5 coats (or more).  I need to attach the rub rails to the outside of the gunwale, it will prevent damage to the side of the boat from the paddle (hence the name, rub rail), it will also help hold the covering of Dacron on.  And, last but not least, I need to make a frikken' paddle. Why not just buy one?  

Why not have just bough the entire canoe?  It is for the experience, and to say that I've made a canoe and a paddle with my bare hands (and some tools, lol).

I'm planning on making a Greenland style kayak paddle.  I know what you're thinking, "It's not a kayak Brad, it's a canoe".  Indeed you are correct, but it is so low to the water, narrow, and I will be either sitting on the floor or kneeling, and that makes it enough like a kayak for me.  It seems like a simple enough process to make a paddle, making an efficient paddle that holds up to the abuse is another story all together.  I will include a picture of the Greenland style kayak paddle at the end of this post, and you can come back later and see how mine turned out compared to a pro's.    

Well, as you can see, you can see through the boat.  It is a very light fabric, and it is so taut, it's almost like I made a drum (and actually sounds like it too).  Check out those nice floor boards (above), they are made of the spruce I originally cut for the longitudinal members/stringers for the boat.  I was actually too cheap to go out and buy the proper wood, I just recycled the lumber I was originally going to use (plus it is hard to get a 16 foot piece of wood home in a Honda Civic).

So, if I get energetic enough to coat her with Varnish tomorrow and install the rub rails, maybe by the weekend I'll have her on the maiden voyage.

Okay, here is the picture of a Greenland style kayak paddle.  This one looks like it is made of two different types of wood with tip protectors of some kind.  I can assure you, my paddle will be only ONE kind of wood, and it won't have any such tip protection...So we'll see how horrible mine turns out.

I've also decided to steal this little gem of a picture.  This is the next boat I plan on building, it is a Greenland Style kayak.  Most of these kayaks that I've seen pictures of weigh in at about 30-40 pounds.  They use a very heavy cotton skin (more protection, but more weight also), and very thick longitudinal stingers.  I'd like to try and give it a redesign by reducing the size and thickness of the stringers, and by using Dacron instead of the heavy material they typically use to build them.

At any rate, we'll have to wait and see!

Thanks for reading.  See you for the last post soon, will she float?  

(Entry 11) Almost done!

Hello again there o' faithful reader, it has been a long time since we last met.  Since you were here last, a lot of work has been done.  I haven't taken pictures of all the stages, most of the work was mind-numbing and tedious and the pictures likely wouldn't have been any different.  Anyway, let us begun once again.  You'll notice a cross-hatched yellow string on the outside of the canoe, that is the "Kevlar roving".  The roving is probably the second worst part of building this type of canoe, only beat out by the rib glue-up and installation (and that was partially my fault).  I can't explain what the Kevlar is, but it sure is a pain in the ass to work with, a million strands of hell (no shitting, I'll include a closeup of some at the end).  At any rate, the Kevlar is applied to the gunwale with heat n' bond, a magical paper-backed hot glue type adhesive (oh yes, notice the inwale and outwale with all of the Kevlar fibers dangling from it, that is now called the gunwale).  The heat n' bond is thinner than a piece of paper, but holds the Kevlar tight.  The heat n' bond is activated by (you guessed it) heat, so I used an iron to apply it over top of the Kevlar.  Yes, I used an iron, now be quiet!  

There is another lovely picture of the Kevlar.  After I was all done attaching the Kevlar to the canoe, I had to put a coating of varnish (clear coat) on it (Yes, on the yellow string...and I thought putting the Kevlar on was tedious, oh gee it gets better).  Apparently if I don't put a coating of varnish on the Kevlar, it will act like a sponge later and soak up all of the varnish applied later as a sealer coat on the Dacron skin.  Once it is all sponge like and steals the varnish from the skin, it leaves little pin holes along the length of the string that could allow water into my boat (not something I'd like to experience).  So blabbidy-blah and a bit of bibbidy-booh and that's the fun Kevlar song.  

There, the sun is shinning through my canoe!  Actually, it's a lamp (boo).  Anyway, those there that the lamp is shinning through, are the floorboards.  They were another fun step in this build.  I'm not sure who thought of this canoe thing, but they were really, really bored I think.  It is one painful job after the next, and once you think the pain is over and the wound has scabbed over, they pick at it again until it's left open and bleeding.  Whooha, off topic, strange!  So the floorboards, lets put a flat piece of wood (that doesn't bend very well) on a curved surface, yay!  Not only will we do that, we will also make you glue them into place after you've test fit them, so go ahead and take them all out and put them back again.  Grrr!  The other thing in the picture is (the  longish vertical board in the picture) is one of the thwarts, it holds the canoe in it's shape.  It was a square piece of cherry lumber, now it's roundish.  I really didn't get creative with it at all, I think all of my creative juices have vanished during this project and it's time to just get it done.  I guess it's just the idea of having put all of this time into something that may or may not actually float, and if it does float, how long will it actually last for?  So there ya go, that is my reason for not using my imagination anymore on this project.  If this boat floats, I'll put imagination into the next one I make (and apply all of my new knowledge as well).

