Hi, my name is Tom Hill and I'm a boat builder here in Vermont.
Over the years I've built a lot of boats, a lot of different kinds, traditional plank
on frame, cold molded boats, fiberglass boats, and I've settled on a technique,
glued plywood lapstripe, that was taught to me by a man named Carl Bausch about
20 years ago. It's a really simple, easy way to build a boat and I think that's
why it has so much appeal to me. It produces a very nice, elegant, lightweight,
durable boat and to build a boat like this you don't need a lot of
sophisticated woodworking tools or a lot of sophisticated skills. Hundreds of
amateurs have built boats just like this the first time. It's a technique that I
think you'll enjoy and with a little bit of patience, if you watch me, we'll go
build one. Well you know we're going to cram about a hundred hours of boat
building into this two-hour tape. Don't be put off by it. If it seems like we're
rushing through something, that's the beauty of video. You can stop and rewind
it and look at it again. The tape's broken up into chapter type form so
you'll know where you can fast forward and back it up.
Before we do any boat building, we need to talk a little bit about boat plans.
The way a plan starts out is a designer has an idea in his head, a picture of a
boat, and he draws it out on a sheet of paper to scale. Once I have a scale
drawing, then I loft it. Lofting is a term for taking scale drawings off paper
and then drawing them out full-size on the shop floor. Once you have the
full-size boat drawn out in profile and plan view, you can then get the cross
sections of the hull to construct the jig. Most contemporary small boat
designers do the lofting for you, including myself, but what you will need
to do is from paper patterns make measurements, trace things out, and you
need to do this very accurately. If you're cutting curves or drawing curves,
make nice fair curves sweeping lines. You'll hear me talk about cutting proud
of a line, leaving the line, and then later I'll creep up and split the line
with a plane or another tool like that. If you take the time to make the curves
really fair, make your cuts really accurate, you'll see it in the end result
and the finished product will be much sweeter, cleaner lines. It's also fun. Take
your time. Work like a craftsman. Make the joints fit. Build it right.
Well, you know, boat building has its own language and for you old salts who know
what a broad strake is and what a sheer plank is, you can hit the fast forward
button, but for you first-time boat builders, we need to review some of the
terms and what they mean. We'll start with the jig. The strong back are the
planks on which the station molds attach. It's the foundation of the jig. It has a
spreader of midships on the canoe jigs and I call that the strong back spreader.
Next we have the station molds and they're made out of half-inch plywood for
the canoes and they represent the cross sections of the hull. There's a cleat
attached to the bottom of the station molds. I usually make that out of scrap
lumber, an inch and a half square. At the top of the jig is the backbone. It
connects all the molds together and allows me to plumb the molds to the
strong back. Next we have the rib bands. Rib bands are longitudinal clear stock.
They represent their thickness, the width of the lap, and their spacing
represents the actual width of the planks. They run the full length of the
jig and it's important to make those out of clear soft wood. And lastly we have a
piece that attaches to the forward and after ends of the strong back. I call
this the strong back filler piece and it's a piece of one-inch stock that has
an angle cut on at the same angle that the stem comes off the keelson. Now let's
talk about the hull itself. The keelson is a longitudinal member like a keel
but is on the inside of the boat. The keelson. The stems attach at the ends of
the keelson and beneath it. The planking is fastened to the stems. The garboard
planks attach to the keelson and they're the first planks that go on the boat.
Next the second plank is the broad strake which I sometimes refer to. That
attaches to the garboard. The broad strake is the second plank. The rest of the
planks probably have some boat building name. I'm not sure what it is. Down to the
sheer plank. The sheer plank is the one at the gunnel, the very last plank or the
top plank. Attaching to the sheer planks are the gunnels or in-wheels and out-wheels
or sometimes called guardrails. There's one on the inside of the boat and the
outside of the boat. They're spaced apart in my canoes with a little blocks of
wood that I call spacer blocks. The stems are the two curved pieces at the end in
profile view and on the outside of the stems we have a stem band or sometimes
called stem irons in the old days when they were made out of iron. These are
3 1⁄8 inch brass half oval that goes on the outside of the canoe and protects
the outside edge of the stems. Once again inside there's breast hooks. They're the
little pieces up in the most forward ends of the canoe, forward and after ends
of the canoe and they attach the hull together where the ends meet. There's a
floor piece in my canoes which is a floor and underneath it some wedge
shaped pieces which I call sort of jokingly floor timbers. They're very
lightweight clabbered shape wedges that take up the space between the keelson and
the garboard plank. And lastly there's a thwart. Thwart is a term
that is used with pieces that go a thwart ships or across the centerline
of the boat. Sometimes seats are referred to as thwarts or sometimes they're
simply just small sticks or planks that hold the canoe together at the rails. In
the little canoe we're building in this movie it has a backrest thwart with
pads on it that pivot. I want to take a couple minutes to talk about safety here
before we get started with any tools or any of the products that are involved in
boat building. Boat building is inherently dangerous. There's a lot of
dust, fumes, things that you really need to pay attention to. Power tools are
dangerous, hand tools are dangerous and you can get hurt doing this. So it's
important to work safely. If you have a new tool or a new product and you're not
sure about it, find out from the manufacturer how to safely use it before
you do it at all. We're going to use a safety symbol to show you when you need
to take particular attention. Well I guess we're ready to start building our
jig. I know you're probably anxious to actually build the boat but we can't
build the boat until we build the jig. Once again I want to remind you to work
accurately and carefully. This is the foundation and the jig ultimately
determines the final shape of the boat, final shape of the planks. So work
carefully, take your time, pay attention to your measurements, do it accurately
and once you have the jig built it'll last for many boats. So let's get to it.
