Ted Moores, one of the minds behind Bear Mountain Boats, goes above and beyond to provide lifetime support to their customers. A recent email exchange with a customer who purchased plans from Bear Mountain Boats unveils the true essence of this commitment.
The damage was enough that piecing it back together and patching was out of the question. The only solution was to mold a new section to replace the damaged portion.
The first step is to roughly mark off the area to be replaced to get an idea of the size to make the patch.
Clamp the jig to the bench and position the panel, tacking the edges with 1” finishing nails. Set the heads below the surface so they won’t interfere with shaping and sanding. After shaping and sanding, lay up with one layer of glass and one coat of epoxy. When cured, the panel will hold the molded shape.
Trim the panel to size and position over the hole. Use an awl to scribe a very accurate shape onto the hull, then carefully trim to the line.
To support the panel during installation, Ted used a few little tabs. Cover the tabs with plastic packing tape and use two sided carpet tape for a temporary attachment to the inside of the hull.
Apply thickened epoxy to the edges, put in place then fasten to the tabs with #4 x 1/2” screws and a washer. Then use lots of plastic packing tape to hold it all together.
Tape off the area to be glassed a couple inches outside the patch. One layer of glass and one coat of epoxy.
Use a sharp chisel to slide under the tape to trim the glass. When feathering the edge of the glass, be careful not to cut into the original glass around the patch. Finish with two more coats of epoxy.
Finish the inside with one more layer of glass, feather the edges and apply two more coats of epoxy. After the epoxy has cured, sand and varnish.
It can be devastating to have to repair something we have worked of hard on, but we are here to support you as you figure out your next steps. Adjustments to the steps above will be needed based on your boat's unique characteristics but rest assured, the support from Bear Mountain Boats remains unwavering—we're always here to help you navigate the waters of craftsmanship.
]]>The canoe is one of Canada's most iconic images, but what if you're trying to give things a local twist? We thought Trevor Prior's platypus inlay was a fun and inspired choice to customize the build for his native Australia. Read on to hear Trevor's story in his own words.
I was not a boat person. When I was ten years old my dad had a wooden boat built—a 14’ runabout which we used infrequently.
I have however dabbled in woodwork since a young age, building toys and small furniture. Over the years I have acquired a reasonable, amateur workshop.
In a former marriage, I was introduced to sailing and we purchased a “Hartley TS16” trailer-sailer. That went with the divorce.
During this time I was inspired by wooden boats—I researched and hoped… I gathered this collection of boat books. I lived, breathed and dreamed them. Time, space and money precluded any building however I still have the desire. Canoecraft is a recent purchase and is clearly, invaluably in-service.
Life goes on. God is gracious. My new wife, Jenny, is tremendous.
We are active and enjoy the outdoors—camping, snorkelling, paddling—and travelling. We had frequently borrowed a friend’s kayaks and eventually bought our own. Kayaks are fun and have their place. But our dog Hudson is not a fan of kayaks, travelling with us only in preference to his psychotic fear of being left behind, so, travelling in tolerance but not so comfortably. Hudson has caused us several ‘swims’. At this point I began to wonder if a canoe would be more comfortable for us (all). My hope was/is to drift in the quiet waters—with my wife, our dog, a good camera, maybe overnight trips—all whilst keeping a dry backside.
And travelling: We had planned a tour of Canada several years ago. Jenny’s son had moved to Vancouver so we were off to visit Jeff, do the Rocky Mountaineer, do a tour of Nova Scotia and ‘Anne of Green Gables’ country, and visit a friend of mine who lives in Coaticook, Quebec. The holiday was fully booked and paid for in 2019!
Then came COVID.
The ‘holiday’ was cancelled for 2020. And 2021. Postponed indefinitely? No refunds! Flights and tours held forward!
COVID lockdown kept us home. As a nurse in the private sector, with our ‘private’ services shut down, “Job Keeper” paid me to stay at home. I built a small kitchen cupboard. Finally I had time and money (and motivation) so I got to pondering the canoe again. But space? Thus the canoe research began:
I scoured the internet and found many sites and much info. Bear Mountain Boats has the lot. I narrowed it down to the Prospector Ranger 15’. Stability was my priority. The 17’ build would not fit in my garage.
In all of my dreaming and research I had visions of the Indigenous canoe with native animals painted on the bark/hide, and the trader’s canoe packed to the hilt for a journey. Every weekend I am taunted with these images hanging in my local South Australian coffee shop:
It would be fraudulent for me to put such images on my canoe, so I got to wondering what I could do to personalize my canoe in an honourable way.
The platypus! Uniquely Australian. Quiet water/stream investigators. Seldom seen, although I do hope to get the canoe out frequently. How to do it?
You may be familiar with Duck Flat Wooden Boats, Mount Barker, South Australia, then owned by Robert Ayliff.
I live in Murray Bridge, 30 minutes away.
Now (long ago, actually) under new management, DFWB are my "go to" resource for product and support. I was fortunate to have a good length of western red cedar available (only needing to scarf two lengths on each side, one of which will be hidden under the gunnels).
I have some Australian river red gum in the perfect size so I got to planning and decided to mill up some strips and make a red gum platypus to dwell in the hull of my canoe.
I deliberated for ages on how to fit him—finish the canoe and fit him in; strip him in piece by piece. I settled in on the following method.
I constructed Platypus and added the strips between its legs to give stability. I trimmed 1 strip on the canoe, just enough, to accept the platypus feet, and mounted Platypus into the hull, then continued to strip the canoe to completion.
I’ve scaled Platypus up to 2 foot long and positioned him centrally between stations. He still needs his rear toenails added.
My next plan (very much in the planning phase) is to put a platypus profile on the bow, swimming at the waterline.
My plan here is to engrave the platypus outline with a shallow “V” dremmel then fill this with a resin/red gum flour paste, just as an outline in the contrasting wood.
*Back to the solid red gum platypus in the hull—I plan to dremmel the “V” into the eyes, nostrils, toes and ‘bill’ details and fill these with WRC flour for reverse contrast.
The canoe is built and I am only at fairing and sanding the outer hull.
I am still testing the various coloured flour pastes and testing its fibreglass-ability.
And I have a set of oars underway (where I hope to do a small scale engraved outline of the platypus profile—not a priority task).
The rest of the canoe:
After discussion with a timber supplier in Adelaide, I am using Celery Top Pine for the outer stem, both gunnels and the oars. I am using Tasmanian Oak for the seats and Yoke, with 3mm cane to weave the seats. I will stay with WRC for the decks.
The platypus is an elusive and enigmatic critter. If you have time and interest, when you are next on Facebook have a look at the Hobart Rivulet Platypus page. This Facebook page has the best selection of platypus videos that I can find.
After touring Canada in a rush, I have since come to appreciate the Beaver. I wish I had more time to have experienced many more adventures and cultural experiences in Canada. Next time!
Thanks again Ted and Joan, for Bear Mountain Boats and for your hospitality. I will keep you up to date on the progress of Platypus.
Kind regards,
Trevor & Jenny
]]>We’ve helped builders all around the world make their own canoes, kayaks, and small boats. We regularly field questions about wood choice, which models to choose for specific conditions, and recommended materials. Offering that kind of advice has become second nature, so often the really tricky questions involve how to ship large, heavy, or unusually sized packages to far-flung locations. Enter our partners at Fyne Boat Kits, the official distributor of Bear Mountain products in the UK and Europe.
The seasoned folks at Fyne have been in the business for over twenty years, preparing both ready-built boats and DIY kits. Their expertise runs the gamut from canoes to sailboats to paddleboards, so we have confidence that European customers considering a Bear Mountain design are in good hands. We can also vouch for the quality of their precision-cut materials, prepared in Fyne’s facility in the UK Lake District.
We have always encouraged builders to use whatever materials make the best ecological and economic sense, and Fyne’s unique approach to kits allows them to produce affordable kits to a high standard. As full-length western red cedar strips grow increasingly expensive even in North America, European-grown paulownia has emerged as a regional alternative. Paulownia is both faster growing and lighter than western red cedar, with characteristics that adapt well to boatbuilding. In addition to the usual bead-and-cove profile, Fyne’s strips include a pre-cut finger joint to allow them to be easily assembled at home, and their shorter length results in a substantial savings on shipping.
If you’d like to see inside the Fyne workshop yourself, they post regular updates on their Instagram and Facebook profiles. We encourage customers from Europe and the UK to visit the Fyne website knowing they’ll find everything they need for a Bear Mountain-style boat closer to home. While we’re at it, we also encourage builders to send us shots of their paulownia craft—we can't wait to see what’s coming out of workshops across the pond. Sincerely,
The Bear Mountain Team
]]>
“So…you’re driving from Toronto to Vermont to spend a week building a canoe with a guy you met for 2 hours 12 years ago?” my neighbour asked.
I smiled. “Yep.”
12 years ago I was driving through the Green Mountains of Vermont when I saw a small road sign for Little Creek Canoe and Kayaks. 2 hours after turning down that dirt road, I had bought the most beautiful handmade wooden canoe I had ever seen from master craftsperson and wooden boat builder, Phil Pike.
1 year into COVID and I was paddling my beautiful canoe on the Humber River every weekend. 6 months after that I called Phil to say “I owe you a long overdue thank you.” 2 phone calls later and Phil had agreed to take me on as an apprentice.
Was I nervous? Oh yes. Who camps out in a sleeping bag on a living room floor in the backwoods of Vermont for a week, with no cell reception or internet, for boat building lessons? Didn’t YouTube make this unnecessary? Was I nuts? But more importantly, how nuts was the person who invited a stranger to sleep on their living room floor for a week?
***
In Phil’s living room, side by side, there are 2 kayaks and me in my sleeping bag.
It’s 6am and I hear Phil get up and head for the shop. I follow his pace, knowing that at nearly 70 he’s worked like this since he was a kid on the farm. I can see long hours written in his slight limp and strong, bent hands. Life hasn’t handed Phil anything without first demanding payment in labour.
On day one, after showing me around the shop, Phil had looked at me and said “You’re gonna learn how to build a Rice Lake Skiff.”
I was thrilled. I was nervous. I was…wondering what the hell was a Rice Lake Skiff? Wasn’t I here to build a canoe?
Phil had walked me through the plans for the skiff. It was a family-sized wooden row boat that can handle a small motor. Slowly it comes together in my mind: skiff, canoe or kayak the principles and skills of wooden boat building are the same.
Four days in and the skiff is progressing to the cove and bead strips. Phil is incredibly particular with his process. First, measure and match the grains. Then sand, glue, clamp, and wedge. Examine carefully and repeat. As you go, return every tool to its home, sharp and clean. Correct every mistake.
Phil’s from a family of dairy farmers, born and raised in the Green Mountains. He joined the Navy, twice, and traveled the world. He built and repaired huge highway culverts that were prized by county inspectors. He loves historical reenactments and has taught himself how to brain-tan deer hides and make gunpowder for muzzle-loaders.
Between his stories, which are an even split between heartwarming and terrifying, he’s watching my work closely. Nothing escapes his notice. He doesn’t hesitate to tell me that if I make a mistake with the glue it all has to be removed and it doesn’t matter how long it takes.
I look back down at the glue bottle in my hands and lean in closer.
***
The skiff was taking shape on the strongback and I had avoided any glue disasters. I knew I was doing well when Phil asked me to tell him some stories. He was confident enough in my work that he could afford to listen rather than talk.
I launched into stories of love, adventure, and canoeing. I told him about hiding a cat in my closet when I was 10 years old and how I fessed up when my mon asked me where all the cans of tuna had gone. I told him about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with a broken heart. I told him about paddling around the Toronto Islands this summer and how I almost capsized in the Island Airport flight path.
And I asked him one question: would he guide me through refinishing the canoe I had bought from him 12 years ago?
He smiled, gave me his most enthusiastic okay! and pulled out the orbital sander. The instructions were clear. Carefully sand off just the paint. Do not sand through the fiberglass.
Demonstrating briefly, he sanded a small section, carefully removing only a millimeter of paint. I understood that this would be difficult and slow but I was excited. Sander in hand, I started in.
Hours later, with sore shoulders and a creaky neck. I paused. I had removed less than a few feet of paint. The canoe was 17 feet long. I was going home in 2 days.
Phil walked over to survey my work. He was pleased with my sanding but something was bothering him. “I think you’re going to have to repaint,” he said. “Really?” I sighed. “I know it’s slow but if I focus and power through, I think I can make it.”
He looked down the length of the boat. “I have a confession to make,” he said.
My eyes widened, possibilities tumbling through my mind as a I set down the sander. He turned to me and took a breath.
“This was the second boat I made for myself. I’d made a few others that didn’t turn out but this one was perfect.” He paused. I listened to the silence of the shop. He set his hands on the curve of the bow.
“When I was finishing it an oil stain showed up in the wood. I’ve never figured out where it came from. I tried to sand it out but couldn’t get it. So I painted the boat.”
“Do you remember where it is?” I asked. “Yep,” he said and pointed to a spot on the port stern. “Let’s see it,” I replied.
I started to sand the section. It had clearly already been sanded and it was difficult not to hit the fiberglass. An hour later we were both staring at a slight discolouration smaller than a salad dish. In my mind I had seen a glaring dark oil slick the size of a hubcap marking the beautiful golden wood. This hardly counted as a blemish let alone a stain.
I started to laugh. Phil looked at me confused. “I’m sorry, Phil,” I said. “But this isn’t a stain. It’s a birth mark. It’s a reminder that a person made this boat. And now that I know you, I can’t cover this up. It makes me love the boat even more.
He smiled slowly. “Then you’d better get back to sanding.”
***
I woke up on my last morning with Phil and decided we needed to celebrate. I headed into town to pick up something special for breakfast. Phil went to see the canoe. Every boat that leaves his shop is saged and given his blessing.
Over breakfast we talked about our favourite places to paddle and the wildlife we had seen. We talked about how gorgeous the canoe looked and how well the skiff had progressed. He had nearly finished the skiff while I had worked on my canoe. I mentioned, ruefully, that he moved faster without me to direct.
I thanked him for taking me on as his apprentice. For his generosity and big heart. For being an excellent teacher. For letting a stranger come sleep on his living room floor.
When the canoe was on the car, strapped in and double checked, we both knew it was time for me to go. We had spent eight days working, laughing, and learning in the quiet of his shop. He had shared his stories with me, introduced me to his friends and neighbours, welcomed me into his life. We had become friends and I was honoured by the title.
I decided to take a risk. “I know guys aren’t supposed to say this,” I said, “but I love you.”
“I love you too,” he said as the tears welled up.
I gave him a long hug, smiled and said “now I’m going to go because I’m going to cry.”
He nodded, turned, and walked back into the shop. I started the car, let the tears come, and pulled away.
]]>
We’re excited to officially announce the debut of our latest project, the Dragonfly Tandem Dragon Boat. We drew on our experience with sprint racing canoes and partnered with Nova Craft Canoe and Steve Killing Yacht Design to produce a Canadian boat that isn’t like anything else on the market.
