Keepin' on

Perhaps some of you may be wondering by now if I quit or left the game, having not posted anything in a while. I am here to reassure you, however, that work has continued, albeit at a slightly more lackadaisical pace. Fairing of the interior of the hull has blessedly been finished, after many hours of shoulder-burning, patience-testing scraping, sanding, sanding and scraping at all manners of awkward angles. The task of finding a willing second set of hands for the impending fiberglassing has proven a bit more tedious than the prior session, being that most of the prior help is now out of town.

So in the meantime, I've managed to make a whole mess of scuppers and two bulkhead panels from the leftover cedar planking. I cut the scuppers using the drill press, in order to get a nice curved end profile on each piece, with the intention of creating nice symmetrical ovals along the length of the inwales. Scuppers are a natural result of building traditional wood canvas canoes, the construction of which requires the hull be built upon a skeleton of horizontal ribs. The inwales are then secured to the inner face of the ribs, with the spaces between the ribs thus creating the scuppered effect. On a cedar strip canoe, they aren't necessary for constructive purposes, but rather lend a "traditional" look which I still prefer to a solid inwale. More importantly, though, is their useful functions of saving a bit of weight, providing lash down points, and allowing water to drain out when the canoe is dry docked upside down. Standing water on wood is bad juju, and scuppers are the golden antidote.

I've debated some about whether to add bulkheads (sealed compartments) at either end of the canoe, but for now they win out. Adding a little extra buoyancy and strength to a canoe of this length really is a no-brainer now that I really think about it; in the event of a capsize, it'll make it that much easier to recover and not be totally swamped. Also, the bow and stern of this design are a little on the short side (think in contrast to a canoe with the big, curved ends), and so to me seem they would be prone to taking on more water when traversing big waves. Having a little more lift at the ends would, in my theory, help keep the nose up and out of the water as the canoe descends one wave and into the next. Makes sense to me enough to do it! I'm considering adding some kind of watertight hatch, so the space inside can still be utilized for stowing a few essential items in times of lesser duress.

I've also taken the first step into the trim work, cutting and assembling the seat frames. I've been eagerly anticipating this moment, but have put it on hold until now for fear of getting ahead of myself and working myself out of a job, so to speak. I decided to make the seats from cherry, merely for the fact I love its appearance and workability, and also that it was on sale. I used good ol' fashioned mortise and tenon joints to join the seats together, the strongest and cleanest joint for this application. For being my first real stab at creating this type of joint, I was rather pleased to find they came out straight and tight fitting.

The fiberglass on the inner hull is going on tomorrow hopefully, and after a couple days for that to set up, it'll finally be time to go full bore into turning a floppy hull into a tailored, lean and mean lake-cruising machine. Actually, it's not a machine at all, nor is it likely to be lean (this won't be any passe, no-frills vessel), but you get my point of enthusiasm.

Finally on the right side of up! 

Bulkhead panels, a heap o' scuppers, and plans to boot.

Mortise and tenons, hopefully with the wherewithal to withstand a bum or two.

Glassed!

After many hours of nervous hand-wringing and countless hypothetical what-ifs passing through my mind, the fiberglass layup for the outer hull has been a success. Huzzah for that. Turns out it wasn't such a hard thing to do, but being a noob at the whole process, it turned out far from perfect, but nothing I can't absolutely live with. Watching the many hues and gradations of texture and color come to life under the shiny epoxy was exhilarating - finally a true sense of what the craft will look like in real life! 

I was extremely fortunate and grateful to have the assistance of  a couple friends, who willingly placed themselves in a potentially ooey gluey situation. By our powers combined, stress was diminished and the job went quickly and smoothly. 

Three coats of epoxy covered the 6oz. weight fiberglass cloth, which turns translucent once wetted out. Should be enough to keep everything together and me from sinking once water-borne. I'll let it set up and cure for a couple days, then it'll be time to lift it off the forms and set it right side up for the first time. Who knows what lurks underneath? I'm a little afraid to find out, but again, nothing a little epoxy gooyiness can't help.

Colors are really popping now. 

She shines!

Hull glassed, lungs and eyes safe, and at least one thumb accounted for. All makes for a good day.

Blossom

I guess I'm rolling with a plant life theme for my post titles; can't say why, but it is ironic in that the canoe is being built from dead cedar. Not that I feel guilty about that. I suppose it is akin to labeling free range animal protein "happy meat," even though I'm sure said animals would not be very happy at their end result, on my plate and in my belly. Something for our conscience. But I digress.

As you may have surmised from the title, the canoe hull has taken full form! The planking process was quick and straight forward, that is until I got to adding in the last pieces of the aforementioned 'football.' At that point, each strip must be angled, beveled, and cut to length EXACTLY, lest the canoe be fraught with wonky gaps and ill-advised holes. Nothing a little epoxy goop can't effectively fix, but that's hardly a mark of good craftmanship. However, I managed with only minimal cursing and re-cutting pieces to fit, and I am generally pleased with the results. A good thing too, as only one strip and some change remain, so had I bungled many more pieces I would have had to start adding ugly little chunks and bits to round out the hull.

Stems were then glued on to the ends with epoxy goop, more or less straight, and subsequently shaped into the fine lines of the hull. Seems simple enough, yet somehow this step took an entire afternoon. Maybe not unusual, but I already find myself reassessing my estimated time needed to finish almost every day.

Once all the glue had set between the planks, I set to task pulling the 9,352 staples that were holding everything down. Talk about a boring task, but it is one that requires attention nonetheless, lest I smash and dent the wood underneath each staple.

Staples removed, I then moved onto faring the hull with a block plane to remove all the high points between the planks. Maybe it was due to immediately following the extremely monotonous staple pulling, but I found much pleasure in this step, and hated when it was all over. If you've ever had the pleasure of taking fine shavings off of wood with a freshly honed plane, you can relate. For those that haven't, you really must try once even if you never hand plane wood again. The fresh zipping sound, the smell of freshly cut cedar, the smooth flowing motion of moving the plane across the hull, the curl of paper thin wood fiber separating and falling harmlessly to the floor, and the sanded-smooth finish it leaves behind, all conspire to a simple yet immensely satisfying task.

Unfortunately, what follows this is sanding, and lots of it. Messy, noisy, somewhat toxic, and boring. And essential. Which is where I am at, and I will not write on that any more, because that's about all there is to it. In light of the copious amounts of airborne cedar dust about to be created, I was forced (yes, forced) to shave my beard so the respirator would seal to my face. A necessary and acceptable casualty of the process I suppose. I could have spent a cool 300 bucks on a powered respirator that seals off one's entire noggin (and looks a little goofy in the process), but I realized I'm just not that attached to any one beard, so the choice was easy. But fear not, it will grow back once the breathing hazards have passed.

I've worked some long hours every day since I've been back to get to this point, so with only a day's worth of preparing the hull for the big fiberglass, I think I'll take a day or two to get canoes off my mind. Harder done that said, but better results are often achieved, in my experience, from walking away for a stint, and coming back at it with renewed vigor and fresh ideas. So here's to that, and be on the lookout for the next post, post-glassing. That's when things will get real. And shiny.

Ready to take a pounding on the killer surf. Or not. Maybe gentle sandy beach landings would be a better idea.

Hull complete, stems added and shaped.