The station molds represent cross sections of the hull. They are the
foundation on which the boat is built and accuracy in marking and cutting
these out is crucial. The plans provide you with paper ones but I'm using plywood
ones here to facilitate the marking for this jig. Line the bottom edge up with
the factory edge of the plywood and mark the center line on the edge and on the
top. Mark the location of the shear at both sides of the mold and the garboard
location. Then trace around the pattern. Mark the center line on the plywood
pattern, mark the shear line, mark the garboard rib and locations and label
center line, shear line. Next you'll need to mark out a 3 quarter by 1 inch notch
for the backbone. Once you've marked out all your station molds you're ready to
cut them out. It's important to remember to leave the line and to wear safety
glasses when you're using a jigsaw. Once you've cut your notches out for your
backbone you're ready to do the final step on your station molds. Take some
2x4 stock and rip it in half to make your cleats. Cross cut your cleats to the
width of your station molds. Then you're ready to fasten them with drywall screws
and a drill. Flush up the bottom and your cleat.
We need to fasten cleats to the mold so that we can attach the molds to the
strong back. With all seven of our station molds complete we're now ready to assemble
our strong back. Our strong back consists of two 1x6x12 number two pine
boards. The first thing you'll need to do if the boards are hooked, which they
usually are, is to snap a chalk line and rip a straight edge on them. Plane it
smooth and then rip a parallel edge so we end up with perfectly straight boards.
Fasten the boards temporarily together one atop the other with drywall screws.
Find the center and make a mark. Center line all the way around. We're then ready
to fasten the ends together. For this I use copper rivets or you can use bolts.
About a half inch in from the end, bore two holes. Copper rivets look basically
like nails with flat copper washers. To peen a rivet, back it up with a heavy
piece of iron and with a ball peen hammer, tap. Put plenty of flare on the end of
these rivets because they're under a lot of tension when we spread the strong
back apart. With the ends fastened, remove the drywall screws. In order to get our
station molds to sit on our strong back, we need to widen it out. To do this we
insert a spreader piece in the center. We'll set this on the floor and spread
it apart like a bow. We hope it doesn't break when we do this because sometimes
they do. With our strong back spreader in place on our center lines, I've drilled a
couple of pilot holes. Then it can be permanently fastened with some three
inch drywall screws.
The next step in the jig building process is to mount the station molds on
the strong back. In order to determine their position, fore and aft, and side to
side, we need to have a center line as a reference. For this I'm going to use a
string stretched from stem to stern. But before I stretch the string, I need to
cut a notch in my spreader so that the string and spreader do not interfere
with each other. To cut the notch out, I'm going to use my Japanese crosscut saw.
You'll see me use these a lot.
For small hand saws, I really like these Japanese saws. This is a back saw. Fine
tooth, extremely sharp, thin blades, and they cut on the pull. They're amazingly
accurate. This one doesn't have a back on it. It has two different kinds of teeth.
One set of teeth for crosscutting, one set of teeth for ripping. They're kind of
new to the Western woodworker, but they're an ancient tool. And once you try
these saws, you won't go back to Western push type saws. Loop the string around
one time and sink it about a quarter of an inch. And do the same at the other end.
Pull the string as tight as you can so it'll remain taut while you're building
the jig. Next, we need to establish the centerline in the fore and aft plane.
And make a mark on the string with a ballpoint pen. From our centerline mark,
measuring towards the ends, we'll mark off our 17-inch spacing for our station
molds. Now we're ready to use those marks on the string. Start with your center
station mold and line the centerline mark up over the mark on the string. The
center veneer in the plywood should also line up over the string. It's important
that all molds are square to the string. With your station mold square to the
string, make some reference marks on your strong back before you clamp.
Now we're ready to drill some pilot holes. Drill a pilot hole into the center
of the strong back. Here I'm using a two and a half inch screw.
It's important to remember that all our station molds forward of our center
station mold fall aft of our 17-inch marked lines. And all our station molds
aft of our center station mold fall forward of our 17-inch marked lines.