The Dragonfly reproduces the paddling stroke of a full-size dragon boat at a fraction of the scale, so a pair of paddlers can now practice their form without the need to assemble an entire twenty-two person team. Having consulted extensively with professional athletes, coaches, and industry experts, we’re confident that the Dragonfly is both a valuable assessment tool and a pleasure to paddle.
Benefits include:
To introduce the Dragonfly to the dragon boat community, we’ll be hosting demo sessions throughout the summer. Test paddles and exhibition races are scheduled at the following festivals:
We hope dragon boat clubs and recreational paddlers alike will embrace the Dragonfly’s potential. Feedback has been highly positive, with club paddlers remarking on how just how closely the new design captures the feel of dragon boat racing.
If you’d like to help spread the word, please like and share our social media posts on Facebook and Instagram and help us reach more paddlers.
Click here to read more about the advantages and development process behind this design. Hope to see you at a festival this summer!
]]>
Many woodworkers take years to realize their dream of building a canoe, but Alex Cutting's story is unique in that he laid the first planks as a child and finished the work as a full-grown adult. His story struck us as a testament to patience and perseverance—and the final product was worth the wait. Read on to hear Alex's account in his own words.
When I was a kid I wanted a canoe more than anything. I begged my Dad for years and he eventually conceded, but the condition was that we had to build it. I had no interest as a 12-year-old in building a wood strip canoe, but as that was my only option I jumped into the project head first.
I have strong memories of holding a flashlight in dim light while my Dad traced paper cutouts on sheets of plywood to cut out the forms, and long days of feeding cedar decking boards through our table saw, then twice through the router, and the excitement of finally putting down the first strip.
My dad and I only ever got about 10 strips on the forms before life got in the way and progress drew to a halt. Then after about a year of no progress I decided to strip the rest of the hull on my own. After school I would try to put on a strip a day and after a few months I had finished stripping the hull of my canoe. My woodworking skills as a 14 year old were still developing and the canoe hull had a great many flaws, too many for either my dad or I to know how to navigate the next steps at that time… So the canoe sat for years bouncing from this place to that and narrowly avoiding getting turned into kindling more than a few times.
Alex's canoe before the late-stage restoration
The canoe sat for the rest of my high school years, my college years, my 10.5 years in the Navy and then for 3.5 years while I was in San Francisco getting my startup off the ground.
Finally, this past year I returned home to Rhode Island and after the striped bass headed south for winter, my dad and I dug out the old canoe hull out from the attic of his garage. The cedar was heavily oxidized, had some bird droppings on it, and was broken in more places and ways than could have reasonably been expected. I then brought the canoe back to my garage and spent an hour or two most nights over the past winter undoing the damage of time. To start over from scratch probably would have been faster and definitely resulted in a final product with fewer flaws, but the satisfaction of completing a project that started as my childhood was well worth the extra effort.
My dad and I milled every piece of wood on that canoe together, my wifey helped cane the seats and fiberglass/epoxy the hull, and my son and daughter helped me sand the hull and build the seat frames.
Finally after 25 years in the making… I took my family canoe for its first paddle this past weekend.
One of the benefits of having many years in the business is the large photo archive we can now draw on. We often dip into our albums to illustrate a solution to a customer or celebrate a particular milestone on social media—but it also provides an opportunity to reminisce. This evocative shot, taken around 1978, prompted Joan to write the following:
To me, this shot captures the intensity and vision inherit in our personalities, which would be needed to pursue a dream of starting a business where we could work with our hands. We knew it would take a lot of ingenuity to develop a worthy product that would sustain us—even though we had no skills other than determination.
The photo was taken on Bear Mountain, likely when we were taking a break from working on our stone workshop. You can see a strong back through the window. We worked night and day developing the building system, experimenting with designs, sourcing materials, writing brochures, finding customers… Slowly but surely we hatched the plan to build canoes while living in a small log cabin on our property adjacent to the northwest corner of Algonquin Park.
The stone/log workshop was conceived when we faced the reality of having no money so we turned to the resources available—stones and trees.
Of course no banks would lend us money for either the workshop or the business, so we did everything ourselves. I recall Ted gave me a cement mixture for my birthday, because up until then we had been mixing by hand. It cost maybe $300, which seemed like a fortune to us! The water we needed was hauled by hand from a spring a short hike away.
So this is more than an old photo. It's a portrait of two determined people about to devote nearly half a century to their dream. And it's nice to know the quiet confidence in their faces would sustain them over the next several decades.
Joan carries water from the nearby spring to mix cement for the workshop
]]>When Jon Evans first sent us his scale model photographs, we thought he had the subject line mixed up. He said he'd built a scale model Redbird using an older kit of ours, but the canoe appeared to be sitting in a well-appointed, full-size workshop. On closer inspection, we realized Jon had not only built a handsome model canoe—he'd situated it in a charming and painstakingly detailed diorama. His unique twist on the canoe builder's photo essay deserved more space that we could give in a simple social media post, so we asked Jon to elaborate on his setup.
This short article is intended to provide some background information on a model canoe that I recently built, and the diorama that I photographed it in.
The model is a Bear Mountain Boats 1/12th scale Redbird canoe, and during the course of the build I kept a photographic record entirely in 1/12th scale. Matt at Bear Mountain Boats invited me to say a bit more about the build, so here goes:
I have been kayaking and canoeing for over forty-five years, and making models for longer than that. A particular interest of mine is Greenland-style sea kayaking, and in recent years I’ve made a few 1/6th scale Greenland kayaks, so I’m not new to modelling in wood. I had found Bear Mountain’s website during my internet browsing for information on wooden kayaks and canoes, so I was aware of their 1/12th scale kits. I had no intention of working in that scale, but then, by chance, I spotted a Bear Mountain Redbird kit on eBay here in the UK for a bargain price. Of course, I couldn’t resist it. eBay, combined with my poor self-control, is the main reason I own a significantly more than adequate number of kayaks and models of all descriptions.
Building motorcycle models in 1/6th scale has been a passion of mine for many years, and in support of that I’d built a 1/6th scale garage diorama to photograph them in.
When I came to build 1/6th scale kayaks, photographing the build process in the garage seemed the obvious thing to do. As I’ve also produced a 1/12th scale garage diorama to enhance my car modelling, it just naturally followed that I’d record the canoe build in there.
I built the Redbird pretty much in accordance with the very clear and detailed Bear Mountain instructions, with two deviations that I can think of. Rather than cut the scuppers out of the inwales, I used blocks stuck to the hull, which seems to be a common full-size practice. I thought that would be easier, and a way to mix up the woods a bit to give some colour variation. I wanted to have seats rather than just thwarts, but decided that producing cane seats was likely to be a bit of a fiddle, so I copied the webbing seat in my own Old Town canoe. I initially gloss varnished the interior, but that tended to highlight the irregularities between the planking that I hadn’t been able to remove. A matte varnish gave a more pleasing effect.
As the kit I had was over twenty years old, I didn’t chance using the resin that came with it, as the thought of trying to clean uncured resin off the model was too scary. I may have been overly cautious, but since I had similar West System material in stock from a recent kayak project it was easy to avoid that risk.
The whole build process, and my online research to support it, was enjoyable and a valuable insight into the methods used in producing a wood strip canoe. I would like to build a full-size wood strip canoe one day, but in the meantime, I plan to put my new-found skills to use on a 1/6th scale canoe, which I reckon will be easier than the smaller scale. Another advantage with 1/6th scale is that I have a variety of figures that I use for on the water action shots, some of which would work well in a canoe. Obviously, I’d have to keep a 1/6th scale build record of that canoe in the 1/6th scale garage.
-Jon Evans
When Doug Brentnell shared his building story with us, we couldn't resist asking him to write something for our blog. Doug's canoes are rich with history and personal significance, and we were moved by his comparison between canoe building and quilting. Here's the story of how he set out to build a canoe for each of his kids and grandkids using repurposed woods.
Above: The 1910 church that supplied the wood for the trim on one of Doug's canoes.
Hi, it’s Doug Brentnell from Regina. My goal by writing this down is to perhaps inspire more people to build a canoe—many of them, in fact.
My first canoe was built about 15 years ago or so. I thought I was done building, but then my daughter Sarah, the youngest of my four children, turned 40 this year and asked me to build her one. I said yes. The first canoe was built with repurposed wood, so I decided any canoes I build will use repurposed wood from different sources as find them.
About 10 years ago my son was upgrading the siding on his house. The painted green cedar siding dated from around 1960. When I helped him with the project I asked for and kept the siding, which was clear cedar in long lengths. I brought it out of storage to build a Nomad 17 for my daughter.
I cut and machined the material myself. The siding was hard to work with as it had a sloped profile and some wear marks, but some of the green was purposefully left on to show its history. This canoe has fir trim board on the side, and the stems were also fir from an air base barrack block in Moose Jaw built for the war. The decks, seat frames, and thwarts as well as the inwales and outwales are made from clear fir baseboards salvaged from a torn-down church that was built in 1910. The suppers are made from a baseboard of darker fir from the same source.
On the front deck of every boat I will make going forward is a sunrise, which is special to me. It is made of fir and contrasting wood from a sign I made for our family in a woodworking class in grade eight. I will be making brass nameplates out of brass from the bottom of old door kick plates. The crow image on my daughter's Nomad 17 has a special meaning to her, so I found out how to print and apply it to the canoe by phoning West System for support. They were great people to ask questions about product, and the help was much appreciated.
I just received my plans for a second boat from Bear Mountain, a Ranger 15 for my daughter Carlie. The materials for this are also repurposed, of course. I bought 2 5/8" x 5 1/2" used cedar that came from a steam engine water tower in southern Saskatchewan built in the early 1900s. I have enough to build another 10 or so canoes, I think.
This all started with my daughter asking me to build her a canoe, but I was inspired by my wife Wanda, who created quilts over the years for our kids and grandkids. My mother also did this but the men never did anything like it, so I'm thinking this is my version of a family quilt but in the form of a canoe. I hope it will be a nice way to be remembered by future generations, and it may inspire them to canoe. It might even inspire them to build one. It truly is and has been a very rewarding thing to do, and I use it as a way to meditate. On each canoe will be mounting a brass compass (reproduction vintage) on the front deck with a flip lid and the engraving "Life is an adventure not a destination."
I have four children and eight grandchildren so will be making canoes for a while for sure. I'll forward pictures of the materials as I go. Just varnishing a canoe now and weaving elk rawhide for the seats next week!
I would like to thank the other canoe makers out there for sharing their photos and videos. The level of work is amazing and I've learned from them. My fibreglass work can only get better, as like most things, workmanship improves by doing. I think if it floats and it makes you smile, it’s a good start. Enjoy the adventure. Just some thoughts from a guy called Doug in his garage on the prairies 🛶😄👍
Some builders are eager to get started as soon as their kit arrives; others savour having a long-term project to chip away at. Sometimes life intervenes, and a canoe build has to be moved to the backburner for awhile. That was the case for Howard Shepherd, who ordered a kit in 2000. His Bob's Special was finished and launched 21 years later, completing a decades-long dream. The canoe was a continual source of inspiration, and we're grateful to Howard for sharing his story. Read on to hear it in his words.
In the year 2000, I took the money I got from the settlement of my grandmother’s estate and bought a Bob Special canoe kit from you. At the time, I was a high school teacher and had only limited time to work on the project.
I had built the strongback and had bent the stems and laid out the sheer line when, in April of 2002, I broke my leg skiing.
A few years went by before I could get back to the canoe. Finally I did; I managed to get all of the cedar strips installed and the basic shell done - and a friend helped me fiberglass the outer hull. Then, in 2015, I broke the femur of my other leg (and two vertebrae) in a bicycling accident. The project languished.
In July of 2020, I retired as a teacher. Finally I had time to give my full attention to the boat. Last month, after 21 years, I finally finished it and put it in the water. She’s named Pearl, after my grandmother (Charlie Pearl Shepherd).
I wanted you to know how much this project meant to me, and how inspired I was by Ted’s book (and the YouTube videos that appeared in the 20 years since I started). Pearl tracks very well, and is a delight to be in on the water. I’ve only done calm lake canoeing so far because I’m still working on my water balance; but I hope to take her on the French Broad River here in Asheville sometime soon.
About ten or fifteen years ago, when the teaching gig was particularly tough, I taped a sign on my school computer that said “Build the Canoe.” That got me through some tough days. Thanks for giving me a project to focus on for two decades.
Howard Shepherd
Asheville, NC
Way back in 2015, we made a short post called "To Keel or Not to Keel?" It very briefly covered the reasons you might be inclined to add a keel, with a few instructions on how to retrofit a finished canoe.
Turns out the old post is still attracting visitors as of summer 2021. Since it's obviously a subject builders are interested in, we wondered if we could expand on the original offering. So we asked Steve Killing, the designer of Bear Mountain Boats plans, for his thoughts.
Spoiler alert: Steve isn't a fan of keels. Take his highly knowledgeable opinion into consideration before adding a keel to your canoe, but if you still feel it's a good choice, you can read the original post for more on installation.
Steve Killing writes:
The two questions to be addressed when discussing keels on a canoe are:
Protection: If you happen to run over a slightly-submerged rock exactly on centerline of the canoe then yes a keel will take the scraping and impact and save the hull itself. But if the rock is off-centre the keel will miss the target. So it will help in a very specialized situation. And I have a bit of the same problem with installing a keel to “protect” my boat as I do with bow skid-plates on fiberglass boats.
The installed keel on a wooden boat or the skid-plate on a fiberglass boat adds drag to the boat all the time to protect the hull some of the time. It doesn’t seem like a sensible trade-off.
If you do sustain damage to the boat you will either be repairing your keel or repairing your hull. I think repairing the hull may be the easier of the two.
I prefer canoes without keels.
Tracking: Adding a keel to a canoe has very little effect on straight-line tracking. The manoeuverability of a canoe is mainly set by the length and rocker of the hull. Adding a full length shallow keel to the bottom of the hull will not significantly change the tracking ability of the boat. If you were to add a deep keel aft and no keel forward you would notice the difference, but you would be better off to build or purchase a canoe that had the characteristics you are looking for already designed in to the basic shape without a keel.
Keels work well on sailboats, so let’s leave them there.
]]>In this guest post by Christian Delbaere, a canoe builder decides to build his own CNC machine using mostly 3D-printed parts in order to precision cut his station molds.
When I started planning out my canoe build, I thought a lot about how I would fabricate the station molds. Should I use try my luck at cutting them out by hand using my bandsaw, or should I get a CNC to do it? I had been thinking about adding a CNC to my shop for several years now, but there were a few things in the way before I could get one. I always thought of them as expensive machines, and a big CNC would take up a great deal of floor space in my garage shop.
When I set up a woodworking shop in my three-car garage, I carefully planned out the layout and dust collection system. In the summer, I can use the whole garage for my workshop. Winters in Ottawa are harsh, and we get a lot of snow, so I wanted my equipment to be fully mobile. When the snow starts to fall, I can neatly tuck everything on one side of the garage and park the cars inside. Since I had everything already optimized, adding a big heavy CNC table to the shop was not workable.
