Tim built a Cedar Strip Canoe a few years ago. Here he describes the steps involved in turning some low-end lumber from Menards into a floating beauty.
Part I: Making the strongback
The first step in building a canoe is to assemble a “strongback”, which is just a long, straight table on top of which the canoe will be built. It has strategically placed cross-boards which will be important later.
Part II: The cross sections
Every 18″ along the canoe, a cross section will be placed on the strongback. These cross sections define the shape of the canoe, so making them accurately is important. I got a set of plans from a book (“Building a strip canoe” by Gil Gilpatrick), and I transferred the plans to cardstock.
Cutting the cross sections: Next, I traced each cross section onto plywood and cut it out with a jigsaw.
Observe the steps to get from plans to wooden cross sections.
Each cross section is centered on the strongback and attached to one of the strategically placed cross-boards.
Part III: Making the strips
I started with cedar boards that were 1″ x 4″ x many feet long. These had to be turned into 1″ x 1/4″ x many feet long strips. The table saw was used for this. Thanks to Dan for helping cut the strips! If it hadn’t been for Dan’s help and motivation, three weekends in a row, I don’t know if I ever would have finished these up.
Shaping the strips:After the strips were cut to size, they were routed on each edge to a ” bead and cove” shape, meaning one edge was rounded over and the other was cut like a “U”. This allows the strips to fit snugly together on the side of the canoe.
Here are some of the finished strips. In total, there were ~1500 feet of strips, which required about 750 passes through the table saw and router.
Part IV: Stripping the hull
Finally, the canoe starts to take shape.
The first strip: The first strip was attached along the bottom of the forms. Once the boat is done, this strip will be at the top of the canoe. The strip was attached with a screw at each cross-section for strength, but ultimately these screws will be removed and the holes will be filled.
Joining strips: 8 foot and 10 foot strips were used, although the canoe is 16 feet long. This means that strips had to be joined on the canoe. For the first strip, I used glue and a clamp to join the strips, but for all other strips clamping wasn’t necessary.
After a few hours of work, the hull of the canoe is starting to grow. Observe the staples — each strip is stapled to each station to hold it in place while the glue dries. Once the hull is completely built, these staples will be removed and the staple holes will barely show in the final product.
This shows my progress after the second day of stripping — many more strips placed. Thanks Alex for the help!
Bow and stern: The strips are brought out past the tips of the bow and stern, and my intention was to cut them and glue both sides together — I had some problems doing this that I’ll explain in a moment.
Another day, and the hull is really starting to come together. At this point I’m about to round over to the bottom part of the boat.
Here I’m getting really close to finished with the hull. Observe how strips on either side are angled to fit and alternate with strips on the other side. This is supposed to be both strong and pretty.
The last strip: The hull is all built, with the exception of this last strip that needs to be glued in.
Hull is all stripped. Laying the strips was so much fun, it only took about two weeks, working when I could, to go from a pile of strips to a completely stripped hull!
One problem: Stripping the hull went really well, with the exception of this: I cut some of the strips short, so that they don’t quite meet at the bow and stern. After emailing back and forth with Gil Gilpatrick, the EXTREMELY helpful author of the book I’m using as a guide, I’ve decided that the best solution is to fix these holes with some heavy-duty epoxy-based wood filler that I’ll mix up. It should be a non-issue!
Problem solved: The wood filler worked great. You can see here that now the bow is solid and smooth. The brown discoloration will be visible in the final product, but it’s so minor that I don’t mind at all 🙂
First sanding and filling holes: With the hull all built, I sanded the heck out of it to remove glue and make it smooth. It was remarkable what a change this made. Then, I made wood filler with epoxy, silica, and cedar dust, and filled in all of the screw holes/gaps/cracks. A second sanding will clean up the brown spots nicely. Note: the epoxy filler ended up being very difficult to sand down. If I do another build in the future, I will be much more careful about slathering it on so that there is less sanding required.
Final sanding: After two more rounds of sanding and filling (three total), the hull is smooth! (That bump on the boat is just a piece of tape that I used to mark something for later)
Part V: Fiberglass the hull
The fiberglassing supplies arrived! These are the most expensive liquids I’ve ever bought, gasoline and booze included!