We now have all seven of our station molds secured to the strong back. Because
our canoe is double-ended and symmetrical, molds number one, two, and three are the
same at either end of our jig. To facilitate a landing spot for our rib bands,
we'll need to make a 1 16-inch bevel on station two and a 1 eighth inch bevel on
station one. On station two, draw a line on the forward face a sixteenth of an
inch below the edge. And I also draw a line right on the bitter edge on the
after face as a reference so that I don't shave any material off from there.
Take your spokeshave and bevel from your after line to your forward line.
The backbone serves two purposes. It allows you to plumb the station molds to
the strong back and it supports the keelson when you're building the boat.
Check your molds for plumb against the strong back, then secure it with a drywall
screw. This mold is slightly out of plumb.
Because of the slight rocker in this hull, you'll have to press the backbone
into the notch at station one. Saw off the excess backbone. We're going to break
away from the jig building process to build a couple of boat parts. Having the
stems in place will help us to visualize where the rib bands are going to land on
the stems. The next step in the jig building process is to attach the rib
bands, but before we do that we need to get our stems out. Our stems are
basically consist of two pieces. I have a plywood pattern here. You'll have a paper
one with your plans. We'll trace out the lower half of the stem onto our stock,
minimizing the short grain. The long part of the stem will get out of a two inch
piece of stock, and we'll trace this curve out. Now we're ready to saw them
out on the bandsaw.
We're going to join our two stem pieces together with epoxy, but before we do
that we need to smooth up our bandsaw end grain cut here with some sandpaper.
Now we're ready to glue up our stems. When gluing two pieces of wood together,
you always apply glue to both surfaces.
Epoxy is the primary fastener that I use to glue my boats together with. It's
basically a two-part chemical. It's got a resin and a hardener. This epoxy has a
five to one ratio, and it comes with these nice little pumps that meter at
the right amounts. When I'm mixing small amounts, I use a small tuna fish can, and
I use these metal handled acid brushes to stir and mix well. If the epoxy fails,
chances are it's because you forgot to mix it, so mix it up really well. When
you're gluing wood together, it's important to put it on both surfaces
before you stick it together. A few safety things, when you're using epoxy,
keep it off your skin. Protect yourself with some rubber or plastic gloves. Use
it in a well-ventilated space with a temperature range of about 50 to 90
degrees. Always wear your respirator with the proper charcoal filters. Most epoxy
companies have a book about how to use and safety, and it's a good idea to get
that and read it before you handle any of this stuff. There may be a time when
you have to thicken it up to putty up some holes or some dings. There's several
different products you can use. Microballoons is one that I use. They
sand easy, or you can even use band saw dust. The stuff really does work, and
epoxies have come a long ways in the last 20 years.
I'll re-coat the end grain pieces because the epoxy wicks into the end
grain, and use a generous amount of glue. Position the stems on a piece of plywood
that's covered with a piece of plastic for a release agent. Next, we need to
clamp the stems to the plywood, and I use a clamp pad so my clamps won't dent my
stems.
Then we'll clamp the two pieces together. After the epoxy is cured on your stems,
the next step is to clean up the lower part of the inside face of the stem with
a spoke shave. After you smooth that up, we next need to plane and smooth the
surface that attaches to the keelson. We'll do that with a block plane. Then
you'll need to check it for square. Next, we need to sand the sides and the inside
surface. After sanding, we'll take a little chamfer on the inside edges and
then round it over with some sandpaper. It's much easier to do this out of the
boat, and it is after the boat's planked up.
With our stems complete, we need to fasten our keelson temporarily to our
backbone. Clamp it up here temporarily.
After securing the last clamp, take a sight down your keelson to make sure
she's on straight. With our keelson clamped on there nice and straight, the
next step is to fasten it with wood screws up through the backbone
temporarily while we build the boat. We're going to fasten it in four places,
just behind station three here and station three here and just behind
station one and station one down here.
To determine the length of your boat and the position of the stem on the keelson,
measure four and a half inches from station one to the stem tip and glue and
clamp your stem in place.
Center it on the keelson. I cut some little wedges to facilitate the
clamping and take up some of the curve of the stem. To make our strong back
filler pieces, hold a piece of one inch stock along the strong back and scribe
along the strong back and along the interface of the stem. I've cut my
filler piece out on the bandsaw. I epoxied the back edge of the filler
piece and the end of the strong back. Now I'm ready to slip it in for a friction
fit. Line it up and we'll let it cure. We may want to add a mechanical fastener at
some other point.
With our stems and keelson mounted on the jig, we're now ready to do the final
step in the jig building process. We're going to attach our rib bands. This boat
has six planks per side, so we need a total of six rib bands per side. Rib bands
need to be out of straight clear stock so they bend in a nice fair curve. I
usually mill out a couple of extra ones in case one breaks or has a knot and I
don't like the way it bends. We'll start by attaching the sheer rib bands which
are slightly wider and are exactly the same width as our gunnels. First I'll go
over and hang the starboard side and then I'll go back over into port. It's
important to alternate sides when you're putting rib bands on the station molds.