Recently, I found a design online for a small but portable CNC called the MPCNC Lowride2 from v1engineering.com. The MP stands for “Mostly Printed,” and that means that most of the parts can be printed on a 3D printer, making it very affordable. The Lowrider2 uses roller skate wheels and can be mounted on a table or even a sheet of good quality plywood. This was a perfect fit for me. I decided that I would use a sheet of 18mm Baltic birch on my workbench. The setup would be easy to take apart when it was time to pack up the shop for the winter.
I started printing out the parts for the Lowrider2 on my 3D printer and I ordered the hardware kit from the V1 Engineering online store. It took about 2 weeks for the kit to arrive from California. This was perfect since it gave me time to print out the plastic components and source the stainless-steel tubing from a local metal supplier. This image shows all the parts. Don’t forget the safety glasses and bubble tea!
Assembling, wiring and calibrating the machine took about a month. I booked some time off work and my three sons and daughter helped me with the build. It was a great little project for spending time with the kids!
Now I could start cutting the station molds. Using computer software, I sketched hand-drawn versions based on the plans that I ordered from Bear Mountain Boats. This was OK, but I realized from some test cuts, that this was not accurate enough to the originals for my liking. I reached out to Joan Barrett and Steve Killing, and they graciously provided me with the original DXF files. I started cutting the forms out with my little CNC. I would do one or two whenever I had a bit of free time.
Over a few weeks I cut all the forms out of 12mm Baltic birch plywood. I was careful with my X, Y and Z zero positions and workpiece hold-downs. Everything turned out beautifully and matched the original blueprints – aside from the one time I needed to redo a station mold after the router bit came loose in the collet (oops!).
It was very satisfying to install the molds on the strongback and see how well they turned out! They were very symmetric and defect-free, and it made the assembly exceptionally smooth.
When I was in my teenage years, I did a lot of canoeing in Saskatchewan with my Boy Scout troop, and I have always wanted to build my own canoe. Now, I live within walking distance of the river in Ottawa, and I dream of taking the canoe that my family and I are building down to the dock for a trip down the Rideau.
There is really something special about using a canoe built by hand, and it is fantastic that Ted and Joan have made this project so accessible with Canoecraft and the build kits. I also want to thank Ryan from V1 Engineering for making the MPCNC available to anyone who wants to build one. Putting these two projects together has been fun and challenging for me and my family!
]]>Builder Stories is a feature where we share photos and stories from builders in their words. This post tells the story of how Phil Winch found no less than three wooden kayaks in partial states of completion, and finished or restored them all.
Sorry for the cryptic subject but in the Navy that’s what we used to call things that our colleagues would bore us with ad nauseam. So, here I am inflicting myself on you. This is my story about my kayaks.
I had been a paddler of plastic kayaks for years. As I was facing retirement, I thought building a cedar strip kayak would keep me entertained. I saw a Craigslist add for a “partial” Endeavour kit and went to look at it. It was basically Kayakcraft, plans and a bundle of badly handled strips. It took a while to gather the remaining bits and to soak up your instructions and tips but it seemed like I was ready to start. The shelter went up and the neighbours gathered to kibbutz. You have to appreciate that this was all happening on Marine Drive in White Rock, BC so I was not short of people offering advice. After the hull was complete, I got carried away and decided to do a walnut and yellow cedar inlay deck (à la fancy wooden yachts).
This delayed completion but luckily didn’t hinder the functional design. The launching was successful and I enjoyed many trips with it. My partner had a plastic kayak she was very happy with, but then another opportunity came up to finish a “Venture.” A gentleman had passed away leaving a bare hull and partially completed deck. I convinced my partner that since I was so happy with my “woodie" she would also appreciate one. The glass work needed some significant removal and replacing but it all worked out in the end and she too fell in love with her “woodie.” She was, however, experiencing some difficulty keeping up with our younger (low 70s) friends on longer paddles in the Broken Group and Desolation Sound.
At this point, I thought: "Ah ha! I’ll build a Reliance." I wrote to you about getting plans and forms but when I did a project budget, it didn’t make economic sense. We ended up buying a used Delta 20T. A good boat, reasonably fast and stable and it met our needs quite well. Then one day while renewing the varnish on the Endeavour, a fellow walked up to me and said: “Hey, I’ve got one like that in my garage that I’ve never got around to fixing.” It turns out that he had purchased a Reliance that had very small cockpits, no bulkhead and no hatches. After 10 years in his ownership, it had acquired a lot of dust and some pretty significant hanger rash. We made a deal and I started to entertain my neighbours again. There was absolutely no way I was going to fit into the cockpit openings (I’ve shrunk in my old age but I still couldn’t fit my 6’ frame into those holes). I thought about taking the deck off if I was going to be doing cockpits, hatches and bulkheads but ended up working topside for all of them. The end result is a very functional double and although it is a little wider and heavier than I would have liked, is still a great boat.
To wrap it all up, I now have three boats which never fail to garner attention and which have given me a great deal of pleasure both in working on them and playing in them. Thank you and please pass on my appreciation to Steve Killing for his designs.
Phil Winch in White Rock, BC.
]]>
Photos of Steve Shergold's Ranger 15 attracted a lot of attention when we shared them on social media. The canoe itself looked great, but a lot praise was due to his clever additions, like a custom dog basket and wannigan that folds into a picnic table. We asked Steve if he might share the story of how he approached his build, and he generously replied with this detailed account.
Thank you, Ted and all the Bear Mountain followers for the positive comments on my first attempt at building a cedar strip canoe. Here is a bit more information and some of the construction pictures. I don’t think the internet needs anymore Canoe Building 101 pictures, so these are just some of the highlights and a bit more colour on my personal journey.
I’ve done a lot of woodwork, but only at a hobbyist level; I have a good eye for detail and I’m good at covering up my mistakes! My workshop, which is just a large single garage, isn’t exceptional, though I do have a good range of machinery and a lot of clamps! I’ve done very little glass fibre work before, haven’t weaved anything since making raffia matts in junior school, and have never steam-bent anything. I do have a very patient wife and a dog that doesn’t need walking every day.
I’d been thinking about building a boat for a long time and had considered rowing boats, sailing dinghies, skin-on-frame construction, the whole lot. In the end it was my wife who pushed me into it, effectively saying ‘stop messing about and get on with it’ and ‘If you’re going to spend that much time and effort on it, make sure it’s something I would want to be seen in!’ So I started on 1 Aug 2020 and finished exactly 9 months and 600 hours of input later ( That doesn’t include all the time spent pondering the details and just looking at it).
It’s a standard Ranger 15, with only a slight modification to the ends; I cut them a little lower so that the boat would fit within the restricted space I have for storage and besides, I liked the look of it.
The only part of the job that I didn’t do for myself was milling the cedar strips. I bought these from Barry Biddlecombe at the Cedar Strip Co in Essex, UK and I bought enough for a 16 footer so had spare material left over for the wanigan. The main build was quite straightforward with the addition of a feature strip to mark out the ‘football’ in the bottom. I made this out of 1/4” strips of mahogany and construction timber, glued together on top of a long 2x2 covered in packing tape. I trimmed the adjacent cedar strips to get butt joints and it worked pretty well . Obviously it helps to have a halfway decent table saw for this sort of thing and it wasn’t the only time I was thankful for the x30 clamps I bought for the project.
Incidentally, both the internal and external gunwales are only stuck on with epoxy, with no through fastenings. I figured that if epoxy can hold aeroplanes together it was good enough for me, though I did add a fillet under the inner gunwale.
The decks are made of sapele, with the strips made of ironwood (I ran out of mahogany) and pine. Obviously this is to match the feature strip in the bottom of the boat, which required a bit of care with the angles . The curved upstand for the decks is sycamore, the same wood that I used for the seats, yoke and dog basket. I tried steam bending a solid piece for this curve but it didn’t work (several times) and I settled on three thin strips; very similar to the construction of the stems.
At one point in this whole process I came to the conclusion that you don’t build these canoes, you sand them into existence! After a while I thought I hated sanding, however I now reserve that emotion for varnishing! After 6 coats of two-pack Epifanes it still isn’t perfect, but I’ve realised that there is more to life than chasing defects and anyway I can always make sure they don’t get into the photos.
I don’t know when I decided that I absolutely had to have a Wannigan at the same time as a new canoe, but after a while it was just accepted as part of the project and made a break from sanding! That said the construction is just like a boat, so unsurprisingly there’s a lot of sanding involved!
The shape is based around the #3 station mould with some minor adjustments for the thickness of the cedar and glass and much messing about with cardboard profiles to ensure the box maximised the available volume but could still be lifted in and out without catching on the inner gunwales.
Once the mould was built, laying up the cedar was simple and I stapled all the planks in place, knowing I would cover up the holes later. I was careful with the planking to make sure it matched the boat including the feature strips. The two sides were laid up on a board with a frame over the top at the last minute so that I could use wedges to hold everything tight and flat.
Once it was all glassed and epoxied using off-cuts from the main build, I steam-bent and then glued thin, wide sycamore strips around the edges of the main body piece which created a ledge to sit the sides against. Once fixed, I also had a cutting template for the sides, so that when they were epoxied in place with a small fillet running all the way around the inside, there were no serious gaps.
The top is exterior plywood. If I’d had some, I might have used marine ply, but considering all the varnish it’s had and the limited exposure it’s going to get, I didn’t think it necessary. Besides I liked the light finish on this plywood. The strips at the top are shaped to reflect the boat’s external gunwales. They give extra hand holds when getting the wanigan in and out of the canoe and they give a nicer finish to the top edge of the side. The handles in sycamore were simple, but needed a lot of fiddling and checking to ensure they looked right and did not catch on the inner gunwales. The opening has an upstand to make it more water tight and there is a strip of compressible foam to complete the job. So now I think it serves both as a picnic box and a buoyancy chamber, provided of course that it’s tied into the boat.
The lid can be taken off and turned into a picnic table. The stand collapses small enough to be put in the Wannigan without taking up too much space. The hinges started life as standard brass lift off models; I just ground them down to make a slightly more attractive butterfly shape. The catches on the other side to the hinges put a bit of pressure on the lid to hold it tight shut and they can be padlocked if needed. That said, if I ever felt the need to padlock the lid to protect the champagne, I’d probably need a big ugly bike chain to protect the wanigan and a guard to protect the canoe!
The last bit of detail is the feet! With just a rounded bottom the wanigan rocks about a lot. Not a real problem in the boat where it matches the hull shape, but a nuisance on dry land. So the underside has two strips of wood added over the top of the pine in the feature strips. They don’t lift the whole thing off the floor, which would have created problems with the fit into the boat but they do make it rock solid for loading / unloading when ashore.
Since the availability of perfect boards has been steadily declining over the past 100 or so years, you may have to use some planks that are less than the required length. One of the greatest challenges facing wooden boat building in the future will be to find suitable wood. Fortunately for us, a big feature of the wood-strip/epoxy boatbuilding technique is that it does not depend on traditional high-quality boatbuilding woods to be effective. This means that we will be able to adapt to what is available and learn to make the best of it.
One of the ways we will learn to deal with poor-quality wood will be to find better ways of cutting around defects and then gracefully join the pieces back together. Finger joints have a lot of potential for joining short pieces into full-length planks. Short planks, after being end-matched, are glued into full-length planks on the bench. Although we have seen this technique used by manufacturers of planking, the cutters are readily available for the router, so this joint may now be machined in the home workshop on a simple router table setup.
The only real problem with having to build with short planks is the loss of control over the color scheme. Unless care is taken to color-match the planks at the joint, the finished craft will have a busy, unplanned look to it. If this is not your style, keep the planks together, in order, when cutting and machining. When you glue them back together, turn one piece around so that the ends that grew together come together at the joint. The color and texture will match and, with a clean cut, will be virtually invisible.
Photograph 4-1
Finding a good source of planking material could be one of the more challenging aspects of getting this project started. Don’t give up; it is out there.
Of all the materials used in the building of this kayak, planking presents the most possible choices. Some people will want to cut their own trees out of their own wood lots, while others will want to purchase planking completely machined and ready for the boat. Where you fit in will depend on your natural resources, skills, equipment, and time. The cost of planking will be anywhere from gas for the bandsaw mill, to about $500 (1998) for finished bead-and-cove, old-growth red cedar. We hear from people around the world who have used their local wood, so if you don’t have access to old-growth Western red cedar, look around and find out what is available in your area that would have the appropriate characteristics. Some common alternatives are: other types of cedar, redwood, cypress, basswood, pine, and spruce.
Lumber may be purchased either rough-sawn or dressed. Rough-cut lumber will give you the best yield as well as the most control over grain orientation and dimensions, but it does require access to a thickness planer. We buy rough-sawn 2” x 8” lumber, from which we cut about 44 ” x ” edge-grain planks per board. Beginning at a full 2” thick, the plank can be cut either way, so we always end up with edge-grain planks. Beginning with a large dimension also gives us many pieces that look the same, making it easy to control the color scheme.
Dressed lumber will generally be kiln dried and planed down to a nominal ¾“ thick. This is the most convenient way to buy lumber; it is easy to see what you are buying, and the wood is ready to be run through the table saw. Check the thickness of the plank with calipers, looking for a consistent thickness on all the planks you are cutting. If the rough plank was dressed before the moisture content stabilized, the thickness could have changed as the plank continued to dry. This will affect the width of the planking and could be a problem if short lengths of different widths must be joined together.
If planks of inconsistent width are run through a two-router setup, machining both the bead and cove at the same time, the machining on one side will be inconsistent. Typically, a slight variation in width will not be significant if the planks are full length and machined on a single router setup–that is, if the bead and cover a milled in separate operations.
When possible, choose flat-grain boards so that ripping 1/4” off the edge will yield an edge-grain plank. Taking the time to cut the planking accurately and cleanly cannot be overemphasized. Nothing will contribute more to a good building experience and a fine boat than will properly machined planking. Once you have to start compromising for poorly machined planks, the extra work and confusion will last until the hull has been sanded and glassed. There is enough to think about without having to deal with planks that don’t fit together. Remember that if there is a 1/16” step between two planks on one side, there is also another 1/16” step on the other. Cleaning up the joint on both sides will take off 1/8”, or half the thickness of the plank.
The Endeavor 17 we are building required about 80 planks or about 65 board foot (bf). The retail price at the time (1997) was about $4.50 per bf for select and better 2” x 8” rough-sawn Western red cedar. (One board foot is 1” thick x 12” wide x 12” long.) To calculate the number of planks for the kayak you are building, measure the perimeter of the widest station mold and divide by the width of plank you will be using. Be sure to add the width of the saw cut when calculating the amount of rough lumber required to produce a finished plank.
If there are defects that must be cut around, take this into account when deciding on quantity. An extra 20% is safe for good stuff if you have allowed for the waste from machining; more if the quality is marginal. Use your judgment after seeing the available wood to make a final decision on quantity. Don’t hold your breath looking for perfect boards; I’m sure they exist, but they are extremely rare.
