Canoe

(Warning! Longish posting! Of course, you can scroll down if you only want to look at pictures.)

You may have seen here Sandy's mention of the canoe I gave her at the time of her recent baby shower. The story goes like this. Sandy had seen a Pottery Barn "canoe shelf", which you can examine here. As I understand, she thought something like this would make a nice decoration in the baby's room, but this particular product has a somewhat distorted shape from that of an actual canoe. Son Will suggested to her that, "Dad could probably make you one." (Can you imagine why the two of them would find a shelf modeled after a canoe interesting?)

Taking that challenge, I started thinking about how I might actually comply with this request/suggestion. It occurred to me that I might most easily get the shape right by making "half" of a cedar strip canoe, and so I bought a couple of books on the topic of building cedar strip canoes. In fact, I've always wondered about building a full-size canoe for myself someday, so this seemed like a good learning opportunity. As I studied the situation, it became more and more clear that half a canoe made into a shelf wouldn't provide much actual shelf space due to the taper of the canoe hull. This probably explains why the Pottery Barn version looks a little distorted. So, I suggested making a complete canoe, though ¼ size, and hanging it on a couple of brackets. This would hang out somewhat further from the wall, of course, but it would provide much better shelf space. At least that was my story, and I'm sticking with it.

Already you can tell that I've now likely turned this from a project based on the simple Pottery Barn concept into something quite different. After presenting my idea to Sandy and Will, they agreed that my plan would be OK. In the end, I guess I created something interesting but probably so different from what the two of them had in mind that the original purpose may be left unrealized.

Nevertheless, I'm going to bore all of you with a detailed account of building this small cedar strip canoe, since many have asked about it. As noted earlier, my plan was to proceed as if building a regular, full-size canoe, including working through all of the same steps and processes that one would work through in that case. The difference was that I would scale everything down to ¼ size, resulting in a final model about 55" in length (a little shorter than the Pottery Barn shelf).

There are lots of canoe designs. I settled on the 18-½' E.M. White Guide canoe, which is quite a beautiful model. Maybe this is the one I'll build for myself some day. You can see an actual E.M. White Guide Canoe here. One interesting side note for me was the information I picked up about the history of canoe making, canoe companies (many of them in Maine, as for example the E.M. White models), materials, differences in styles and models, and the like.

One reason for picking this model was that one of the books I consulted already had scale plans for the forms needed to make this particular canoe, among others. Since we were about to head back to WI for several weeks, I decided that building this canoe would be a fun thing to do there. However, I realized that there were some steps I could more easily accomplish in my shop at home. This included making the actual cedar strips and cutting out the cross-sectional forms on which a canoe is built. In the picture below, you can see many of the materials spread out on the picnic table on the porch at our place in WI. The bundle of five-foot-long cedar strips and the forms had been transported from IA. I'm not sure that Josey or Kathie's mother appreciated having to ride for seven hours with the bundle of strips separating them in the back seat during the drive to WI. The only way I could fit them into the car was to open the little hatch separating the trunk from the back seat and then position the bundle through there.

In the foreground of the picture is the book that I used to start down this road. Just behind it is the "strongback" on which the canoe is built. I constructed this when I got to WI from materials I already had there. In later pictures, you will see how the strongback is used. Each of the cross-sectional forms (the mushroom-shaped pieces) is laid out on the table. Actually, two of them, the stems, are not cross-sectional but provide the shape for the stern and bow of the canoe. These parts were cut from Baltic Birch plywood, which I obtained at a hobby shop in IA.

The first step was to attach each of the forms to the strongback. Now you can understand the role that the strongback plays. The ultimate shape of the canoe begins to be apparent. Notice the stem pieces at the ends versus the cross-sectional forms. Again, the overall length is about 55". The canoe is built upside down, as you can tell.

Covering each form with masking tape helps to keep the glue used to fasten the strips together from permanently adhering them to the forms. This saves headaches later when the canoe is to be removed from this construction device.

Finally, first strips are tacked onto each side. I used small, 1/2" brads for this purpose. Each of the cedar strips I had previously cut was 1/8" thick by 1/4" wide. Cedar is relatively flexible and bends around the forms reasonably well.

Each of the next strips is edge-glued to the one below it and is also tacked to the forms. I could apply only about four strips on one side, sometimes fewer, before having to stop to allow the glue to dry for several hours. So the actual construction involved lots of relatively short work periods, leaving me much time for fishing, books, and other pursuits.

Below, you can see how the ends taper together. With new strips on one side glued in place, you saw their ends to conform to the shape at the stems. Then, strips are glued and tacked to the opposite side with the ends overlapping those on the reverse side as you can see below. These are again trimmed off with a saw as you go along.

Further along in the process now, with several more strips applied, you can see the canoe shape starting to emerge.

Now the strips are starting to turn up over the curve of the bottom of the canoe. Soon, they will be almost flat across the bottom and yet twisted almost 90° at each end as they reach the stem. I had to soak some of the strips in water to get more flexibility out of them for this purpose.

While waiting for glue to dry, I got the idea that having ¼-sized canoe paddles to set in the canoe later would be fun. So, I started edge-gluing some strips together to begin working on that idea.