The lower edge of the sheer rib band will line up with our sheer line on the
station mold. Drill directly into the center of the plywood.
Be sure that each rib band is attached at each mold. Now I'm ready to put the sheer rib
band on the port side. The reason we alternate sides when we're attaching
rib bands is because if we put all the rib bands on one side it would torque
the jig out of shape. So we have to alternate back and forth as we attach
the rib bands. Now we're ready to attach our garboard rib bands and we do it in
the same manner as we did our sheer rib bands. Start always at the center station
number four.
Cut off the excess keelson where it leaves the stem.
Be careful not to cut into the stem when you trim the keelson. With the garboard
and sheer rib bands in place the next step is to line off your hull for the
remaining planks. There's five in between the garboard and sheer. An easy way to do
this is to cut a thin piece of four millimeter plywood about a half inch
wide the same width as your station molds. Cut it to length from the upper
edge of your sheer rib band to the upper edge of the garboard rib band. Then all
you need to do is to divide this stick into five equal spaces. An easy way to do
this is with a pair of dividers. It can also be done mathematically by measuring
the length of your piece and dividing it by five. Then draw some lines representing
where your rib bands land. This system will work for any round bilge boat or
any straight sided boat. Transfer these marks onto your station mold.
Before permanently screwing the rib bands to the station molds tack them up
there with finished nails and check for fairness. Remember the lines on the molds
are to locate the upper or top edge of each rib band. Now we have all our rib
bands tacked up temporarily in place. The next step will be to check rib bands for
fairness but before we do that we need to cut them off flush with the outside
of the stem so they don't interfere with each other. With the stems in place it's
easy to then trim off the rib bands. Trimming off the rib bands that were
crisscrossing forward of the stems allows you to visualize the spacing or
the lining off at the stem. With your rib bands temporarily tacked in place now's
the time to make any adjustments. We want to look for nice fair curves. Nice long
sweeping gentle curves with no kinks or humps or bumps. The best way to do that
is to get away from your jig as far as possible. Back up on it and look at it.
Make sure the spacings look equal with no kinks. It sometimes helps to turn your
head upside down and squint and you just see the lines. It's easier to read any
kinks or bumps. Take your time studying the jig. Make sure that all the rib bands
are fair. The rib bands are going to determine the actual shape of the plank
so if there are any kinks or bumps it'll show up in the end result. If a rib band
looks a little out of fair release a nail and let it relax to the position
that it wants to be in. The rib bands naturally want to take a fair curve. Now
we can fasten the rib bands permanently at each mold drilling and using a 2 inch
number 6 flathead wood screw.
Sight along the rib band and mark at the stem where they land. You may need to
spring them down a little bit into position before you mark them. After
you've marked the rib band locations on the stem trim the rib bands off about 2
inches aft of the interface of the stem. We need to trim the rib bands back to
allow the planking to land on the stem. Well our jig is complete. Our foundation
is done. We spent a little extra time lining things up, fairing things up, but
it's worth it to spend the time now for two reasons. One, it'll make the boat
easier to build and the finished product will look a lot sweeter if the jig and
rib bands are all nice and fair. It didn't take any real sophisticated tools
or any real sophisticated woodworking knowledge to build this jig and the
skills that you've learned in building this jig can be applied to a lot of
different types of boats and different sizes.
I want to talk about plywood for a minute. All of my canoes are planked with 4
millimeter plywood and I use a brand called Brunzio which is imported from
Holland. It's three plies and all three plies are equal in thickness and that's
important because when you torture this stuff the stress and compression and
tension is on the outer veneers. The kind of wood is called Okume. It's an
African mahogany and these are real high quality panels. They may cost a little
bit more but if you're gonna spend 200 hours building a boat and you're only
going to use three sheets of plywood, what's the point of being Pennywise
pound foolish?
To build this boat we need our planking stock to be 12 feet long. Plywood comes
in 4 by 8 sheets so we'll need to extend that to 12 feet. Rip your 4 by 8 pieces
into 2 by 8 pieces. Then cross cut your 2 by 8 pieces into 4 by 2 pieces. To join
two pieces of plywood together we need to bevel the end of each panel that
we're going to join together. I do this with a low angle block plane. First mark
out the width of the scarf, in this case 1 inch. To mark the bevels I use a
combination square set at 1 inch and the back edge of a sheetrock knife. To cut
the scarf use a razor sharp block plane. Try to achieve a flat bevel from the
feather edge of the veneer back to the scribe line. With the 8 foot panel clamped
securely to the bench and plastic underneath the scarf joints, apply a
generous amount of epoxy to both surfaces. Align the panels so that the
feather edge of the 4 foot panel is 1 eighth of an inch away from the scribe
line on the 8 foot panel and line them up with a straight edge along the
factory edge of the plywood. Be sure that both panels are clamped to the bench
before sandwiching them between two blocks of wood with clamps. Use some
plastic as a release agent so you don't glue the panels to the blocks. Now that
our scarf is cured there's two more steps on our panel. The first step is to
find the center and draw a center line across the panel. Now we need to flip it
over and draw a line on the other side as well. After the epoxy is cured we need
to sand the squeeze out from the scarf. I've got 80 grit sandpaper on my sander.