The table saw is the preferred tool for ripping planking. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy as long as the blade runs true and the fence can be locked securely into position. An inexpensive HSS hollow-ground blade designed for ripping will be adequate for cutting enough planking for one kayak. It will make a decent cut but will dull quickly. If you can invest a little more, look for a thin kerf carbide-tipped planer blade. This tool removes a minimum amount of wood, so it will give you a better yield per plank and require less horsepower for continuous cutting. The cut can be very smooth if a feather board is used.
A bandsaw will rip planking if the guides are set up right and the blade is sharp. We use a 1/2” x 4tpi blade on a 14” Rockwell with a 3/4-hp motor. We find it most useful for resawing from 8/4 down to 4/4but have ripped miles of planking on it in the past. It means an extra pass through the planer, so I use it only when I can’t stand the noise of the table saw any longer. Although the bandsaw makes a thinner cut, after planning, the waste would be similar to the cut from a regular 1/8” ripping blade.
The problem with cutting planking on the bandsaw are the rough surface it produces and the inconsistent (though slight) thickness to be expected. If a cove is machined on this plank, the thin edges that should be crisp will be ragged and will fall apart when the plank is handled.
It is possible to build a jig that would adapt the portable circular saw for ripping planking. The saw is mounted over the rip fence with the blade set square, 1/4” from the fence. As the board is fed into the blade, the blade will try to life the board, so a feather board on top as well as the side would be a good idea.
A thickness planer is a handy tool to have around but is not imperative for this kayak unless you are using rough-sawn lumber. If you are slowly acquiring power tools, consider a good 6” jointer first.
Ripping and machining planking requires level support for the plank on both the infeed and outfeed ends of the machine. It does not work to have someone holding the other end of the board. As the operator, you must be in full control of feeding and directing the board.
Cobble the supports together from what you have—saw horses, ladders, cardboard boxes, plywood off-cuts, roller stands, or anything that will make a long, level, low-friction surface (Photograph 4-2). Use paraffin wax to reduce friction between the board and the support to make it easy to feed and control the plank.
Photograph 4-2
Unless you earn a living in your shop, the dust collector might be another one of those nice-to-have tools that stay on the bottom of the list. Dust collectors used to be high-priced industrial machines but are now quite affordable. Tool catalogs are a good source of low-cost, portable dust collectors, which begin at about $150 [in the late nineties]. They do make a big difference when working in a confined space, for both machining and sanding.
The purpose of the feather board is to keep consistent pressure between the board being cut and the fence on the table (Photograph 4-3). It is impossible to do this by hand, as the pressure will change every time your hand is repositioned. Consistent pressure to the fence and a steady feed rate are necessary if a clean, straight cut is expected.
Make the feather board from a piece of scrap hardwood with the fingers cut long enough to be flexible. Do not try to make this cut on the table saw. Besides being dangerous, the saw kerf is quite wide; use either a bandsaw or jigsaw. Wax the business end of the fingers to reduce friction.
There are several other anti-kickback jigs on the market (Photograph 4-4). such as the yellow wheels we are using here. They have the advantage of not having to be reset for each cut, as well as holding the board down to the table.
Photograph 4-3
Photograph 4-4
Every stationary power tool should have a push stick appropriate to the tool. Think of the safest way to control the end of the board as it passes the blade while keeping your fingers a safe distance from the danger, and design your stick accordingly.
Machining the bead and cove will require a router mounted in a router table. A simple router of at least 3/4 hp and a simple table are all that are required, as the cut is small and the bit is light.
Bead-and-cover router bits are available from a number of manufacturers. They come in both 1/4” and 1/2" shank, and cost from $35 to $100 per set. Frankly, I think that the 1/2” shank bits at $100 per set are more bit than you need for the cut, and more money than you should have to pay. For excellent quality and fair price, consider Lee Valley Tools.
Ripping and machining planking for the kayak will take about one day if you are well set up, or longer, depending on how much cobbling you have to do to get started and the time it takes to clean up afterwards. Begin by setting the infeed and outfeed supports level with the saw table. The plank must be supported and under control if a consistently accurate cut is expected. Assuming that the plank is dressed to the desired plank thickness and the edge trimmed, set the fence for exactly ¼” and make the cut.
Check the cut in several places along the length for thickness and consistency. Calipers will tell you exactly what is happening, but a ruler along the edge will work, too. It is a good idea to keep checking the occasional plank as ripping progresses. Take your time, making sure every cut is the best you can make it. Any problem with the cut now will be a problem until the kayak has been planked and sanded.
When feeding the board through the saw, watch the edge of the plank as it glides along the fence. In theory, there should not be any space between the board and fence. In practice, the space will open and close slightly as the board passes through. If it opens up more than slightly, try to identify the cause and do what you can to correct it.
Paraffin wax on the table and fence, as well as on the feather board, will make a big difference in cutting down the friction, and will give a better feel for controlling the plank.
If you are interested in controlling the color or must join short planks, keep the planks in order as they come out of the saw.
Photograph 4-5
A router table setup will look something like Photograph 4-5. Keep a pair of feather boards close to the cutter head to hold the plank up to the fence and to dampen the vibration. Position loose guides at the infeed and outfeed ends of the table so that the plank is always under control when it reaches the feather board at the cutter head.
Machine the bead on the first pass, as the feather board will ride on this edge during the second pass through the router; the fragile edges on the cove side could not survive the pressure of the feather board.
Watch the depth of the cut. Shaping the edges should not reduce the width of the plank. Leave a very slight flat (about 1/64”) in the middle of the bead edge as a depth reference. Keeping the flat portion in the middle will confirm that the bead is centered.
There may be a slight chipping on one edge of the plank caused by the table saw blade. Machine the bead on this edge and save the crisp edge for the cove. Marking the bottom of the plank with a lumber marker before ripping will make this edge easy to identify.
The edges on the cove side should also have a slight flat (again, about 1/64”) rather than going all the way to a feather edge; such an edge would be too fragile to handle. These flat edges will also tell you that the cover is centered if they are the same width on both sides.
Pay attention to the feed rate, as this can have an effect on the quality of the cut. If fed too slow, the cutter will burn the plank and shorten the life of the cutter. Too fast, and it will splinter the edge rather than cut it clean. Remember that each broken edge will require filling and sanding before fiberglass/epoxy can be applied. Watch for changes in grain pattern and direction, and adjust the feed rate accordingly.
Check the cove by fitting two pieces together and feeling the way they line up.
Handle the planking carefully after machining. I find that taping the planks together in bundles of 10 or 12 pieces makes them safe and easy to handle and makes the colors easier to see.
Photograph 4-6
Photograph 4-6 shows an example of the router being mounted above the table. For a single-router setup, it is probably faster to set up from the bottom in a router table.
In Photograph 4-7 we are using the second router as part of a cobbled-up multiple-cutter shaper--called a "sticker" in the trade--using two routers plus the planer. The plank enters the planer and is dressed to 1/4", then is powered by the planer past the two routers at about 30' per minute. With this jig, one person can shape about 2 1/2 miles of planking a day, but it does require considerable setup time.
Photograph 4-7
If you lack the necessary machines and space to work in, buying finished planking with the bead and cove accurately machined on the edges is worth consideration. Unless you are willing to make a long-term shop investment, buying planking can be quite cost-effective. When the costs of a new planer blade for the table saw and a set of router bits are added to the cost of the raw wood, there will be little saving if you are building only one kayak.
Be careful buying machined planking. A fancy advertisement does not guarantee a good product. If you can’t see the planking before purchasing, talk to someone who has used it.
If you are trying to save money, ask for a price on less than full-length planks, but don’t settle for less-than-perfect machining.
Although the bundle is bound up tightly with the edges protected, try not to let it flex more than necessary. To transport the bundle on roof racks, think of some way of supporting the full length (such as a ladder or long plank). Keep it dry. If there is a danger of rain, wrap the wood tightly in plastic, using lots of tape.
If the planking is being shipped via common carrier, it must be well protected from damage as well as moisture. The most reliable package is a cheap particle-board crate 1” x 3” strapping on the outside. Heavy corrugated cardboard is usually effective if it is tightly bound together with straps and lots of tape. Cardboard shipping tubes work well as long as the contents are well protected before inserting them into the tube and the fit is tight enough that things don’t rattle around inside. Remember that the package is heavy and awkward, and the shipper will hate having to move it by hand; assume that it will be abused.
The simplest way to join two planks is to cut the ends of the planks square, apply glue to the end of the plank, and join in position on the mold. There is no need to make the joint over a station mold, as the next plank will keep the top edge of the bead and cove plank in line. Personally, I prefer not to make the joint over the station mold. It means there is an extra pair of staple holes to draw the eye to the joint. If the joint is by itself, with no staple holes, it is less likely that the joint will be seen.
Although the top of the plank is held together with the edge of the next plank, if the glue is fast, you may not get to this in time. It’s best to staple a piece of scrap planking (about 3’ long) in the position of the next plank to hold it in line until the glue grabs. Sometimes a joint will fall in an area where there is a lot of twist in the plank and the ends won’t line up. If that is the case, splint the joint between two short pieces of plank and clamp until the glue sets. (Be sure to wax the splints, so you don’t glue them to the boat.)
The technique we are using to create the feature pattern on our kayak could also be used to deal with short planks. I love solutions like this, where a problem is not considered a dead end but rather an opportunity to develop in a new and creative direction.
Randy Pfeifer maintains the Bear Mountain Boats Builders' Forum and is highly knowledgeable on the subject of woodstrip epoxy canoes. In this series, he documents his experiments building multiple canoes using composite materials, with the goal of creating a lightweight but fully functional Freedom 17.
In Part I, Randy found his first attempt came in at 58 lbs. In Part II, he successfully kept the weight manageable but wasn't quite satisfied. In the final two experiments, Randy succeeds in getting the weight under 40 lbs.
Hyde
For Hyde, I eliminated the outer S-glass layer and swapped the order of the first two layers (Carbon Fiber inside, Kevlar outside at the same weights as before). It was surprising to see that the combination of yellow Kevlar over black Carbon Fiber gave a greenish result.
I really like the color. The two 1/8” thick layers for the core of Jeckle created a really rigid structure. But gluing the layers in separately really took a lot of epoxy. It’s a closed cell foam but the outer cells are of course open and took on much more epoxy than I liked. I was concerned that a single layer of 1/8” foam might not be strong enough so I searched for some other light weight core. I found a honeycomb core by Nomex that is 1.8 pound per cubic foot. It’s really expensive but at this point I was more concerned about weight than cost.
The honeycomb flexes really well in one dimension but not quite as well in the other. Orienting the material on the hull the right way made it pretty easy. It stretches very easily which means its shape on the hull needed to be controlled so it didn’t shift out of place while being installed. I needed to find a way to keep it in place after installation while the epoxy set up. The prior approaches of just putting some weight on it or using the forms used to build the original hull was not going to be sufficient. Then it occurred to me that I could double-face tape it to the outside of the original hull, put glue on the inside of the composite hull and press the two back together again. I would have 100% contact across the entire surface of the core! This worked extremely well. The hull went back in place over the wooden hull easily (now back on its forms) and I pressed it down with a few ratchet straps around the hull and strongback. The biggest challenge was ensuring that I put epoxy inside the new hull in just the right places so that it contacted all of the core but not beyond it. I used somewhat thickened epoxy so it wouldn’t run out while the hull was upside-down. And yes, I used another layer of heat shrink material on the original hull to protect it.
With my new .2” thick core in place, my next challenge was to find a way to ensure that the honey comb didn’t fill up with epoxy when I wet-out the layer of cloth on the inside of the hull. To do this (and I’m not sure it was fully successful), I added a layer of .2 oz carbon fiber veil over just the core before I added internal layer of cloth.
Instead of Kevlar for the internal layer, I decided I would experiment with 3.6 Oz Innegra cloth. It is a (relative to Kevlar) newer material and white in color. It’s available in various weights and mixed with other materials (e.g., to make interesting patterns) at various price points. It is easier with work with than either Carbon or Kevlar from a “fiber management” perspective. Easy to cut and wets out well. I used a 3.6 oz weight plain weave cloth (I think my 2.2 Oz Kevlar choice for Jeckle may have been a bit light – use over time will answer that for me).
The Innegra cloth is available in 50” widths. This is a bit tight for the girth of the Freedom 17. I also noted that the draft of the Freedom 17 is plenty big. I decided to lower the sheerline of Hyde by about an inch to accommodate the narrower cloth. This also saved a pound on the weight of the hull. Also, recognizing that my approach to gunwales actually increases the draft of the craft about ½” I was happy with the trade. I built my gunwales at 1” tall by ¾” wide (instead of the ¾” x ¾” used on Jeckle). With slightly beefier gunwales and a stronger internal fabric I was happy with the weight savings of Hyde vs Jeckle when the hull (pre-trim) was complete. I had achieved a savings of 4 pounds so far (acknowledging that I have removed a layer in the initial lay-up).
Now to save some more weight in the trim. With a slightly lighter foam used for the gunwales, the weight of the slightly larger gunwales was actually a bit less than the gunwales on Jeckle.
Seats were a new adventure. I designed new seats using 1” x 1” foam covered in Carbon Fiber sleeves.
Same webbing as Jeckle. Seats were mounted in Heckle and Jeckle using rivets through the hull into aluminum “angle-irons”. For Hyde, I created my own L-brackets by saturating Carbon Fiber tape with epoxy and squeezing multiple layers between two aluminum “angle-irons”. These 2”x2”x2” brackets were attached to the hull directly with thickened epoxy (with the idea that I could add rivets through the hull in the future if necessary).
I built a yoke using the same carbon fiber sleeve over foam approach. Same with thwart and handholds. The yoke was installed in the hull using similar brackets as the seats. The thwart and hand grips were epoxied in permanently.
You can see in the table below the weight savings vs Jeckle for each of the trim components. I was more careful with my measurements and included the weight savings of sanding out the hull before applying the final coats of finish. A net savings of 7 pounds… So, from my shock of 58 pounds with Heckle to 46 pounds on Jeckle to 39 pounds with Hyde, I was feeling pretty good.
HULL - Hyde |
Delta vs Jeckle |
Hyde Weight |
Running total weight |
Bare hull (carbon + Kevlar) |
-5.5 |
18.5 |
18.5 |
Trim hull sheerline (1.25") |
-1.1 |
-1.1 |
17.4 |
Outer hull weight |
17.4 |
||
Core + epoxy |
-0.4 |
3.95 |
21.35 |
Carbon Veil + Innegra |
0.68 |
1.66 |
23.01 |
epoxy for first coat on inside |
2.32 |
6.64 |
29.65 |
2nd coat of epoxy on inside |
1.2 |
30.85 |
|
TRIM |
|||
Gunwales |
-0.439 |
2.901 |
33.75 |
Seat mount brackets |
-0.26 |
0.30 |
34.06 |
Yoke mounting |
0.08 |
34.14 |
|
Thwart / hand holds |
0.00 |
0.40 |
34.54 |
Flotation Chambers |
0 |
||
seats (incl bolts) |
-1.08 |
1.67 |
36.20 |
Yoke (incl brackets/HW) |
-1.02 |
1.55 |
37.75 |
Skid plate(s) |
-0.25 |
0.3 |
38.05 |
Hull sanding |
-0.36 |
-0.71 |
37.34 |
Varnish - sanding |
0.36 |
1.71 |
39.05 |
Total Weight 39.05 pounds
A pandemic induced extension.
