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Friday, May 10, 2013

Another boat, really?

Yes, it's true.  I have begun to build another boat.  This will be a small (of course) double ended canoe, hard chined, pond boat for my wife.  She indicated that she would like me to build her a boat & that she might like to be able to come out to the pond in the mornings to use it.  Soooooooooooo.

The form comes from the needed dimensions at mid ships.  As much surface area as possible, for buoyancy,  little flair on the sides for paddling, depth of hull for reserve buoyancy and comfort.  The rest comes from the limitations of the single sheet of plywood and making as few cuts as possible.

I realize the boat might be lighter if I built it stitch and glue instead of with a chine, but I wanted to make it dead simple to and low tech.  Hammer, nails, and caulk is all it really needs, (don't even need the caulk if you don't mind bailing a little) but the glue and paint and fiberglass armor make it a bit more serviceable.

Lizzy's Boat
double paddle canoe

LOA     7'-6"
Beam   2'-6"
depth amidships  11.5"
Draft    3"  (one person 125 lbs.)
weight 20 lbs. (+/-)

Made from a single sheet of .55mm luan plywood.  Cedar decking scrap for stems, gunwales, and misc.  This is in order to keep the boat as light weight as possible for portage.  Galvanized ring nails and Gorilla Glue for fastening.  Hopefully 3 oz fiberglass clothe on the bottom for armor.

-4 saw cuts for the sides panels.
-the stems where cut with rabbets and bevel, in 4 passes on the table saw.
-the gunwales will be laminated in place, 1 cedar, 2, yellow pine.
-chines will probably be external, one piece with continuos bevel, yellow pine.
-the bottom is trimmed to fit and attached last.
basic shape set in place with one mid station(jig,mold,form) and the stems taped on.

The nice thing about building one sheet boats is that the building forms fit on a piece of plywood and can be lofted on the wood.

I'd like to finish it with varnish only.  I have to work carefully, no marks, mistakes.

rabbeted stem fastened with galvanized ring nails and Gorrilla glue.
So far I have about 1 and a half days time in on it, most of which was spent in building and setting up forms and jigs.  I Have since added 2 more forms.
Added stations at 18 inches from midships, stem brace forms,  All of this was added for
shaping the gunwales and chine.
I also added braces at the stems to keep everything aligned, this was a problem I was lazy about on the skiff and the pram.  They are both crooked boats, but you have to look real hard to notice and it doesn't affect their performance, as far as I can tell.

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