Lolly sticks

Spent what little time I had this week continuing to insert the lolly stick spacers between the chines. This whole operation took a lot longer than I expected because at the same time I had to blend the lower bilge panel with the others because of it being too long. This I did with an angle grinder and an old sanding disc which worked pretty well.

I needed a flat surface so I placed the canoe on my ladder which in turn was placed on the trestles and squared up. Used the spirit level to check the flatness and skew of the top panel which for the most part is pretty good. The aft bulkhead was a little high so I placed a couple of bricks on it and left it over night.

*?!** bulkheads

OK - removed the bulkheads again and cut the corners away to allow for clearance of the inwhales when ready. Started to insert my spacers between the chines. These are in the form of cut up lolly sticks. Once inserted the copper wire is twisted to pull the panels together and nipping the stick in place. I've only done a quarter of the boat so far.

Also removed the overhanging lower bilge section previously mentioned using a jigsaw. I then had to remove some material where the panels meet for better fitting.

I think what I'm going to do is to part glue the joins (tack weld) then remove the spacers and wire then properly fillet the joins and tape over the top.

Poor planning

I was looking through some build pictures of other people's canoes, it suddenly dawned on that I haven't removed any material from the bulkheads for the inwhales. So I need to remove them for a second time...

Yet more stitching

Removed the bulkheads and made 6.5" holes in them ready for the inspection covers. They need a bit more finishing but they'll do for the time being. Stitched up all the panels over the weekend and it's now finally looking like a canoe. And it's a big one! In fact that's the first thing my wife said when she saw it.

The lower bilge panels seem to be about a 1cm longer than all the other panels (See first picture) for some reason so I'll have to unstitch the front end and remove this somehow.

Stitched up too

Carried on stitching the panels together. I drilled the bulkheads and mounted them so the bow and stern could be stitched and take some shape. Both lower bilge panels are in and loosely stitched and clipped together - forgot to make the holes in the bulkhead for the hatches so they need to come out again as trying to shape a 6.5" diameter hole in a loose panel won't be easy.

Ordered x2 hatches from a company in the US and am having them delivered to our office north of LA. A couple of colleagues are there on business next week so hopefully they will be delivered in time so they can bring them back for me. Cost of the panels inc. shipping were ~£19.

Total spend so far £268

Stitched up

After glueing and taping the butt joints I cleaned up the excess tape and epoxy and was ready to start stitching the panels together. I made a gauge from a piece of plastic and some M3 cap screws that allowed me to set the drill hole distance in from the panel edge by 6mm and 200mm apart. This helps to ensure the holes line up between the panels.

Drilled the bottom panel and lower bilge panel and stitched them together using copper wire. Only managed one panel as time was getting on so will have to finish the others later.

One thing struck when putting the panel on was that this thing is longggggggggg.

Hoping to order some hatches from a US supplier and get them delivered to my office in the US in time for my manager to pick them up whilst he's over there on business. That way I can cut the holes in the bulkheads for them prior to fitting the bulkheads in the boat.

Good progress made

Busy few days on the canoe front. Took Friday off work to work on the canoe. Original plan was to tape the butt joints but again the dreaded slowness of the epoxy setting put paid to that as it still hadn't cured sufficiently. I decided to call up the supplier who agreed to send me some fast setting hardener FOC if I paid the postage - obviously I was happy with this. The supplier called back to let me know he was in the area on Saturday and could drop by if I wanted. This he did and dropped of the hardener and also some more resin, manufactured by Flag this time which he recommended for gluing and fairing. Paid for the shipping - £10.

In the mean time I still had to fill my Friday so I got some more ply for the centre bulkhead support (that's only fixed in temporarily to keep the shape of the canoe) and the bow and stern bulkheads. I used 5mm WBP for this.

I also got a 1M plank of oak for my portage yoke, the plans of which I got from Jem Watercraft. I also made up a template of the yoke to use for routing the finished article. Oak is really hard and it took ages to cut.

On the Saturday and Sunday I used the fast cure hardener and taped all the joints up. Fast hardener really does work fast!

In the mean time a contact from SoTP forum dropped off the seats I bought from her - which are really nice.

Total spend to date £249.

Don't let your kids in the garage!

I took a lot of time and trouble to measure up and make sure that my butt joints were good. I placed the upper bilge boards over each other and they matched extremely well. The lower bilge panels at the centre were off by about 10mm. The joint wasn't parallel and I remembered that my youngest lad managed to kick the end of the panel just after I had glued it. I didn't check it and I should have so the upshot is I had to cut the glue joint and start again. Extremely annoying as the epoxy is taking a long time to cure off.

Anway hopefully this evening I will do the above joint as well as the ones I still had left to do.

Arranged to get my seats delivered this Friday so am looking forward to that. Also ordered a 100m roll of 75mm glass tape from China Wind Yachts. Also found out from CWY that you can add acrylic paint to the epoxy to give it a colouring. Apparently it's a bit trial and error but I'll give it a go and see what happens.

Waiting for the glue to dry...

After 36hrs of waiting my glue joints still aren't fully cured. This is due to the slowww curing hardener (and the temperature) I was sent. I don't want to move the panels but at the same time I still have a couple more joins to make so would like to get on.