Remember to wear a dust mask when you're sanding.
With a combination square and a ballpoint pen, mark a center line down
your stem. Continue the riband marks across the face of the stem and make a
dimple on the center line at each one. That represents where the planks land on
the stem. The dimples will be there after you bevel the stem. Next draw a center
line down the full length of your keelson. With our lines drawn we're now
ready to bevel our keelson. We're going to do that with our modified rabbit plane.
Let's talk about planes. For scarfing the panels together I use a low angle block
plane. For beveling the planks we need a slightly modified plane. You can use a
low angle block plane, bore a hole right opposite the throat and tap it. With a
corresponding bolt you can thread it into the side of the plane and that bolt
will be driven into a stick. The stick will replicate the bottom surface of the
plane and will run along the lower riband and plane a perfect winding bevel
for you to join the laps together. Number 78 Stanley rabbit plane works well.
They come with a bullnose attachment which I saw off and they also come with
a threaded pin and the side of the plane is already tapped and threaded. You can
screw this into the side of the plane. This will extend the base of the plane
out so that it'll ride along the ribands. Another tool you'll see me use a lot is
a little model maker's brass spoke shave. This is good for getting in tight places
going around the insides of breast hooks and things like that. I use it a lot but
before you use any of these things you've got to know how to make a razor
sharp. Let me show you how to do that. I'm sure you've all worked with a dull tool at
one time or another or probably you're working with dull tools right now. Well
I'm going to show you how to get a razor sharp very simply very quickly. The first
thing you need to do is grind a bevel on your iron. Right straight across with a
grinder I've got a bevel set up here that's exactly the same bevel as my iron.
I'm going to grind a flat on this stone.
After grinding it I've got a hollow ground here now because the stone's round
it grinds a slight hollow in the edge of my tool. Now I'm going to stone them. I
use Japanese water stones. This is an 800 grit stone very inexpensive to buy and
that's the first one I'll use. The important thing that makes these stones
superior to any other kind of stone is that you can flatten them back out. Any
sharpening stone will get hollowed out or hogged and then the only part of the
blade that will be touching the stone are the two outside edges and you can
push on it all day and your tool won't come sharp. These you can re-flatten.
After using them for a while you can set them on a flat surface like a table saw
top or a bandsaw top and just sand them flat. They're always stored in water and
they're absorbent. They soak up water like a sponge so keep them wet. All there
is to sharpening very simple. I start out with my 800 grit stone. I hold that
bevel that I've ground so I can feel it's perfectly flat on the stone. Hold it
flat and push. That's all there is to it. It takes very few passes to get it sharp
because this stone is coarse and it cuts fast. When I finish this I'll go to a
finer stone. I use two stones an 800 grit and an 8,000 grit. This one will
polish the steel like a mirror and it's just a few passes on this one holding it
perfectly flat. After a few passes I'll feel that there's a little burr that
I've rolled on the bottom. So then I put the iron flat on the stone and just
gently push it. Remember all this is a very light touch. You don't need an
excessive amount of pressure to do this. Once the burr is removed on the back
side I should have an iron that is razor sharp, sharp enough to shave with.
The rib bands act as a guide for my plane and allow me to plane a changing
winding bevel the full length of the keelson.
When you've reached the line check your bevels with a straight edge against the
garboard rib band. Now we're ready to do the final shaping on the end of the
keelson here and the stem. The stem gets shaped to a point and the keelson will
taper down into it. Start with a block plane and we'll work just on the bitter
end of the keelson. We're going to stop frequently and check our bevels with a
piece of scrap planking stock. I use a variety of tools to shape the stems. A
draw knife, block plane, spoke shave and even a rasp. Now that we've roughed off
some stock it's a good time to check with our piece of scrap planking stock.
You'll notice that it's open at the forward edge of the stem. In order to
close that gap up and have the planking stock lay nicely on the stem bevel we'll
need to remove more stock off the after edge of the stem bevel or what's called
the bearding line.
Grasp is a good tool to use. We've got a lot of grain change with three different
pieces of wood meeting here and grain going in a lot of different directions.
Now it's time for the final check. The plank should touch the forward edge of
the stem in the after edge of the bearding line. Remember to leave your line
as it's the only reference you have for the center of the stem. You'll notice
that I haven't shaped the stem all the way down to the shear because this
clamps in the way. After I've hung three or four planks I'll remove the clamp and
finish the shaping of the stem.