As promised, there is the closeup of the Kevlar roving.  To me it looks like doll hair, kind of scary!  That creepy doll-hair-type stuff also ruined my scissors, it took a lot of work to actually cut this stuff with scissors.  My scissors blades are all dented and dulled, silly Kevlar, you need not be so strong.

Boom, da end!

(Entry 10) Off the mold

There she is looking all sexy...

Finally she has flipped, and I've hardly done anything since my last post.  I made those two saw horses today (which are awful and wobbly without shims under one leg, booo), I set in the last two ribs that I couldn't reach when she was on her belly, and took these pictures.  I know it's tough work, but someone has to do it.

I placed a temporary brace in the center of the canoe to stop her from caving in on herself, but that was a waste of time as it is just sitting there with no pressure on it (good stuff).

Everything looks very straight and true to my eye, but how good are they?  Tomorrow I will fix those last ribs into position with epoxy, I will cut and glue in the "inwales" into place.  The inwale will go on along the top rail on the inside of boat and sandwich the ribs between the piece that's already there (the outwale), then she is called a gunwale.  After that's taken care of, the thwarts will need to be cut and put into position.  The thwart is just like that temporary cross brace I have in the middle there, but there will be two of them in this canoe.  It just keeps the sides of the canoe from caving in or warping out of shape, and they add a ton of stiffness to the boat.

She is getting close, but I'm still very far away from the end.  So much work has yet to be done.  So much to do before she can see the water.

I was actually thinking about my next project today and trying to create some plans for it, imagine that, not even done this project and trying to start another.  Haha!

See ya.

(Entry 9) I want my baby back RIBS...

I'm not sure if it's a canoe, or a hairy caterpillar...to be honest, I'm not sure I care.  If the beast floats, call it by what ever name fancies your tickly-place.  It has been an eventful six days since my last post, allow me to run you through the festivities.  First I needed to figure out which type of lumber I was going to use for the RIBS (if you haven't guessed, I've managed to get all of the ribs in the boat).  Then I needed to borrow a table saw, and then of course cut them to appropriate dimensions.  Next, they then of course need to be bent, glued, clamped, measured, twisted, and every other damn thing you could think of (I think a burning cigarette to the eyeball may be more enjoyable).  So there you go, you're all caught up!  Good day folks.   

Okay, only joking.  Seriously though, that is probably the most time consuming and possibly irritating job I've had to do on this project yet.  If I were to do it all over again, I would definitelyforsure100% source green lumber for the ribs.  If you remember my last post, you'll recall me mentioning "green" lumber for the ribs, well I decided to be a tit and cheap out...I decided to use some lumber I had recently sourced that was now just laying around.  Table saw now borrowed, I call up my brother (thanks Ryan) to help me run the Cherry lumber through.  Knowing full well that this cherry is kiln dried and will not take a steam bending (according to many-a-internet forum folk) we proceed to cut the ribs to half their thickness to later be laminated and put into position. Okay, perhaps a word on lamination before we continue.  If you have two thin pieces of wood (in this case) and you glue those two pieces of wood together, bend the wood into position, once the glue between the layers of wood dries the wood will be forever bent into shape.  There, a very quick blah-dibbity about laminating wood.     

So we cut all of the lumber to half the thickness of the final rib size, but double the actual width, which was incredibly stupid.  The finished rib dimensions were supposed to be 1/4" thick, by 1/2" wide, so now we have about 40 pieces of lumber cut to 1/8" thick (half of finished thickness), by 1" wide, can you detect an issue here?  I can, and I won't even go into the issues I had trying to laminate the ribs into the canoe at double the width.  So after I figured out that the double-wide (reminds me of Eminem's home from 8 Mile) ribs were forcing the canoe out of shape during lamination, I had to figure out how to cut an 1/8" thick strip of cherry on a table saw without having it rattle and jump straight off the table and into my face.  Turns out that two days later I'd have the answer, and after about an hours work the strips were now reduced to half their width, which is the correct width.................

I can see this is getting confusing for you, your eyes are closing and you are falling asleep, you are getting sleepy, very sleepy, veeerrryyy...  Okay, so enough of that long-winded mindless babble, enough of Mr. Boring talk.  The ribs are in (all but one on each end, these need to be cut in half as they won't bend into place), all frikken' 18 of them.  Funny story, the plan calls for 18 total, but I will actually have 20 in total since I decided to reduce the spacing of the ribs by 1" so that I could avoid them landing on a station mold, haha, super funny leg slapper eh!  I love creating more work for myself, why didn't I increase the spacing to get the same result with less work?  Dumb-ass...  

Anyway...tomorrow I will hopefully have all of the zip-ties (they work great as clamps) off and the boat flipped, yay!

Blabbity-blah, until next time folks, cheers!