In the mean time I met up with Paul (the picture's his canoe) who's a member of the Open Canoe Association Suffolk Branch who kindly showed me his Selway Fisher Peterborough. He imparted some good advice aswell as some tales of woe. I think I'll change my thoughts about the gunwhale timber and go for the smaller cross section on the outside. Also the inwhales need to have some holes in them so when the canoe is turned over the water has somewhere for it to escape.

What struck me was that the canoe is huge, both length and width and mine will be about a foot or more longer.

Ordered my 75mm tape (a 100m roll) for £24 from CWY.

Total spend to date £239.

Joining the Panels

Because the panels are only effectively half the length of the canoe they have to be joined. I decided to use a butt joint that would be glued using an epoxy and woodflour mix. So Saturday afternoon and Sunday I spent some time laying the panels out in my garage trying to make best use of the space available whilst making sure they were correctly aligned. I did this using the method outlined by JEM Watercraft which seems to work well until one your kids moves comes in and trips over your work.

I carefully read the instructions for mixing the epoxy and priming the pumps and set about trying to get the peanut butter like consistency required. As this was my first attempt I didn't know how much to mix and needless to say mixed too much. Anyway the goop was pushed into the joint and then smoothed out using a spreader. With a plastic bag under and over the glue joint I put a couple of bricks over to make sure the joint comes out flat. Nothing to do now until the epoxy cures.

Got Epoxy

Whilst still recovering from surgery I spent some time searching for places that sold epoxy resin. Eventually ordered some MAS Epoxy from China Wind Yachts. Unfortunately their website is 2 years out of date so the prices quoted are not correct but they are still a bit cheaper than other suppliers. Their kit also includes the metering pumps. I bought some woodflour mix at the same time. Tried to get some 75mm x 100m glass woven tape but that was out of stock, however they did agree to send some out freepost when available.

Also started looking around for some seats - 2 needed. Average price seems to be around £45 a go for the wooden frame/ tape type but I trawled around SoTP and found someone in Norwich who had some home made ones for £25 a go plus shipping. So I'm in the process of sorting that out.

Total spend to date = £215

Work Stops

Off I went to hospital for my op. I had some of my collar bone chisled away plus some other bits scraped away. Left hospital the next day with my arm in a sling and feeling pretty sore. Since nothing was going to happen on the build front I looked for other things to do. So I went down the library and borrowed Path of the Paddle and Thrill of the Paddle by Bill and Paul Mason. Good books that give instruction on paddling technique etc. Did I mention I'm a canoe virgin and need to learn all the basics?

Looked on eBay for a paddle and got a DDR beaver tail for £11 plus shipping. Also bought a book from BuyRights (their marketing slogan is "maykert part of yar Suffolk loif" - make it part of your Suffolk life for those who don't know local Suffolk!) the title of which I don't remember but it's a good colour book with instruction on J and several other strokes.

Total spend so far = £100

Cutting out the panels

Next stage was to cut out the panels themselves. In the mean time my parents had very generously bought me an early birthday present of an electric plane and jigsaw.

I desperately wanted to get the panel cutting done as I was about to undergo some shoulder surgery which would put me out action for a while so full steam ahead. The first panels cut out were used as templates to create the remaining ones required.

Once all the panels were cut out they were matched up and clamped ready for planing in one go.

The planer is very good at creating flat surfaces but is no good for planing down concave surfaces. For this I borrowed a spoke shave which did the job really well.

Marking out

Next stage is to loft the plans. This involves making a series of pencil lines 305mm [12"] apart on the plywood and marking the corresponding points to create the panel shapes. I bought a length of overflow pipe from my local builder's merchant and used some duct tape to hold the shape whilst marking the curves out. This worked out pretty well.

Marking out was done on my dining room table since it was freezing in the garage and took several hours (~5 hours) to do but being an engineer I check every dimension several times just to make sure.

Got Ply

Collected my marine ply from Edens in Norfolk and strapped it to the roof of the car. The price was pretty good at around £13.50 a sheet compared to £25 plus/ sheet from other places. Local timber suppliers just don't seem to stock 4mm marine ply and I ended phoning around loads of places.

Cost of ply including the compulsory small order charge was ~£45.

Total spent so far = £85

My plans arrive - Jan. '07

I finally decided which canoe to go for. It's a Selway Fisher 15'7" Raven open canoe made using the stitch and tape build method. The length is just under the width of my garage so I'm hoping that once it's built it will fit in quite nicely.

Cost of the plans is £40. For this you get some basic instructions on the build method and some scaled dimensioned drawings that are lofted onto the plywood. For this design you need 3 sheets of marine ply, the thickness that I chose was 4mm. You can go thicker but I wanted to keep the weight down as I'll probably be the person to carry it when done.

Unfortunately I was away in the US on business when the plans arrived which was a shame as reading through them would have relieved some of the boredom of the evenings.

I don't know why...

This is me white water rafting down the Zambezi whilst on holiday with some friends. Yep that's me with the Adidas trainers going for yet another dip - check out YouTube for a short film of this.

I was trying to think what the trigger was for me wanting to build an open canoe. I really can't remember, but over the years I have always fancied owning a canoe of some description. I did own a kayak (which never saw water) for a while when I lived at home but my dad seemed to hate having my stuff in the garage and eventually the canoe was cut up and sent to the tip - shame.

Anyway after doing a fair bit of research on the internet and then joining The Song Of The Paddle Forum I decided to go down the self build route. This blog shows my progress.