Now we're ready to start the planking process. The first thing we're going to
do is mark out our garboards. A couple things to remember. We're going to take
one panel over to the jig and mark out a plank but we're going to put one panel
atop the other and cut out a pair of garboard planks. We need to have our
scarf joints staggered. We want to make sure we line our center lines up and the
factory edges need to be on this side facing you. We're ready to get out our
garboard plank now. The first thing you need to do is draw a center line atop
station four right in the center of station four. The next thing we're going
to do is take one of our panels and flop it up on the jig and align the factory
edge of the panel along the center line that we've drawn on the jig. We're going
to get all our planks out on this side of the jig, the far side away from the
bench. With the panel clamped up there I'm going to crawl under the jig and with
my pencil, which I've shaved a flat on one side, I'm going to mark along the
lower edge, outer edge of the garboard ribband all the way along the panel.
Put a clamp in each station mold and use a piece of scrap wood as a clamp pad so
you don't dent your planking stock. Clamp your panel right on the line. Work from
the center towards the ends. Because we cut our rib bands off behind the stem,
we'll need to extend our line all the way out. I do this with a batten. With one
panel atop the other and our scarf staggered, clamped to the bench, we're now
ready to cut out the garboard plank. I use a jigsaw and a metal cutting blade
and I want to make sure I stay a full quarter inch away from the line. I'll
leave that quarter inch. That will ensure that my plank will never be too narrow
and it will later be trimmed off with a laminate trimmer or a block plank. After
cutting out the garboard plank, we need to mark out the next plank before we hang
it. This is true for any plank. You need to always mark one out before you hang
one. It's important to remember to grab the bottom panel, not the one you marked
previously. This will assure that your scarf joints are staggered down the hull.
Now you're ready to mark out your next plank or what's called the broad strake.
Flop the panel up on the jig and line the center line on the panel directly
over the center of station four. Leave the panel about a quarter inch proud or
beyond the garboard rib end. You'll need to slip a little block between the panel
and the garboard rib end. This represents the garboard that is not yet hung. Use
another clamp pad on your planking stock so that you don't dent it with your
clamp. Next you need to align the panel end on the ends and I do that by reaching
out the same distance in either direction and feeling how much planking
stock I have beyond the garboard rib end. Working from the center towards the ends,
put a clamp at each station mold. The final important thing to remember, in
order to get the plank to take the proper shape, we need to have our little
block here representing the garboard plank and we need to have it touch the
lower rib end. If it doesn't touch the lower rib end and we don't insert these
little blocks, our plank won't fit and then in order to get the plank to fit
you have to put edge set in it or force it into place. Looking up from underneath
we're going to mark our broad strake out. We're going to draw a line along the
upper edge of the garboard rib end and the lower edge of the broad strake rib
end. Hold the pencil flat against the rib ends. This process will be repeated for
all the remaining planks and you'll always mark on the extreme edges of the
rib ends, upper and lower. Before we hang any planks we need to wax the rib ends
down in good shape so that the boat won't stick to the jig. Wax all the rib
ends with a block of paraffin except the sheer. There's no need to wax the sheer
rib end as there's no glue joint there. I'm going to mix some epoxy and spread
it on the Kielsen and garboard plank. It's important to stir epoxy well.
You should always protect your skin from the epoxy. Wear rubber gloves. Always
apply glue to both surfaces that you're going to join together. Line the factory
edge of the plywood along the center line that you marked on the Kielsen. Then
with a bronze ring nail I'm going to drive a nail over the top of each
station mold. When fastening planks always work from the center out. At the
stem I'm going to drive a small stainless steel wood screw instead of a
nail. If you were to nail here you may snap the stem off. The important thing
when you're screwing is to stay out of the lap. I'm also going to screw between
each station mold. It's a hard place to nail where it's not supported underneath
so we'll use screws in between each mold.
Trim the hood end of the plank off flush with the stem so the next plank won't
interfere with it. Be sure not to saw into the stem when you're trimming off
the plank hood ends. Well it's beginning to look like a boat. We've got our first
pair of planks hung. They're nailed, screwed, glued and clamped at the ends. The
next thing we're going to do is mix up some epoxy putty. Fill the cracks between
the garboard planks and putty up the screw and nail holes. Then you're ready
to sheath the garboard planks.
On the garboard planks on my canoes and on the bottoms of the skiffs and dories,
I coat them with epoxy resonant cloth. I do this for abrasion resistance when
beaching. On the boat we're building here I'm using a six ounce fiberglass cloth
because it's easy to find but you can also use Zynol or Dynell if the itch
factor of fiberglass is a problem. Position the cloth on the boat, roll it
out in where it's going to be. Now roll the cloth back halfway. Next we want to
wet out half of the garboard planks. Pour some epoxy on the boat and squeegee the
resin out. You want enough resin on there to make the wood look wet but not too
much so the cloth will float between the wood and the resin. Then roll the cloth
back out on the wetted out wood. Now do the other end. Roll the cloth back and
squeegee some more epoxy out on the wood. I'm using a six inch steel taping knife
here, a flexible one. Try not to make a mess and drip epoxy all over your stems
and rib bands. Roll the cloth back out on the wetted wood and then smooth it out
with your hands. Get all the wrinkles out.