The sealer coat: Before applying the fiberglass to the hull, it is a good idea to apply a coat of epoxy directly on the wood. In this photo, I have done that. This adds strength and beauty, and it shows approximately what the final product will look like — although right now the finish is somewhat matte and when done it will be glossy.
Fiberglassing the bow and stern: Right after the sealer coat, but before fiberglassing the whole boat, I fiberglassed the bow and stern of the boat. Getting the glass to lie evenly on the pointy tips was very difficult, but I think it went OK. After some sanding and a few more coats of epoxy, the fiberglass “weave” should be almost invisible.
Fiberglassing the hull: This was the most tense day of the build so far! A 5 foot by 17 foot sheet of fiberglass cloth was placed over the boat and trimmed to fit. Next, epoxy was painted into the fiberglass to give it strength. As the fiberglass soaks up the epoxy, it becomes transparent. However, there is a limited amount of working time before the epoxy hardens too much to work with. Moreover, applying too much or too little epoxy, or allowing bubbles to form where the fiberglass separates from the boat, can cause damage that is difficult or impossible to repair. This photo shows epoxy applied to part of the cloth.
This photo shows the boat after the fiberglass has been applied and fully soaked with resin. The shiny spots are areas that are still wet. Notice the extra fiberglass at the bottom of the boat. I could NOT have done this job without my friend Alex’s assistance. Thanks Alex!
Here the hull is after three coats of epoxy on top of the fiberglass. It’s looking good, if I may say so myself!
The inside: With the outer hull all done, it was time to take the boat off of the forms and get to work on the inside. Sanding this down has been a huge pain, but I’ve finally got it just about ready for fiberglass, which I’ll be applying this week.
After sanding and filling and sanding, I sealed the inside with a coat of epoxy. Dealing with the inside is a huge pain, but it’s looking nice! Thanks again to Alex for helping today!
Fiberglassing the inside: Today was another tense fiberglassing day. With the help of my friend Miles, this step was difficult but manageable. In this photo you can see me squeegeeing epoxy resin into the fiberglass cloth to make it transparent and strong, and Miles is mixing up the next batch of resin.
Part VI: Woodwork
While waiting for the weather to get nicer, I jumped ahead and began on the woodwork. This includes the seats, gunwales, decks, and yoke. For the seats and yoke I’m using mahogany because it is relatively strong, light-weight, and pretty. To get started, I built the seat frames. I used a “pocket hole” technique, which is just a fancy type of angled screw, for joinery.
Next was the yoke. I’ve begun by tracing the yoke onto a wide piece of mahogany. Next, I’ll cut this out with a jigsaw and smooth it up with routing and sanding. This photo shows the paper that I used to outline the shape of the yoke.
After cutting and joining the seat and yoke, I used a router to smooth up the edges and sanded them thoroughly. This made the wood look nice.
Next up, I finished the yoke and seats with polyurethane for weather protection and beauty. This image shows the first coat. I applied three coats in total. The polyurethane really makes the grain of the mahogany stand out.
Webbing the seats: To finish the seats, I weaved a pretty pattern using synthetic webbing. Now they’re done! Thanks to Eunhye for helping to weave the seats! I’ll be cutting the ends off to fit the canoe, so it doesn’t matter that I didn’t polyurethane the tips.
Gunwales: Next, I began making the gunwales. These are the thick pieces of hardwood that run along the top edges of the boat. I bought maple boards in 10 foot and 8 foot lengths, ripped them to size, and then scarf-joined the ends to get long enough gunwales.
Gunwales and decks: With the gunwales scarfed to length, I attached them to the boat along with the decks (the triangles at the tips of the boat). The decks are mahogany. Renee helped with the decks, so thanks Renee! Just one more round of sanding to go!
Decks: After sanding, the decks came out really pretty. I inset the last few inches of the gunwale into the deck, which was very difficult but I think it looks great.
Done!
5/18/2013 — The boat is finished. I’ll float it next weekend. Thanks to everyone that helped, and to all of you for reading. A few nice pictures are in the following gallery.