With a 39 pound canoe, I was quite proud of myself and ready to do some paddling in 2020 to really test the construction. As the pandemic hit, Hyde sat in the shop waiting for a paddling partner to paddle it with me…. Of course, that was a problem so it just hung there in pristine condition.
While the pandemic raged on I pondered what else might be improved. I continued to think about that core and wondered how much epoxy had seeped into that honeycomb. And how much weaker would a single layer of 1/8” foam really be. I built a couple sample lay-ups with the honeycomb and 1/8” foam and tried to bend them. My samples were really too small to provide a good conclusion but I had trouble distinguishing between them. I used glass for the internal layer so I could see how much epoxy seeped into the core (more than I liked). I also wondered if my seats were going to be strong enough. I had done some math (my son is a PhD student in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Virginia) on the amount of strain they should be able to take and had done some lab tests that seemed to support the math. But the amount of deflection across the longer seat members left me a bit uncomfortable.
I spent the year working from home and built a sauna in the back yard as a distraction.
At the end of February 2021, I retired from IBM and needed a project. I decided I would take one more spin at reducing weight and increasing strength of the Composite Freedom 17 family I was growing. Heckle – Jeckle – Hyde - …?... I needed a name first. Heckle and Jeckle as you know are cartoon crows from my childhood. You all know about Jekyll and Hyde. Then one of my favorite musical entertainers came to mind. Cheryl Crow…. Cheryl it is…
I decided I would see how fast I could build a 4th composite Freedom 17. While I was still finishing up my exit at IBM I began acquiring materials. The day after my last day at IBM, I went out to my shop and started. A month later I was done with everything but the final finish.
I made the following changes some of which increased weight while others reduced weight:
The above changes produced Cheryl - almost identical to Hyde but weighs ~1 pound less.
HULL |
Delta vs Hyde |
Cheryl Weight |
Running Total |
Comments |
Bare hull (carbon + Kevlar) |
0.68 |
19.18 |
19.18 |
After first trim to shearline – heavy than Hyde with same lay-up – inconsistent process? |
Trim hull sheerline (1.25") |
-0.13 |
-1.23 |
17.95 |
1.375 cut off |
Outer hull weight |
0 |
17.95 |
||
Core + epoxy |
-0.50 |
3.45 |
21.40 |
1/8" foam core + ~2.3 pounds epoxy |
Innegra |
-0.06 |
1.60 |
23.00 |
3.6 Oz cloth (1.875 pounds) - No veil |
epoxy for first coat on inside |
-0.84 |
5.8 |
28.80 |
|
2nd coat of epoxy on inside |
0.1 |
1.3 |
30.10 |
measured |
TRIM |
0 |
|||
Gunwales |
0.099 |
3 |
33.10 |
excessive weight on epoxy to install in inside fillets. |
Seat mount brackets |
0.084 |
0.384 |
33.48 |
5 layers of carbon instead of 4 (includes epoxy to install) |
Yoke mounting |
0.02 |
0.1 |
33.58 |
|
Thwart / hand holds |
-0.13 |
0.27 |
33.85 |
Double layer of carbon on Thwart |
Flotation Chambers |
0 |
0 |
33.85 |
|
seats (incl bolts) |
0.15 |
1.82 |
35.67 |
Double layer of carbon on cross members |
Yoke (incl pads/HW) |
-0.04 |
1.51 |
37.18 |
|
Skid plate(s) |
0.22 |
0.52 |
37.70 |
|
Hull sanding |
0.36 |
-0.35 |
37.35 |
less loss in sanding than expected/before |
Varnish - sanding |
-0.91 |
0.8 |
38.15 |
Spray finish on outside. 3 brush coats on inside |
I kept meticulous notes measuring every pump of epoxy used and its application. A total of 599 pumps of West System epoxy was used on Cheryl. I weighed the brushes before and after to account for the weight of the epoxy that didn’t stay on the boat (this included weighing the epoxy squeegeed off as I did the lay-up).
In general, the lesson I learned is that if you measure things in grams, the pounds take care of themselves.
So now I had built 4 complete composite Freedom 17 canoes (and most of a Freedom 17 cedar strip canoe). I’ve given the heavier Heckle to my brother, paddled Jeckle deep in the wilderness. Hyde and Cheryl had yet to get wet. My brother came to visit last weekend with a friend and we were able to get a quick paddle on the lake so took the opportunity to paddle Cheryl for a few minutes in miserable weather. The water conditions were pretty calm so I didn’t get to battle any waves but I could see no signs of any oil-canning on the hull of Cheryl and the seat frames worked great (in albeit a short test). I’m looking forward to being able to spend some more serious time in the wilderness with Cheryl (and Hyde) this summer. I gave Jeckle to my brother too.
Next, I need to quickly get gunwales on the original Freedom 17 to make it more difficult to use as a mold in the future.
]]>Randy Pfeifer maintains the Bear Mountain Boats Builders' Forum and is highly knowledgeable on the subject of woodstrip epoxy canoes. In this series, he documents his experiments building multiple canoes using composite materials, with the goal of creating a lightweight but fully functional Freedom 17.
In Part 1 of this series, the first canoe off the mold was unexpectedly heavy. With his second attempt, Randy begins the process of getting the weight down.
by Randy Pfeifer
With Jeckle sitting there at 24 pounds already I needed to stop being lazy with the off-the-shelf mentality and devise some weight savings tricks for the remainder of the Jeckle build.
I had already built an extra set of 3/8” thick bent foam ribs for Jeckle as I was bending them for Heckle. I threw them out. I set aside the 3/8” core I had tucked away. I looked for a thinner core thinking ¼”. I couldn’t find any ¼” thick foam material so I opted for two layers of 1/8” thick of 3 lb/cf foam and dispensed with the ribs entirely. I installed the core one layer at a time. Getting the 1/8” foam to conform to the shape of the hull was easy even without heating it. Total foam used was 2/3 cubic feet of lighter 3 lb/cf foam (2 pounds total). Instead of 5 oz Kevlar on the inside I used a lighter 2.2 oz Kevlar which of course absorbed less epoxy as well.
For gunwales, I built up a ¾” X ¾” foam strip 18’ long and cut a channel on the underside of it. That’s where the extra 3/8” thick foam I didn’t use on Jeckle’s core went). After rounding the corners, I pulled a carbon fiber sleeve over it and tucked the excess circumference of the sleeve into the slot. I taped some of the left over heat shrink plastic over the sheerline of Jeckle and pushed the gunwale over the sheerline after tapering the ends of the foam to allow for a nice joint between port and starboard gunwales at each end of the canoe. I wet out the carbon fiber sleeves in-place (isolating them from each other at the bow and stern). Once that set, the gunwales now had the correct shape and were pulled off the hull and the slot was filled with epoxy that was slightly thickened and then put back on the unprotected hull and glued in place for eternity. A small bit of weight was put on each gunwale to keep them in place while the epoxy set (this was a trivial task given the gunwales were already built to match the shape of the sheerline).
For seats, I built my own seats out of laminations of cherry steambent to a more comfortable shape with a layer of carbon fiber between the laminations for a bit of extra strength. They were laced with a nylon webbing used for making lightweight snowshoes.
The yoke was cut from a 5/4 thick piece of cedar and laminated between two layers of carbon fiber cloth for strength. Same yoke pads as Heckle. Same flotation chambers. Thwart and handholds were built with foam covered in a carbon fiber sleeve. Somewhat smaller skidplates but generally the same idea.
Jeckle weight |
Running total |
HULL |
24 |
24 |
Bare hull (carbon + Kevlar) |
4.35 |
28.35 |
Core + epoxy |
6.5 |
34.85 |
2.2 Oz Kevlar + epoxy |
|
|
TRIM |
3.34 0.56 |
38.19 38.75 |
Gunwales |
Seat mount brackets |
||
0.4 |
39.15 |
Thwart / hand holds / Flotation |
2.75 2.65 |
41.90 |
seats (incl bolts) |
44.55 |
Yoke (incl brackets/HW) |
|
0.55 |
45.10 |
Skid plate(s) |
-0.35 |
44.75 |
Hull sanding |
1.35 |
46.10 |
Varnish – sanding between coats |
Total Weight |
46.10 |
So, a savings of over 12 pounds! A bit of redemption. Still a lot of weight in the core. And maybe that 24 pounds in the first 3 layers could have been reduced….
I was left pondering if I would consider this experiment a success or not. I gave the 58 pound Heckle to my brother who was thrilled to have it. Success snatched from the jaws of disaster. And I could always replace the gunwales, seats and yoke on Heckle to reduce quite a bit of weight in the future. Not a lost cause by any means. I took 46 pound Jeckle into the wilderness of Algonquin Provincial park the week after the 2019 Bear Mountain Boats Rendezvous with a good friend. The portages in Algonquin are in general longer than those of Quetico. The pads I chose for the yoke on Jeckle were not the greatest. As I paddled and portaged, I got the feeling that Jeckle could still go on a diet and I decided to build yet another Freedom 17 composite to follow Jeckle. It had to be named Hyde.
New instalments in Randy's series will be published weekly - check back soon for Part III!
A few months ago, a beautifully printed book showed up in the Bear Mountain mailbox. It was a photo essay on the building of a Champlain canoe by Keith Mathieson, as chronicled by Nicki Endt. The canoe was beautiful and the story behind its making exceptional, and Keith and Nicki kindly agreed to let us share a part of that story here.
It begins on an anxious note, with Keith's diagnosis of renal cancer in 2008. After recovering from surgery and dialysis, he turned to making wooden surf boards and stand-up paddleboards. It was a relaxing pastime that piqued his interest in building a wooden canoe. The idea would have to be placed on hold when the cancer returned in 2012, setting back Keith's health and his hopes of receiving a transplant. Two years later, however, later he felt ready for a new project. He did some research and settled on a design: he would build the classic Champlain.
The Champlain is a traditional symmetrical design and more complex to build than some modern styles, but after speaking with us Keith decided he liked the Champlain's look, the performance specs suited him, and he was prepared for the challenges. He found some cedar that “had been siting in a bloke’s garage in Queensland for some years,” supplementing it with paulownia from his own supply. Progress was slow until a kidney transplant in 2016 set him on the road to recovery. A year later he was milling the cedar and paulownia himself, bundling the strips carefully to preserve the colour variations.
Nicki describes Keith as "keen to get stuck in." He made the strongback and cut out the molds, and planking proceeded quickly after that. Nicki describes him rigging up a means to bend the stems with a steam mop, in keeping with his habit of finding solutions that “frequently involved my household appliances.” Fortunately his experience with paddleboards had prepared him well for fibreglassing, and he rehearsed the process with Nicki carefully before they took the plunge.
“Resting in the cradle that Keith had made we could really appreciate the beautiful shape of the craft,” Nicki writes. Keith made the gunwales from mountain ash and the decks from jarrah. He made the yoke, seat frames, and paddles himself as well, and Nicki caned the seats.
They christened the finished canoe “Ripplin Waters,” and took their maiden voyage on a nearby lake. Nicki gave careful instructions to the cameraperson to capture the long-awaited moment. Then they promptly tipped the canoe in shallow water. It made for a playful start to the day, and Ripplin Waters has since been out for more expeditions with family and friends.
To us, Keith and Nicki's story combines a lot of factors that make canoe building meaningful. It was a long-gestating project that required collaboration with family - Nicki made several key contributions, and Keith's daughter had helped pick up the timber for most of the hull - and the project continues to pay dividends in multi-generational paddling trips. To have pulled that off with aplomb while coping with major health issues is real feat, and our hats are off to Keith and Nicki for making a fine and enduring canoe.
Randy Pfeifer maintains the Bear Mountain Boats Builders' Forum and is highly knowledgeable on the subject of woodstrip epoxy canoes. In this series, he documents his experiments building multiple canoes using composite materials, with the goal of creating a lightweight but fully functional Freedom 17.
by Randy Pfeifer
After building a few Bear Mountain Boat designs (Redbird, Freedom 15, Freedom Solo) I decided to build a tripping canoe for trips into the BWCAW and Quetico. I chose the Freedom 17 based on excellent reviews from other builders. It is indeed a wonderful craft. Following the plans drawn by Steve Killing for Bear Mountain Boats was easy (as expected). I got the hull stripped and glassed easily. Just as I finished glassing and sanding the outside and cutting the sheerline, I had a thought about attempting to use that newly built and sanded hull as a mold to build a composite canoe with the same shape. Surely it would be light as a feather (I’m not getting any younger and weight has become an increasingly important topic over the years). I did some quick searching on the interwebs and was given general and fairly consistent advice that “it’s not a good idea” and that the “right way to do it” would be to use the strip hull as a plug to build a female mold from the cedar strip hull and use that to build composite hulls. But I really only wanted one composite hull and it seemed like a lot of extra steps to produce a female mold that I would have to dispose of somehow later. Using my existing wood hull as a male mold and then adding trim to it, finishing its build after the composite adventure, just made more sense to me. Nothing to dispose of later and I would end up with two canoes instead of one. And I might just learn something in the process.
So, despite the feedback from the experts (and to be honest, somewhat because of that feedback) I decided to forge ahead with my crazy idea. And to demonstrate that it wasn’t a fluke, I decided to make two composite canoes while I was at it. They would be named Heckle and Jeckle after the two cartoon characters from my childhood (thinking back, they kind of remind me of my two sons Patrick and Thomas – Patrick was the drive behind starting the Redbird project and Thomas was instrumental in building the Freedom 15).
I did some research on various lay-ups used in commercial canoes and some looking at various core materials I might use. I decided on starting with a layer of Kevlar followed by a layer of Carbon Fiber and finally a layer S-glass on the outside. But before I cracked open any epoxy cans, I needed to find a way to make certain that the new hull would release from the wood/glass hull I had worked so hard to build. There are release agents available that I have no experience with but I was reluctant to brush that stuff on top of my wood/glass hull (I still need to varnish and finish it someday and was worried about leaving a residue on the hull). I also wasn’t so sure if a release agent might leave a residue on the inside of the new composite hull which would need to have additional layers added on the inside (echoes of the “don’t do it” advice haunted me).
I also considered the shape of the hull of the Freedom 17. The stems don’t have any “recurve” but the hull does have a bit of tumblehome. I had visions of not being able to get the new hull off the mold without cutting a stem open so I shaped a thin piece of metal and applied it to the bow stem of the canoe (just in case I needed to cut it free).
Still looking for an inert release agent, I stumbled on an idea of using plastic heat-shrink material as a barrier. The stuff you stretch across your windows in the fall to keep your house warm through the long cold winter… Duck brand sells the stuff in sheets large enough to cover an entire canoe (two such pieces to a package!). I tacked an extra cedar strip to my forms below the Freedom 17 hull and applied double face tape (provided with the heat shrink material). Laying the material across the hull is fairly forgiving. Just get the big wrinkles out. The heat shrinking will do the rest. The ends are a bit cumbersome but once it is heat-shrank (shrunk?) it produces a glass-like finish no epoxy in the world would stick to!