Several days later, the "football-shaped opening" that inevitably occurs as the two sides come together begins to appear.

Thank goodness for clamps! The twists in the strips simply would not hold with glue and brads alone. I had to help them stay in place with clamps at every step. Fast-drying cyanoacrylate glue (basically, "super glue") helps too at various times, though I used a polyurethane adhesive (e.g. Gorilla Glue) for most of the work. (More than you want to know, right?)

The "football" is closing in now.

My significantly better half got this shot of me at work.

The "football" is closed, and all the strips are in place now. So it is time to start pulling out all of those hundreds of brads I used to hold the strips in place.

During various of the pauses for glue to dry on the applied strips, I had worked on the paddles, the thwart (a brace that extends across the canoe) and frames for seats. Note that I shaped the thwart accurately to include a notch for the neck of anyone who might portage a canoe overhead when traveling from lake to lake. Except for the cedar paddles, I made all of these parts from clear pine.

The brads have all been pulled out now, and sanding has begun. In hindsight, I wish I would have taken more care along the way to minimize the amount of glue that oozes out between the strips. That would have made sanding easier.

I used a small paint scraper to remove most of the oozed-out glue, and then I hand sanded as well as power sanded the hull. After the sanding and with a real canoe, one would typically fiberglass the hull to improve its strength and to protect the wood from water damage. Initially, I planned to do this, but since the canoe was only intended for display, I decided that several coats of polyurethane varnish would suffice and maybe better show off the beauty of the wood.

Once the sanding was done, I removed the canoe from the forms and the strongback. Again, having used the masking tape made that relatively easy. However, the stem forms are another story. Because of the way they nest into the bow and stern, they get really tightly embedded. It took quite a while to "persuade" them to loosen. All the time, I feared breaking the cedar strip stems apart. Another time, I might use extra masking tape on these stem forms.

Sanding the inside is much harder than sanding the outside, due of course to the constraining space and shape. I have to admit that I didn't put as much care into this step as I did the outside, because I kept thinking that the canoe was eventually going to be mounted up on a wall (with inserts to provide the shelf space), and so the interior wouldn't often be visible. Nevertheless, it didn't turn out too bad. Sanding up into the inside of the stems was very difficult, so I ended up putting some wood filler there to clean up the look a little bit. I think the sanded cedar strips have a very nice look, and the application of some stain and varnish brings out even more color and beauty in the wood.

At this point, gunwales and inwales are glued and screwed to the edges of the canoe. On both a real canoe and this one, they significantly strengthen the canoe. I used ¼x¼ pine strips for this purpose. I stained them a darker color than the cedar.

This picture shows the gunwales and inwales a little better.

Each stem is capped with a small deck as shown below. I used some of the Baltic Birch plywood for this purpose, eventually staining it to match the gunwales. I used brass screws everywhere possible.

The thwart is screwed and glued to the underside of the inwales.

Here is the hull with a first coat of varnish. Again, I had opted for no fiberglass. Maybe I'll try that another time. Even with fiberglass, varnish is necessary. You can also see in the picture the two tiny seats I had made. Rather than caning the seats, I "wove" them using a burgandy-colored cord that I had picked out at our local Ben Franklin crafts store.

Here is a closer look at the seats. I also tied two "monkey fists" from some of the cord. These are special knots that create a ball. On some canoes, they are affixed to each stem to provide a kind of handle that you can use to lift the canoe. You will see them in later pictures. I thought they would add another little dressy element to the model.

Here is the nearly completed canoe with the seats installed. They are hung from the lower side of the inwales with spacers that drop them down to the required position. I had found some spacers/posts at the local hardware store through which small bolts could be used.

Here is a closer look together with one of the "monkey fists" in place.

The completed canoe with paddles!

Finally, delivery of the canoe to the person who just wanted a simple Pottery Barn canoe shelf! (Sandy has such a great smile!) You can see here too the two brackets I made for hanging the canoe on the wall. Not pictured are two flat pieces that can be laid into the canoe (resting on the seat at one end and a small pedestal at the middle) to provide shelf space in case one would wish to display items there when the canoe is mounted on the wall for display. They are easily removed in case you just want to see the canoe.

Many people have asked, "Does it float?" I'm sure it does, and I think it might actually glide through the water pretty nicely. However, I didn't have access to any ¼-size individuals to take it out for a test drive, and because I built it for display, it wasn't finished in the same way that a full-size canoe would be. Specifically, I didn't cover it with fiberglass before varnishing it. Except for that, it would probably be good to go. Maybe "Clocker Baby" will be unable at some point to resist wanting to take it to a local lake for a test run, maybe with a favorite doll or an action figure or other toy on board (Ken and Barbie?). For that matter, maybe Clocker Baby's parents won't be able to resist this experiment themselves! ("Clocker Baby" is the name given some time ago by Sandy's two-year-old nephew to the baby that should arrive in about three weeks.)

I understand about toys! Some said this seemed like such work, but of course, this wasn't work at all. It was just a "boy" engaged in building a model boat, having lots of fun doing it, and thinking all the while about the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, his many past canoe trips and his wonderful daughter-in-law, son, and the next beautiful grandchild in his life.