| Building a |  |
| (This page has a lot of graphics so please be patient!) | |
| Building a | |
| (This page has a lot of graphics so please be patient!) | |
For some reason I have always been intrigued at the thought of building a wooden canoe. I'm not sure if its because they are so beautiful or that I wanted a woodworking challenge or maybe both. One thing is for sure, our homemade Cedar Strip Canoe always seems to draw a lot of attention whenever we cruise the waterways!
| A Father and Son Project! |
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 We started by building a "strongback", which is
nothing more than a wooden frame to screw the forms to. After the plywood forms are
attached and aligned, the western red cedar lumber is planed and cut into 1/4" by
3/4" strips. It is difficult to find boards 20' long so I made scarf joints and glued 2 shorter pieces together being sure to
offset the joints when gluing multiple strips together. In the picture, I'm running a
cedar strip though a router jig to round the edges, convex on
one edge and concave on the other. This allows the strips to interlock during gluing. |
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We used yellow carpenters glue to attach the strips to each
other and held them in place with staples. The staples will
be removed after the glue is dry. The holes are not a concern because after sanding, the
entire canoe is covered with fiberglass cloth and 3 coats of clear marine epoxy. It will
be both strong and totally waterproof. I put a couple layers of masking tape over the
edges of the forms so the glue wouldn't stick when the forms are later removed. In the picture on the right, my son
Stephen is busy doing the final sanding with a random orbital sander with 60 grit paper. |
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The
picture on the left shows our canoe just before we removed the screws holding the forms to
the strongback. We then turned it right side up and tapped the forms towards the center to
remove them. The bottom is now covered with several layers of fiberglass cloth and 3
layers of marine grade epoxy. The picture on the right is after the inside is epoxied and before the
excess fiberglass cloth is trimmed off. |
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Stainless
steel wood screws were used to fasten the gunwale to the canoe. The gunwale is made of two
20' strips of ash which sandwich the top edge of the canoe. They were attached first, then
the edges of the canoe were sanded down to be even. The crosspieces or "thwarts"
as they are called, are attached to the gunwale. The caned seats are also made of ash and
are large enough to be very comfortable! |
| The final step is to varnish the entire canoe. We used 2 coats on the epoxy covered areas and 3 coats directly over wood. The marine varnish we used, is need to protect all wood surfaces from water damage. We also applied marine varnish with UV inhibitors to protect the epoxy surfaces. I seems, the epoxy will eventually break down if exposed directly to the ultraviolet rays of the sun, so we need to protect it. It's a little like applying really good sunscreen. |
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This
is the result of 6 weeks of work by my son Stephen and I! This picture was taken during
our maiden voyage in October 1995 on the barge canal. If you would like to build your own cedar strip canoe, I would suggest the book we used as a good place to start. Its called "Building a Strip Canoe" by Gil Gilpatrick. |
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| Model: | E.M. White Guide |
| Length: | 18ft 6in |
| Weight: | 74lbs |
| Construction Materials: |
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