Confident that my wood hull was safe, I wet-out the 5 oz Kevlar layer on the hull. It’s harder to see if it fully saturated than fiberglass but once you work with it a bit, you get the hang of it.
Once no longer tacky but still conducive to a chemical bond, I added a fill layer and waited a couple days (the day job) and sanded lightly, then added a layer of 6 oz Carbon Fiber and a couple fill coats of epoxy.
Finally, after day or two, I sanded lightly and added a layer of 4 oz S-Glass and filled the weave with an extra two coats of epoxy.
After a few days of looking at it and wondering if it would come apart, I tried to pull the composite hull free from the mold. I slid my hand under the lay-up to free it from the plastic heat-shrink easily. But I was unable to lift the hull off the mold. It just seemed too tight (maybe it was the tumblehome) so I took a Dremel tool and split the bow open from the sheerline up about a foot. Then I was able to separate the sides and lift the hull up over the mold revealing the perfectly fine wood strip construction below! Sealing the end back up with a couple layers of Kevlar on the inside was easy.
The resultant hull was pretty floppy in its current state with no significant support to keep its shape. I put some straps around it and hung it from the ceiling of my shop with sticks the right length across the beam in a few places on the hull to keep its shape.
The heat shrink material on the wooden hull was in OK condition but needed a bit of touch-up on the bow stem. A couple pieces of packing tape closed it up and readied it for another round of lay-up for the 2nd hull.
The 2nd hull (Jeckle) was constructed using the exact same process materials and order. As I did that lay-up I convinced myself that the hull really ought to have been able to be pulled off the mold without cutting the stem open… Once the lay-up was finished, I worked a bit harder to get it off than I did the first time and was able to remove it fully intact without any cutting.
So then I had the three-layer lay-up of two identical composite canoes ready to finish.
I swapped the two hulls and started working on the inside of the first canoe (Heckle) that I took down from the ceiling of my shop. Jeckle was moved to the ceiling to wait its turn while I worked on Heckle.
As I finished these hulls, I kept measurements of the weight of the build so I could account for the various components of the builds. Tables later in this blog show my accounting for each component. But to this point I hadn’t measured too carefully.
On the inside of Heckle, I added a layer of 3/8” Divincell 4lb/cf foam in the football area with its edge beveled. Attached to the football foam section I connected several (10 per side) heat bent ribs to add strength to the hull. I “borrowed” my wife’s toaster oven from the kitchen to heat each rib using the wood hull itself to shape the ribs. I heated the football section with a heat gun to get it to conform to the bottom of the wood hull. Overall, this totaled to a cubic foot of the 4 lb/cf foam (so four pounds). I then glued all of this into the bottom of the composite hull producing a hull that kept its shape fairly well. I used weights and the original forms to hold the ribs in place while the epoxy set.
On top of all that I added a final layer of 5 oz Kevlar on the inside. This step proved more difficult than expected. Getting the Kevlar to conform to the shape of the ribs distorted the weave so much that I ended up doing the job in 3 pieces (1 over the football area extending an couple inches over the ribs and a piece on each side covering the ribs). A bit ragged by the time I finished. Now the hull was completely rigid and only trim work was left.
Not really focused on weight (like I should have been), I was starting to get anxious to finish the project so I opted to use off-the-shelf gunwales (black anodized aluminum), Seats (ash with webbing) and yoke (ash with conventional pads). I added hefty flotation chambers with pressure equalization plugs. I added a thwart and hand grips on bow and stern built from 1” black anodized aluminum tubing. Decks – I used off-the-shelf replacement decks from a Wenonah canoe. I added some hefty skid-plates using Kevlar felt blackened with graphite stirred into the epoxy to match the color of the hull.
Now all I needed was a few coats of finish. I didn’t think varnish would be my best choice but I needed something to protect my creation from UV. I did some searching and found a product called Max Seal from “The Epoxy Experts”. It dries fast and multiple coats can be put on in a day.
I dropped it on the scale and my jaw dropped – 58 pounds! I was stunned. The very first cedar strip canoe my son Patrick and I built without worrying about weight was 58 pounds….what happened to “light as a feather”??
Then it dawned on me… I have another one of these monsters hanging in the shop that needs to be finished and nearly half of its weight is already there! I really needed to focus more on shedding weight in the second incarnation of this adventure!
Here’s the weight of the elements of Heckle as best as I can reconstruct it:
Heckle |
|
Weight (pounds) |
Components |
24 |
hull |
16 |
Inside layers |
4 |
1 cu ft 4 lb foam |
12 |
5 oz Kevlar / epoxy |
18.2 |
trim |
7 |
Gunwales |
0.52 |
Seat mount brackets |
1 |
Thwart / hand holds |
Flotation Chambers |
|
5.4 |
seats (incl bolts) |
3.3 |
Yoke (incl brackets/HW) |
1 |
Skid plates |
Total Weight: |
58.2 lbs |
It’s clear that vacuum bagging might have saved me a bunch of weight (I seemed to use an enormous amount of epoxy wetting out layers of the hull). I might have gotten away without doing fill coats between layers and used a bit less epoxy there as well. Gunwales, seats and yoke represented big opportunities. But so did the core and inside layer of cloth (and epoxy).
I had my work cut out for me.
New instalments in Randy's series will be published weekly - check back soon for Part II!
Jon Belton's heartfelt letter on the pleasure he's gotten from building boats over the years left us gratified to know we've played a role in his creative process. Jon kindly allowed us to repost the letter on our blog for the benefit of builders dreaming about the projects on their bucket list.
Hello Ted and Joan,
It must have been twenty-five years ago I sat on a park bench in Argyll, Scotland, staring in wonder at a woodstrip canoe, upside down on top of a Volvo roof rack. Every bloke that walked passed ran his hands along it – it was a visual and tactile sight to behold. I vowed to make one someday, but life took over and it remained a memory. Ten years later, I signed up to do a canoe trip down the Yukon River from Whitehorse to Dawson. The guy running the trip had your original Canoecraft book, and I couldn’t put it down. I bought the book (later version) and started plotting and scheming, eventually buying another house simply because it had a workshop of suitable size.
At the time I was a social worker working with young offenders, but I had a history as a carpenter, albeit unqualified, as did my colleague, friend, and eventual boat building buddy Matt. Both of us had spent time fitting out narrow boats for the canal system in England. I don’t know about Matt, but being an untrained carpenter meant each job, despite years of experience, involved a level of guesswork and working out from scratch. Being a Capricorn I’m pretty rubbish at taking instruction, which meant taking on new projects was often a mental workout.
Jon paddles his Redbird on Loch Awe
Your book was so precise and, dare I say, pedantic that I decided to treat myself and simply follow the instructions, word for word, page by page. What a fantastic and liberating experience it was – I could enjoy the process without any head scratching. Making the strongback was a joy.
We made the Redbird first, how could we not? It’s such a sexy shape. And it was, as you have mentioned, a tough one to do. But we succeeded and we learnt a lot. Tragedy nearly struck when we almost used the 206 resin hardener for the fibreglassing instead of the 207 but, hey, there had to be some near misses!
Jon and Matt pose with their work
As you can see from the photo, we went on to build a Prospector and then a skiff (that’s me on the right, Matt on the left). And so emboldened were we that we moved on to a lapstrake build, an Orkney Yole. A significant project that is still ongoing. But grandchildren are growing fast and the need to make some wee woodstrip canoes for them is becoming imperative.
I guess my reason for this message is that for over ten years now I have derived significant pleasure both from building the three woodstrip boats, and from knowing that I have built three woodstrip boats. The pleasure continues even though I haven’t made one in the past five years. And I would like to thank you very much for that; your book inspired and guided me, and my life and the joy of making things has been enhanced by that.
Cheers
Jon Belton
Builders of plywood kayaks are often paddlers first and builders by necessity or choice. They have an advantage when it comes to choosing the right model to build because they most likely have firm opinions about what kayak works best for them. On the other end of the scale is the builder who will learn to paddle after building the boat. Regardless of what you know about kayaks at the moment, the kayak you build should be the right one for you. It will be your mental image of pointing that beautiful varnished deck out into the waters of your favourite place that will keep the project going.
Before buying or building a kayak, it is wise to paddle all the kayaks you can before making a decision. Dealers of mass-produced kayaks often allow potential customers to try out boats before buying. Paddling a specific kit boat is a little more difficult. Unless you know someone who has built the kit you are interested in, all you have to work with are the specifications. The best you can do is collect all the specifications and features from the boats you like and look for a kit that is similar. To begin the search, we suggest making a list to help define and sort out your needs.
Deciding on what to build can be done in two stages. The first is to consider how you will use the boat and what you expect it to do for you. A good exercise is to settle yourself in the virtual cockpit and see where it takes you. The second is to match your wish list to the various manufacturers’ model specifications. This is not always easy, because there is no standard way of expressing how a kayak will perform, and the hydrostatic data given by suppliers is sometimes incomplete.
The contemporary kayak has evolved in a number of directions. New sports have been created, often driven by the evolution in materials and manufacturing. A good example is extreme whitewater kayaking, which would not exist without forgiving polyethene and roto molding. As a rule, wooden kayaks are built for traditional paddling styles. Kayaks built with plywood are usually traditional sea kayaks or Rob Roy-style double-paddle solo canoes.
If you are heading offshore, speed and seaworthiness are more important than initial stability. For the birdwatcher exploring the marsh, a short boat with initial stability is ideal, and if the boat happens to be easy to enter and exit gracefully, so much the better. In spite of what some ads claim, one kayak will not do everything well. Kayak design is a fine balancing act; having more of one good feature means less of something else. As kayakers, we would like to have both initial stability and seaworthiness, but the broad, flat bottom that is comfortable and safe in the wetland is a hazard in open water because it follows the profile of every wave. A good designer will design a kayak for a specific purpose, but will keep the shape in balance so that it won’t be cranky.
Are you happy with your skill level or will you continue to improve and push your limits? It is wise to build a kayak that you can grow into. On the other hand, if you are still learning how to get into one, a long, skinny kayak may fit the fantasy but leave you cold and wet.
Stability is the design characteristic that keeps a kayak deck side up. The entry-level paddler will be looking for a kayak that isn’t twitchy, but for the experienced paddler, too much stability will make it difficult to roll and recover.
Expressing stability in an understandable language is complicated, and most suppliers don’t even try. Steve Killing has developed a mathematical formula for his kayak and canoe designs that makes it easy to evaluate stability in understandable terms. Sea Kayaker magazine uses a similar formula to plot stability curves for the kayaks it reviews. These reviews are an excellent place to match the kayak that interests you with the technical data on its or a similar kayak’s performance. Suppliers frequently do provide testimonials. This can be useful information if it is understood that a testimonial is one person’s reaction based on his or her experience and preferences. Web site chat rooms are a good source of personal reactions to the various designs offered and are worth checking out.
Most serious sea kayaks range in size from 16 to 22 feet long and 20 to 24 inches wide. Fun boats for day trips and exercise measure from 13 to 16 feet long and 22 to 30 inches wide. Rob Roy double-paddle canoes are generally 12 to 15 feet long. Your choice of size should be based on where y ou will paddle, expected stability, your size and weight, and how much gear you will carry.
Another design characteristic to consider is cockpit size and shape. A small cockpit opening is good because the skirt deck will hold less water and is less likely to cave in during an emergency. On the other hand, you need to get in gracefully and you don’t want to worry about getting stuck doing a wet exit. Trying out a few kayaks with cockpits of different sizes will give you a feel for your comfort level. If you are having a problem bending your legs enough to slide into a small cockpit, consider a keyhole shape that extends the length while keeping the area of the opening to a minimum.
For the builder, it is easy to reduce the width of the cockpit by trimming the parts on the centerline, but if a wider cockpit is desired, new components will have to be made. Keep in mind when redesigning the cockpit that spray skirts come in standard sizes and it is easier to buy a skirt off the shelf than have one custom made. Some skirts are designed os that you can get at the bungee to make some adjustment.
Rob Roy-style canoes are generally paddled without a cover, so there is no limit on the size of the opening. A typical cockpit would be 4 to 5 feet long, making it easy to enter and exit but unsuitable for rough conditions.
If you intend to spend long periods of time in your kayak, comfort is going to be important. The standard seat included in most kits is usually good but basic. Some suppliers will upgrade components for an additional charge. Check out the seat ads in the kayak magazines if you are looking for the ultimate in comfort.
As a rule, for maximum stability the seat bottom should be as close to the bottom of the kayak as possible. Backrests should be low enough that they do not interfere with the movement of paddling, as well as allowing you to lie back over the aft deck when rolling.
If you have big feet or if you paddle with boots on, the heigh of the foredeck will be of interest to you. While the height on the centerline will vary from 11 to 16 inches, it is the space where your feet will be that is important. Also consider the deck height at the back of the cockpit. A low aft deck will allow for a good layback when rolling.
Displacement is the total weight of the boat, the paddler and the cargo. Professional plans will give the displacement at the design waterline as well as the weight to immerse. A good designer will calculate the optimum capacity range, or the safe and efficient upper and lower load limits. You can get an idea of what happens when the load changes by looking at the design waterline on the plans. Use the weight-to-immerse number to see how the waterline shape changes as weight is added or removed.
You will often see a specification called “capacity” that is intended to suggest something about displacement. Unless you know how the calculation was arrived at and how it relates to the design waterline, all it really tells you is that the kayak will hold x amount of weight without sinking. Don’t be misled by this number; it has nothing to do with how safely the kayak will function with you and your gear aboard. If that is all the plans have to say about displacement, you have to wonder how serious the supplier is about design and customer safety.
The gear you carry with you will go inside the kayak or ride on deck. One of the advantages of building your own boat is that the choice of how much of what goes where is up to you. Try to be realistic about the number of hatches and the sizes of the openings. Visually, it bothers us to cut a hole in a beautiful foredeck if we can get away with a dry bag or air bags to fill up the space. Keep the hole to the minimum size possible. In theory, a small hatch opening will have a better chance of being watertight, partially because the cover will hold its shape better and the deck will remain rigid.
The hatch components included in most kits may be reduced in width quite easily, but changing the shape or reducing the length will require new parts. On the Coho and the Enterprise, Ted used the components intended for the foredeck in the stern deck. Although the hatch appears small, it is large enough for a comfortable week of self-sufficient cruising.
Deck hatches and bulkheads are simple to add later, so if you are not sure what you will need, consider cutting the hold only when you know what will be going into it. The same holds true for deck rigging; decide what you will use before installing it. There is no point in cluttering up the deck with lines that will never be used, especially when it is easy to add more later.
Finally, building a plywood kayak from a kit is a big commitment in time and money. While the function of the boat is important, it must also look right to your eye and make the exercise worth the effort.
]]>One does not have to be a naval architect to understand the basic principles of canoe design. They are relatively simple, yet vitally important – especially to the builder. The curves of a well-designed canoe are its calling card – a proclamation of the kind of paddling it does best.
]]>It is doubtful whether any first-class canoe is the result of any one person’s study. The builder’s shop is the mill, he is the miller. The ideas of others are grists. – J.H. Rushton
One does not have to be a naval architect to understand the basic principles of canoe design. They are relatively simple, yet vitally important – especially to the builder.