Always wear a respirator when you're spreading this amount of epoxy. Next we'll
wet the cloth out. Squeegee the glue on and when the cloth becomes transparent
there's enough epoxy on. Squeegee the epoxy off so there's not an excessive
amount and in the hard-to-get areas with a knife you can use a brush.
With our broad streak marked out on our panel the next thing we need to do is
extend the lines where the rib bands weren't quite long enough. After you've
drawn these lines get your eye right down on it and check it for fairness. The
next thing we're going to do is cut very close to this line and then we're going
to plane it fair. This line will be the outside lap of the boat. Fairness of this
line is crucial.
I cut close to this line with my jigsaw because I'm going to plane it but the
next cut once again we'll want to leave it a quarter inch proud. This will assure
that our plank is not too narrow. The planing wants to be done before you cut
the plank off the panel as we have some support here for the planing operation.
I'm going to plane starting at the ends towards the middle due to the direction
of the grain curve of the plank I need to come from either end to plane it. Now
when you plane it think about splitting the pencil line and get down and check
it frequently to make sure it's fair. Your eye will be able to read a 64th of
an inch of bump or hump so don't be afraid to get your eye right down on the
plank and look at it and try to split that pencil line. This is the finished
edge outside lap of the boat so we want a nice fair curve. Notice how I hold the
plane when I do this. Before we trim and bevel the garboard chisel off this
excess fiberglass cloth. Now we're ready to trim the garboard plank off flush
with the ribband. I use a router with a bearing flush trimming bit on it. The
bearing rides along the ribband and will trim the plank off flush with the ribband.
When you're doing this the bearing rides along the ribband be careful not to
apply excessive pressure upward to flex the ribband. If you don't have a router
in your shop you can do it with a block plane by hand. Before I do any trimming
with a router it's important to remember these ribbands are not attached here so
if we were to run the router along one of these ribbands it could flex up and
cut too much plank off. So I'm going to clamp the ribband in place so that it
can't move. The router makes a really fine dust which has a lot of fiberglass
in it so before I do any of this I'm going to put on some old clothes some
gloves dust masks safety glasses and ear protection. When I'm done I'm going to be
sure not to go into the house and not to pick up my children with fiberglass dust
on my clothes. Preferably disposable clothes or Tyvek suits are a good thing
to use when you're dealing with fiberglass.
You could only route up to where the clamp was. From the clamp to the stem we
need to draw a line and plane it and saw it by hand. We've marked out our third
plank so now we can go ahead and fasten on our broad strake. First we need to
mark out the width of the lap. The width of the lap is determined always by the
width of the ribband. I'm going to use a sheetrock knife to scratch a line on the
fiberglass. The length of the hull. Now I'm ready to bevel the laps. I'm going to
use the same tool that I used to bevel the Kielsen. Same principles involved.
We're going to start in the center and work towards the ends due to the curve
of the plank and the run out of the grain. We want to keep the guide resting
gently on the ribband below and that'll plane a perfect winding bevel all the way
along the plank. We'll plane until we reach the line and then we'll stop.
Okay now we're ready to hang the broad strake. This is what I call the dry fit.
We do this so that we can mark the last six inches of the garboard plank for the
gains. I'm going to clamp the broad strake in three places temporarily for
the dry fit. One clamp at station four using a clamp pad once again so I don't
dent my planking stock and in between station one and two. I'll do this on the
other end as well. Now with my sheetrock knife I'm going to mark the last few
inches of the lap where I'm going to cut the gain. We also need to mark the bottom
of the plank where the plank crosses the stem. Now that we've marked the gain we
need to trim this plank off a quarter inch proud of the stem for the dry fit.
That's just to show us not to go too far out when we're spreading the glue. Now
we're ready to saw and chisel the gains. Bend your planks out of the way and then
we're going to make a saw cut with a back saw. At the bitter end we're going to go
right down to the stem and it's six inches out to nothing. I'll demonstrate
for you how I saw and chisel again on this side.
Now we're ready to chisel it. When you're chiseling out the gains pay attention to
where this hand is and keep it behind the chisel. We only need to chisel wood
not flesh. Make a nice gentle taper
into the stem. Halfway on the stem remove all the wood right down to the spruce
stem. We want all the planking stock out of there so that we end up with a nice
flush fit. Be careful because it's delicate here as you remove wood. It becomes
very thin and very delicate and we don't want to break it. When you think you have
a nice gentle taper do a test fit. That looks pretty good. With all four gains
cut and fit you can then take the planks off the jig, spread epoxy on the beveled
garboard and on the broad strake then they're ready to be clamped and glued in
place permanently. With glue on all four surfaces position the plank lining up
the center line. Hold it with three clamps, one in the middle and one clamp
between molds one and two on the lower rib end. Then position the glue batten
just short of the end of the stem and starting in the middle we'll clamp
towards the ends.
