Andrew's Cedar Strip Canoe
Welcome to another of my projects, My first big woodworking project was a Rolltop desk made in 1988 since then my project have been on a smaller scale till I built my office desk January 2000 for my new job.
I've been dreaming about building a canoe since the mid eighties when I moved from home and decided that fishing from a boat would be more enjoyable than sitting on the shore. So I set out to find a boat I quickly decided that a canoe was the way to go but what kind? I found that fiberglass and aluminum canoes were too heavy for one person to carry so I decided on a cedar strip one problem the cost of buying one was around $2500 so I thought why not build one? Well 12 years later I received my new Spring 2000 Lee valley catalogue in the mail and saw that they had canoe plans for sale. I then decided that enough was enough and that it was finally time to make my dream a reality. I set out to build the strong back in early June 2000. That was fairly simple then it was time to book a week's holiday and get the lumber. I drove down to my local Lumber yard and discovered that 16' lengths of lumber are not readily available so it was off to Windsor Plywood here in Winnipeg that I found the lumber I needed. I decided that by looking at the different strip canoes that I wanted some variation in the wood so I decided on western red cedar, pine, redwood and mahogany.
to rip the 1" x 6" boards to 1"x 1/4" strips then I had to run them through the router to put a bead and cove on the edges. That done it was time to assemble the hull.
Of the two ways to assemble it I chose to start with the bottom and work my way to the top unfortunately, I was so wrapped up in building it I forgot to take pictures until the hull was almost complete
|
|
|
|
Both ends of the almost completed hull |
|
|
|
The Hull now completed I removed the nails and filled the voids with tinted wood filler and started to sand starting with a belt sander and 50 grit paper and ending with a orbital sander with 120 grit paper. |
| After the sanding was complete it was time to fiberglass the hull being the first time I've worked with fiberglass I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it went on. I used the West System 105 resin with the 207 hardener I applied one layer of fiberglass cloth and three coats of epoxy. |
|
 |
Now things were getting exciting it's looking like a canoe. I took the canoe off the strong back and sanded the inside then came the fiberglass cloth and two layers of Epoxy. |
|
|
|
|
Then I installed the mahogany gunnels and thwart and the decks which I used Cedar, Redwood and pine. I'm almost done just the seats and 4 coats of marine spar varnish and I'll be ready to launch it this Sunday August 20 2000 I can hardly wait. More pictures will be coming of the official launch and the finished product |
|
|
|
|
|
Well it's been Launched and it floats!!! It paddles like a dream it's now
Sept 28/00 I've been having too good a time paddling to put up these last
photo's above left is a close-up of the deck with the Canadian August 2000 quarter to commemorate the finishing of the Canoe to the right is a close-up of the seat which weaved with Boot lace it took 4 laces to make each seat |
|
|
|
|
|
Finished ready to paddle |
|
|
|
That's it for now I will be adding pictures of it in the
water when I can remember. (I'm having too much fun with it and forget to
take pictures.) Questions and comments are always welcome email me @ ajtoms@govideon.net |
|
|
|