The curves of a well-designed canoe are its calling card – a proclamation of the kind of paddling it does best. At one time, the lines of the slender, double-ended craft were directly traceable to a particular locale or people. The curious profile of a Newfoundland Beothuk canoe was a far cry aesthetically, functionally and geographically from the sturgeon-nosed craft of British Columbia’s Kootenay people.
Within the limits of materials and technology, both native canoes and those built by the early whites were traditionally shaped to conform to the kind of water they plied and to the job they had to do. But with the advent of mass production, that connection was broken. In the post-World War II era, canoes were more often designed to conform to the demands of new materials than to function in a specific environment. Efficiency in the water took a backseat to efficiency in the factory.
Commercial designs have vastly improved in the past 15 years or so, as the emphasis has shifted back towards performance. Even so, by building your own canoe, you gain unique control; with the design and construction decisions you make, you can reestablish that perfect harmony among canoe, paddler, and water.
There is no point in expending energy to build a craft that is going to paddle like a barge. At the same time, every builder, designer, and paddler has his own version of the perfect canoe. The following section bares our personal biases; you can find others by referring to the books listed in Sources.
The key to sorting through the maze of designs is to determine what you expect of your canoe. Where will you most often paddle, for how and with what gear? Most paddlers face a range of circumstances. The challenge is to select a design that meets most needs most of the time.
If your experience in canoes is limited, go to the water to test these principles where they really count. Examine hull contours and paddle different canoes to discover what suits your style best. Your woodstrip canoe will be a thing of aesthetic beauty, but understanding design will assure that it is satisfyingly functional as well.
When a canoe is taken out of its watery element and projected onto a drawing board, it can be reduced to three views – profile, body plan and plan view.
The profile view (see illustration) shows a canoe from one side, as if it were cut in half lengthwise. This perspective describes the accurate length and depth of the boat, its sheer-line (curve of the gunwale, or top edge), its keel-line (curve of the hull, or bottom edge), the shape of its bow and stern and its waterline length (hull length that is wetted when the canoe is in the water).
The body plan (see illustration) shows a canoe from the end, as if it were sliced crosswise at regular intervals, or stations, the shape and dimensions of which are each represented by a single line. Each cross section shows the accurate width and depth of the canoe at that point, as well as the shape of the hull bottom and the shape of the sides. A centerline drawn perpendicular to the waterline splits the cross section in two, but since each half is identical, only one half is shown in the body plan.
The plan view (see illustration) shows a fish-eye perspective of the canoe from directly underneath the boat, as if it were sliced end to end at regular waterlines. Each lengthwise section shows the true length and width at that level, as well as the contour from its maximum width to the point at each end. This describes the path the water must take at various levels as it moves from the entry line at the bow to the exit line at the stern. When the slices are superimposed over a common centerline, the plan view also indicates whether the canoe is symmetrical (bow and stern halves are the same shape) or asymmetrical.
The parts of a canoe are common to most watercraft.
Each of the many physical elements illustrated by the three views has a profound effect on a canoe’s performance. Although they are discussed separately below, none of them acts in isolation. Each affects the others to some extend; in a well-designed canoe, they function in delicate balance.
The profile view shows a canoe from the side, sliced in half lengthwise, illustrating the top and bottom curves as well as the length and depth of the canoe.
On average, the center half of a well-designed hull provides 75 percent of its stability and carrying capacity, while the end quarters function primarily to part the waters at the bow and bring them back together at the stern. Obviously, a longer hull will carry more weight, but length also affects speed.
Generally, the greater the waterline length and the higher the ratio of length to width, the faster the canoe and the easier it is to paddle. This is partly due to the physics of waves and partly to the fact that, in comparison to a short, wide hull, a long, narrow hull rides higher, with less wetted surface, and thus generates less friction against the water. A long hull will also track (hold its course) better than a short one will, but it will not turn as easily.
The body plan is an end view of the canoe, sliced crosswise at regular intervals, bow to stern, with the contours superimposed in sequence over a common centerline. It illustrates the canoe's depth and width.
The plan view shows the hull from below, sliced lengthwise at regular waterlines. It illustrates the hull shape and the canoe's width and length.
This is the maximum width of a canoe. With a narrow beam, less effort is required to push the water aside, and less friction is created by the hull surface. But, although a wide canoe generally paddles slower than a narrow one does, it has greater carrying capacity and is more stable when loaded to its design capacity.
Beam may be the same throughout the depth of the hull, in which case, its sides are plumb (see hull contour, below). But if the maximum beam occurs at the gunwales, the hull is flared. Most often found on narrow hulls, flared sides afford good “final stability.” The hull becomes more stable when it is loaded down, because it becomes wider the lower it sits in the water. Flared sides also deflect waves.
When the gunwale beam is narrower than the maximum beam, the sides are tumblehome (they “tumble home”). Tumblehome is usually found on wider hulls: the reduced gunwale width allows the paddler to reach over the side easily without sacrificing good carrying capacity. The arcing sides also help stiffen the hull. Although tumblehome does not affect initial stability, it can result in very poor final stability when too extreme, especially in combination with a wide, flat bottom.
Determining the depth of the canoe: Freeboard, the distance between the gunwale and the water, varies with the load the canoe is carrying.
The depth of a canoe is measured amidships from the gunwales to the bottom of the hull. This can range from 10 inches in a little solo canoe to more than 24 inches in a freighter. Depth is also measured at the bow and stern, from the top of the stem to the lowest point of the keel-line.
Freeboard, another measurement of depth, is the distance from the water to the gunwales. Freeboard affects the seaworthiness of a canoe: high sides will make it susceptible to wind, reducing speed and controllability, whereas low sides will render it susceptible to swamping in whitewater and waves.
Predicting the freeboard of a design when the canoe is fully loaded can be done several ways. When “capacity” is listed in canoe specifications, it usually refers to the weight that can be loaded into the canoe while retaining 6 inches of freeboard. “Design displacement” refers to the weight that will lower the canoe to its design waterline. As you study different plans, watch for figures that indicate pounds per inch of immersion. Ultimately, this is more meaningful than capacity is and will give you perspective on how a particular hull will handle loading.
Top: Up to half the length of a well-designed canoe is devoted primarily to parting the water at the bow and returning it at the stern. The longer the canoe, the faster it is. Above: The placement of maximum beam on the side of the hull determines the shape of the sides and the canoe's stability, speed, and carrying capacity.
More important than depth, beam or length is the way these measurements are drawn together to form the hull contour. How this shape moves through the water is the key to canoe performance.
A canoe has a displacement hull. It is basically a moving trough, dividing water at the bow and replacing it at the stern. Its efficiency depends on the amount of friction created by the hull surface meeting the water and the smoothness with which the water is displaced around its form.
The contour of the hull below the waterline determines the efficiency of the canoe as well as its stability in rough water.
A semicircular, or round-bottom, hull produces the least wetted surface, but its tippiness makes it practical only for flatwater racing shells.
A flat-bottom hull has the greatest wetted surface and is capable of carrying large loads. It can also turn quickly in every direction, making it appropriate for whitewater, where high maneuverability is a priority. This skidding action, however, means tracking can be difficult in anything less than glassy waters, and even then, flat-bottom hulls are slowed by high friction.
Since it is buoyant over a large surface, a flat-bottom hull feels the most stable when first climb in but remains so only in calm water. In rough water, the flat, buoyant hull follows the profile of the waves and can turn turtle suddenly when tipped past the sharp turn of its bilge. A flat bottom may be justified in freight canoes but is unsafe in recreational craft on anything but flat water.
The shallow-arch, or semi-elliptical, hull contour is a good compromise between the round and flat bottoms. Its domed shape helps stiffen the hull, which is especially important with lightweight construction techniques, and reduces instability in the bilge area. In addition, waves tend to slide under the boat.
This hull feels “canoey,” with good initial and final stability. Because such hulls take less abuse from heavy waters, naval architects often characterize them as “sea kindly.” A shallow-arch hull will also track better than will a flat hull. Because of its seaworthiness and average tracking and turning ability, this contour is the starting point for most general-purpose touring or cruising canoes.
A shallow-vee contour takes the hull deeper and sharper into the water and produces slightly more wetted surface. Like the shallow-arch hull, the shallow vee affords a high degree of final stability. But it tracks better, since the vee shape functions like a keel, keeping the canoe on course. It is less responsive in turning, however. Because the shallow vee cuts cleanly through waves, with little pounding or skidding, it is especially appropriate for sailing and lake canoes.
Most hulls employ a combination of these forms. For instance, a cruiser might have a deep-vee bow to part the waters efficiently, opening gradually to a shallow vee, then a shallow arch to pass the waves cleanly along the hull, then narrowing back into a deep vee at the stern. Such a design would combine seaworthiness and directional stability with good maneuverability. It would also offer reserve buoyancy – extra width at the vee sections when the canoe sits deeper in the water.
Separate keels are the subject of some controversy in canoe design. They do add a measure of stiffness and protection to the hull bottom and will be much appreciated when paddling through a crosswind on a lake, but that same keel will be roundly cursed when you try to maneuver through rock-strewn rapids.
As a general rule, a shoe keel (a keel generally 3/8 inch deep by 2 to 3 inches wide) is a good idea for protection on a river boat, while a deeper keel is appropriate on a lake canoe, where maneuverability is less important than tracking ability. Keels should be avoided on whitewater canoes, since they get hung up on obstructions and inhibit the sideways movement critical to dodging through rapids.
The keel-line of a canoe also affects maneuverability and directional stability. A straight keel-line from stem to stem produces a fast, easy-paddling canoe that tracks exceedingly well but turns poorly.
Even without a keel, the profile of a hull bottom strongly affects performance and the way the canoe rides out rough waters. Keel-lines range from the razor's edge of a racing cruiser to the extreme rocker of a slalom canoe. Recreational canoes fall somewhere between.
A keel-line that curves upward from the middle towards each end of the canoe is said to have rocker. Essentially, rocker allows the canoe to pivot on its midpoint. The more rocker on the keel-line, the shorter the canoe’s waterline length and the easier it turns and rises over waves. Too much rocker forces the center of the canoe to support most of its weight, driving it deeper into the water, increasing displacement and friction and decreasing speed.
Rockers can range from moderate lift in a cruiser to the banana-like profile of a competition slalom canoe. Poorly made or old canoes sometimes develop reverse rocker, or hogged keel-lines, which inhibits performance.
Rather than a fully rockered keel-line, a canoe can have a slight uplift just at the stems. In a loaded boat, this allows enough of the hull to ride in the water for good tracking, but with the bow and stern riding slightly above the waterline, maneuverability and reserve buoyancy are improved.
The profile of the bow affects performance as well as the line of the hull body. Some bows rise vertically or on a slight incline, yielding a fairly straight sheer-line and maximum waterline length. This inclined, or plumb, bow forces the sides of the canoe to flare. The greater the incline, the more the sides must flare.
Most traditional canoe bows, however, rise up out of the water and curve back slightly towards the paddler. This recurve, a logical extension of the rockered keel-line, reduces the area exposed to the wind for a given waterline length. But as the bow curves, it puts tumblehome into the sides, reducing reserve buoyancy.
To compensate for this, extra height is often added at the stems. Extreme recurve, with a sharply rising sheer-line, makes the canoe more susceptible to wind and adds some unnecessary weight, but the trade-off may be worth the beautiful sweeping lines.
The entry line of a canoe – the shape of the forward point of the bow that cuts the water – plays a large part in its efficiency. The smoothness with which water is displaced around the hull affects both speed and the amount of effort required to attain it.
A canoe that carries its fullness well into the ends must quickly push aside a large volume of water, which tends to slow down as it moves along the hull. Thus the canoe tends to plow through the water.
On the other hand, a hull with a fine entry line moves the water aside more slowly. Because the displaced fluid has more time to get out of the way, the paddler exerts less of his own force to move it. The fine lines part the water neatly, producing little spray and a small set of waves that accelerate naturally along the hull.
Fine entry lines are desirable under all conditions, albeit in varying degrees. A flatwater cruiser should have the finest entry, whereas a whitewater canoe must have its fullness carried as far forward as possible, without disturbing the fine entry.
Although traditional canoes are generally symmetrical in shape, some modern designers have abandoned that principle. In an asymmetrical design, the beam is placed slightly aft of center, creating a longer bow. Paddling and tracking becomes easier because of the fine entry of the long bow and the extra buoyancy in the stern quarter.
Top: A plumb bow forces the canoe's sides to flare, while traditional recurved bows result in tumblehome sides. High recurve is traditionally attractive but can make the canoe susceptible to wind. Above: Fine entry lines part the waves more smoothly than a blunt-nosed bow that plows the water. The result is greater speed with less paddling effort.
Between the extremes of the blunt-nose, flat-bottom freighter and the stiletto racer, infinite variations in canoe design are available. At the same time, however, there is no ideal form. Each of the principles discussed above can be manipulated for specific results, but the gain of one advantage inevitably entails the loss of another. If you opt for tracking, you will sacrifice maneuverability, while the extreme rocker that offers optimal maneuverability will rob your canoe of tracking ability.
Even within each design variable, there are no absolutes. Final stability is a prime concern if you are out for a paddle with the kids, but it is a low priority if you delight in the solo canoe “ballet” of Bill Mason. And finally, no matter how function a well-designed canoe may be, it must also be visually pleasing, balancing practicality with beauty of lines.
The flexibility of canoe design, however, is its own reward. All these disparate elements can be orchestrated in several different ways to produce a variety of canoe prototypes well suited to different requirements. If there is no such thing as the perfect all-purpose canoe, there are individual types that do specific jobs very well.
A cruising, light-tripping or general-purpose, canoe should have a keel or vee end sections, a fairly straight keel-line and a fine entry line for good tracking and efficient paddling. It should have a shallow-arch or shallow-vee hull with low stem profiles. Asymmetrical designs are appropriate. Overall length can range between 14 and 18.5 feet, with at least a 12-inch depth and a beam between 30 and 34 inches.
A wilderness, or tripping, canoe must meet all the challenges of extended bush travel – large lakes, shallow streams, whitewater and portages – and still be able to carry sufficient gear. The hull should be as full as possible towards the bow and stern without disturbing the fine entry, with a slight uplift or rockered keel-line for maneuverability in rough water and a shallow-arch contour. A bit of tumblehome in the sides is ideal. The hull should be keelless or shoe-keeled, and weight is a definite consideration. Competent wilderness canoes are at least 16 feet and as much as 18.5 feet long, with a 12-to-14-inch depth and 34-to-36-inch beam.
A whitewater, or downriver, canoe should have a shallow-arch to flat-bottom hull, well rockered for easy turning and with a good lift at the ends so that it can ride through heavy rapids without taking water. Moving the bow seat back somewhat will improve this ability. Keels are undesirable, unless a shoe keel is considered necessary for protection. In any case, a whitewater canoe has to be strong enough to withstand inevitable encounters with rocks. Decks should be long and gunwales wide enough to shed water, with tumblehome sides to accommodate the beam. The consideration of weight has to be balanced against durability. Dimensions are similar to those for a wilderness canoe, although depth should be about 14 inches.
The design of a solo canoe depends on the individual canoeist’s paddling technique. A traditional Canadian-style solo canoe, paddled heeled over, is 14 to 15 feet, with a symmetrical shallow-arch hull. Widths range between 25 and 34 inches, with a slight tumblehome to the sides.
The traditional American Rushton-style solo canoe, on the other hand, is paddled flat with a double blade. It is typically narrower (24 to 30 inches) and shorter (10 to 14 feet), with a shallow arch/shallow-vee hull. The paddler sits on the hull bottom, supported by a backrest.
The contemporary Gault-style solo canoe, a new design now fashionable in the United States, is paddled well heeled over. It is also narrow (24 to 30 inches), with shallow, flared sides and an asymmetrical hull 13 to 16 feet long, with a rounded-vee bottom and soft bilges.
After digesting this chapter, you may not be ready for the world of custom design, but you should be able to set your own personal performance priorities. As one builder exclaimed after mastering the mysteries of canoe design: “I’m not trained, but now I certainly can tell an ugly canoe when I see one, and I have a pretty good idea about how poorly it must handle.” In the next chapter, you will find plans for a range of canoes that are as sweet in the water as they are on the shelf.
]]>The nuances of wood and wood choice are a constant source of fascination to the canoe-building community. George Vandemolen's recently completed Bob's Special incorporates a variety of woods to striking visual effect - with handmade wooden paddles thrown in to boot. George writes:
The canoe has not yet been in the water as some of the lakes here are still iced over but it shouldn’t be long now.
I used all western red cedar from Vancouver Island. The gunwales were supposed to be ash but when I received them they were already rounded over and only 3/4 x 3/4 so I used maple purchased locally instead. Inner stems are white cedar while the outers are ash. Cherry yoke and decks. I incorporated a strip of walnut into the decks. I made the seats from walnut using mortice and tenon joinery and wove the cane (not a fun job). I added grab/tie down handles made from solid walnut at either end. All the bolting is recessed and plugged with walnut plugs. The paddles are laminated cherry, maple and walnut with 2.5oz fiber glassed blades with epoxied shafts and grips as well as 4 coats varnish. I enjoyed making them so much that I made 1 additional voyageur paddle using walnut, maple and purple heart (see attached pics).
This canoe build fulfilled a 35 plus year dream of mine and it may not be the last one I build.
Regards,
George
We lose perspective in the workshop sometimes. To us photos of Ted diligently scraping away on a C4 were just business as usual, but when we shared a few last week, Ted’s choice of tool provoked a surprising amount of curiosity. Odds are good you’ll be familiar with the paint scraper method of shaping the hull if you’ve already built your own canoe, but if you used an alternate method or are looking to refine your technique, read on for an ode to the humble paint scraper.
Outside of the block plane and spokeshave, paint scrapers are one of Ted’s favourite tools. They’re cheap, widely available, and versatile. In the early days when he was still developing his process, he used paint scrapers primarily to scrape off excess glue before sanding the hull to prepare it for fibreglass. He experimented with using paint scrapers to reduce the amount of dust, which was bad for the lungs and made it difficult to monitor his progress. He discovered that paint scrapers were an easy-to-control alternative, with the added benefit of reducing dust and noise. These days he’ll spend a day scraping a 20’ C4 canoe, but only two hours sanding.
Ted cycles through three scrapers when working on a canoe hull, each filed to the shape he wants to create. The first is flat with rounded corners for the sides of hull and outside curves, the second has a pronounced curved to follow the bilge, and the third sits between those two shapes. All three have their edges filed like a plane blade with a steep angle of attack, so it takes a bit of practice to find the cleanest cut.
Ted finds Richard-brand scrapers ideal, because the hardness of the steel makes it easy to file while still taking a moderately aggressive bite out of the wood. He estimates a sharpened edge will last about five minutes before it needs to be sharpened again. He also finds the nut-and-bold attachment system preferrable to the tongue method of some scraper blades, which reduces the level of control.
Thinking about the number of machines that have been created over the forty-five years he has been building boats, it strikes Ted that an inexpensive scraper does things a $400 profile sander would do without the control or pleasure of using one's hands. When he finishes scraping and imagines the pile of shavings on the floor as dust floating around the workshop, he’s even more grateful to have a few handy scrapers in his arsenal.
Watch two short clips of Ted working with paint scrapers:
]]>One question we get regularly is when our next building class will be. With the global pandemic a daily concern, and Ted focused on sprint canoe building for now, the answer is that we won’t be scheduling anything for the foreseeable future. But we do remember how fun and valuable those courses were, and that’s why we’d like to pass along a recommendation for the new online learning program, Mastering Skills with the WoodenBoat School.
WoodenBoat’s pedigree is so strong it hardly bears mentioning, but if you’re new to the field, WoodenBoat is responsible for the industry-leading magazine of the same name, the excellent sister publication Small Boats Magazine, a school, and several other offshoots. The Mastering Skills series will take the form of monthly streamable episodes hosted by boatbuilding experts like Greg Rössel, Milo Stanley, and Eric Dow.
Greg Rössel’s segments cover building fundamentals, such as how to read boat plans. We can personally attest to Greg’s talent and work ethic, having watched him get up at 5AM each morning to co-author Kayaks You Can Build: An Illustrated Guide to Plywood Construction with Ted, before leaving for a full day of boat-building for another project. As a contributing editor to WoodenBoat, he wrote this detailed and highly readable work about our electric fantail launch, Sparks.
Greg is also the author-illustrator of Building Small Boats and The Boat Builder’s Apprentice, a longtime instructor at WoodenBoat School, a consummate professional and a really nice guy. He’s in excellent company with his fellow instructors on the Mastering Skills series, making $49.95 for a year’s subscription hard to beat.
To be clear, Bear Mountain Boats isn’t affiliated with this project. We have, however, signed up to watch along with fellow boat builders and the boat-curious. Especially with COVID keeping us socially distant for at least another few months, it seems like time well spent.
Click on the logo to visit the Mastering Skills with WoodenBoat School signup page
]]>
Decks are one of the key areas builders can use to personalize a canoe. Whether it's inlay work, book-matching, or simply an interesting wood choice, a well-chosen deck can make a canoe truly memorable. Glen Campbell's Prospector is a prime example - the colour pop provided by padauk helps his work stand out. Of course, custom bulkheads, careful strip patterning, and a distinctive trim take the whole project over the top. In Glen's words:
"The hull is red and yellow cedar with a walnut fine line feature, all from the west coast of Canada. Each strip was numbered as it was cut and used on alternating sides at the same location to colour match the hull. The bulkhead was also made from the same adjacent strip where possible to match around each end. The decks are made out of Padauk. I was wanting that dark red colour to really make it stand out. The Yoke and Thwarts are laminated ash and walnut. Gunnels are ash as well. The deck plates in the bulk head on each end were custom made by a local machinist friend here in Edmonton. All the water here is frozen now so I’m anxiously waiting for spring for it’s maiden voyage."
Every once in awhile, a question will come into the Bear Mountain inbox about using carbon fibre in canoe construction. While our expertise is mainly based around fibreglass epoxy, we appreciate seeing how enterprising home builders have modified their approach for weight, strength, or the sheer joy of experimentation. Martin Devenyi's unconventional Freedom 17 is a prime example of the kind of eye-catching yet practical results that are possible with a few changes to the recipe. Martin writes:
"I actually completed the canoe over 10 years ago--it's been on about 15 backcountry trips. When planning the build I was looking for a canoe that was as light as feasible for a cedar strip for long portages without compromising too much on performance, capacity or durability. Inspired by those crazy-light marathon racers more commonly seen in New York State plus an interest in composites, I borrowed some of the materials and design features and married them with the Ted Moores classic strip build methods to see what I could come up with. The finished weight ended up at 37 lbs (--it's a couple of pounds heavier now after some repairs and mods). I used 3/16" Eastern White Cedar strips, 4-oz glass sheathing on the interior, 6-oz carbon covering the exterior with another layer of glass for abrasion protection on the football below the waterline. Gunnels, decks, seat and thwart cleats are Corecell wrapped in CF and vacuum bagged. The CF tractor seats were ordered from a small custom marathon canoe building outfit in NY State (can't recall the name), and supported by tubing I bagged from CF sleeve material.
It's light, stiff, responsive, very quick, tracks beautifully--a hoot to paddle tandem or solo. I've in fact taken it as a soloist on group trips and have had no trouble keeping up (usually), even with kayaks (okay...maybe until a stiff wind comes up LOL). I use a simple kneeling thwart--the higher centre of gravity can make it a little skittish, though.
It's taken a beating over the years and never let me down. I must admit it's a bit more fragile than a 1/4" strip build with traditional 6-oz cloth--I've had to repair a couple of cracked strips after losing my grip during a tricky portage. The feather-weight plus awesome water feel makes it a worthwhile tradeoff, by far. Looks unique, too. Definitely been a conversation starter at the put-ins and take-outs.
All the best,
Martin Devenyi"
Early in the winter of 2021, we asked builders how the pandemic had affected their plans and projects. Ty Bailey submitted this detailed and thoughtful piece on building his Nomad 17 in response. Many thanks to Ty, and everyone who sent us their stories!
This past fall, I built a cedar strip canoe for the first time (Nomad 17') using the Canoecraft book and the Bear Mountain video workshop series on Youtube as my guides. This was a project that I had always hoped to complete but I had to shelve the idea for many years as I was busy raising young children and building my cottage in Haliburton.
Using trees from my cottage property, I milled white cedar for the hull and black cherry for the trim. I used my portable chainsaw mill, equipped with a ripping chain, to mill the 18' slabs of wood in August. I then hauled it out of the woods and the river valley by ATV and brought it back home to Port Hope to stack and sticker for a few weeks before embarking on the dusty job of jointing, planing, ripping and routing the wood to make the strips in the driveway. By the time September had rolled around, I was steam bending the stems and off to work on planking the hull in my woodshop using the stapleless method I learned in the book.
After the first few strips were in place, the process became somewhat addictive as I began to see the shape of the hull take form. I would add a few strips before work in the morning, come home at lunch and add a few more and then keep working away each evening. I am a very experienced woodworker and often get completely absorbed in a specific project and the canoe build was no different. However, I found given the current situation with Covid-19 and the uncertain times we are all faced with, this project in particular allowed me to focus on something exciting and positive and as such, it has really helped me to stay highly motivated and energized.
By the end of October I had faired and epoxied the exterior and interior of the hull with the help of my wife and it was very rewarding at this point to get a true sense of what the final product would look like. As November approached and the temperatures began to dip, I made sure to get any remaining outside jobs completed such as ripping the cherry gunwales, routing the scuppers and sanding the epoxy in preparation for the varnishing.
During the home stretch of the project in December, I installed the gunwales and decks and created the yoke and then finally, I built and caned the seats - which I was able to do sitting by the woodstove in the house. On New Year's Eve, with the final coat of spar varnish dried, I installed the brass stem bands and I was able to proudly move the finished boat outside on the cradles for the official 'reveal'.
Of all the projects I have completed in the past, this takes the cake in terms of the genuine appreciation I have gained with regards to the process and the amount of work involved. For three months I heard my three kids often say, " Dad, the only thing you watch on TV is about canoe building nowadays!" I cannot wait to get this boat in the water next spring! As a Christmas gift, my wife bought me the Kayakcraft book and I am now looking forward to my next project. Your resources, products and customer service was instrumental in allowing me to complete this project. Thank you!
Kind regards,
Ty
(This message was originally sent out via our newsletter. We're sharing it here for our website visitors, but if you'd like to receive updates like this direct to your mailbox, sign up here)
Having weathered the turbulence of 2020 we are glad to turn our gaze to the new year ahead with hope for peace and health in our world in 2021.
We have been among the fortunate ones during this pandemic - living in a small community we can avoid crowds and still get out to hike and paddle, walk the dog around the village and connect with our neighbours safely. So far our family has been healthy and adjusting to the restrictions we all have had to endure to keep the virus from spreading.
Ted had already decided not to offer any classes in 2020 and he was quite content working alone in his workshop, completing a C15 for the Pointe Claire Canoe Club and putting more varnish on Sparks. Working with Steve Killing we completed the final prototype for a small training boat for dragon boat paddlers.
Two elite paddlers test the DragonFly prototype, new a dragonboat-style design
From my perspective there was never a better time to be working from home helping people execute their small boat dreams. Sales of plans and building materials almost doubled over the previous year and I was almost too busy - Ted compared the volume of my outgoing shipments to Amazon’s.
When our good friend Ron Frenette of Canadian Canoes announced his retirement in March we had to locate a new supplier of materials. It has not been easy to replace Ron whose unflagging energy and enthusiasm has been a huge part of Bear Mountain. To say that I miss working with him is a giant understatement.
Ron Frenette, on a paddling trip to the Kipawa
We have partnered with Noah’s Marine so we can continue to ship strips and other materials from their Toronto location. Noah’s has purchased the same milling machine we were using so the strips are produced in house now which should give us more control. Supply shortages have plagued every business over the last year and we are grateful to our customers who have been patient with the unusual wait times.
One of the bright spots of 2020 was hearing from people who found an outlet for their creative energies and an escape from the news cycle in boatbuilding. So if you’ll oblige us, we’d love more stories like that. These pictures and stories we receive give meaning to our work and sharing them on social media helps to inspire other builders.
Ted's C15 mold has its building history written on the side
We want to hear about your experience making things. What did it mean to you to practice this craft at a time like this? If you’ve built before, did the past year feel different? Were any aspects easier or harder? Don’t feel the need to sugarcoat it if you ran into difficulties finding the help, resources, or energy you needed. If you found it rewarding in the end, though, your story could inspire someone else looking for a productive way to while away the hours until the vaccine arrives.
If you have a story to share, write to info@bearmountainboats.com. Photo attachments are much appreciated. Shorter stories and snapshots may find a home on our social media accounts; longer ones could evolve into blog posts on our website. Of course, if you’d prefer not to share the story so widely, that’s fine too.
We can’t thank you enough for your support at a time when so many small businesses are struggling. Thanks to a strong and resilient building community, we’re feeling good about the future of this craft. Looking forward to hearing from you, sincerely,
Joan
Ted and grandson working on a plywood boat side project
]]>William was drawn to the Bob’s Special after seeing an older cousin’s model decades ago. The name stuck in his mind, and finding himself retired and stuck at home through the pandemic, grabbed a copy of Canoecraft and rekindled his interest. His granddaughter Zara had been his “fishing companion and helper since she could walk,” so the pair sourced some red cedar planking and got underway.
As an apprentice electrician, Zara was a confident tool user and William reports her sometimes taking the lead as the project progressed. The pair trimmed their Bob’s Special with ash gunwales and cherry decks, completing the beautiful canoe seen below over the summer. Like many people, they found some solace in the woodshop during a trying time. In William’s words, “Zara working on this with me is probably the best thing that’s happened during this last year.”
It’s not hard to see why – enjoy William and Zara’s progress and launch photos below!