Put a clamp at each mold. With a clamp at each mold put a screw in the center of
the plank in the center of the stem between the bearding line and the outer
edge. Trim off the excess plank flush with the end of the stem. Once again
don't cut into the stem just flush with it.
Repeat this process on the other side.
Be sure to clamp the lower edges of the planks at the hood ends nice and tight to
the stem. Clamp the two glue battens together so that the gains come in nice
and tight and flush. The final thing you need to do is fill in in between each
mold with a clamp. There needs to be a clamp at each mold and in between each
mold.
Repeat this procedure for all remaining planks. With the next plank marked out
on the panel saw on plain fair the line closest to you or the exterior edge of
the plank. Saw the plank off the panel a quarter inch proud. Mark out the next
plank before you do anything else. Trim the edge of the plank that's hung flush
with the rib end and mark the width of the lap on this plank. Bevel the lap,
clamp the next plank on and mark the gains. Saw and chisel the gains and then
glue and clamp this plank on permanent. When you get to the shear strake you'll
be using your third panel. Mark and saw out a shear strake and use it as a
pattern for the second one. But before you glue on the shear strakes make sure
you stagger the scarf joints on both sides of the hull.
Well there she is all planked up. If you're at this point in the building
process give yourself a pat on the back but you're not done yet. The next step is
we need to mark out the shear line and attach the stem bands. Trim off the last
two protruding hood ends. Now we're ready to mark out the shear. Take a combination
square, rest it on the shear plank and set the depth of the square to the bottom
of the shear rib end. Draw a line all the way down the shear strake. Do the same
thing on the other side of the boat. With our shear line marked the next thing we
need to do is install our stem bands. I'm using a piece of 3 eighths inch half
oval 24 inches long. We're gonna measure up about 23 inches to rough plane the
hood ends. This is just a rough mark short of what the actual end will be.
When you've roughed this off and you're almost at 3 eighths of an inch wide, take
your stem band stock and place it about an eighth of an inch up from the shear
line. Rock it back to mark your final position for the heel of the stem band.
With a coping saw make about an eighth of an inch kerf right in the garboard
planks. Remove this last little bit of the garboards with a rasp. The reason for
letting the stem band into the garboard plank is so that we have a nice flush
line along the bottom edge of the garboard here and then the stem band
sits flush all the way along. Two things you need to keep in mind. One is this
flat that you're planing needs to be slightly wider than 3 eighths so when we
do the final sanding of the hull the planks will come down a little bit flush
with the outside edges of the stem band. The other thing you need to keep in mind
is that you want a nice fair curve around here in profile view. Check it one
last time for width and length. To lay out the centers for our holes come in
about three-quarters of an inch from the end and make a mark. Then I'd make them
out about three inch centers. Next take a prick punch and make a dimple right dead
center so that we can have a place to start our drilling. Now we're gonna drill
the holes in the stem band. A little metal working here. Be sure to wear your
safety glasses when you're drilling. If you don't have a drill press you can do
this with a hand drill. Next we need to countersink them slightly to accept the
head of a scutch and pin.
Well we've prepared our stem bands, drilled the holes and countersunk them.
Next I'm going to mix up some epoxy and thicken it up about the consistency of
toothpaste with some micro balloons. I'm going to goop this the end of the
planking for two reasons. One is to protect the plywood with some epoxy, the
end grain of the plywood, and it also helps hold the stem bands on. Use a
generous amount.
Start at the garbards, center it.
Inch and a quarter of scutch and pins work well for this job. They're a little
hard to hold with rubber gloves on. Then just wipe off the excess glue with a rag.
If you have some leftover goop now's a good time to putty these screw holes and
any voids at the gains fill them. Well with our stem bands on the next step is
to put the outwails on for the gunnels. We're going to put some epoxy on the
plank itself and on the rail and glue and clamp it, screw it in the ends. It's
important that you run the grain, the vertical grain, parallel with the stem.
It's tradition and in my opinion the vertical grain is more attractive than
the flat grain and when you're in the boat you'll see the vertical grain. It
also the old style canoes that had a lot of shear the rails were steam bent so
they were bent against the vertical grain so they wouldn't break. Starting in
the center of the boat right at station mold four position the rail and hold it
in place on the line with a couple of spring clamps. That'll hold it so you can
then apply the C clamps. Lead with a spring clamp down to the next mold and
put another C clamp on. Drill the hole in the rail as close to the bearding line
the after edge of the stem bevel as possible and countersink it at least a
half an inch because we're going to taper these rails. Bung the hole, make
sure you line up the grain of the bung with the rail. We'll chisel it off later.
While your outwails are curing or drying it's a good time to make your breast
hooks because that'll be the next thing we do after we take the hull off the jig.
I make the breast hooks for this boat at a clear one inch thick stock 12 inches
long six inches wide. Measure over at one corner seven eighths of an inch and make
a mark and on the opposite corner seven eighths and make a mark. Connect the two
dots with a straight edge. Now I'm ready to saw it out on the bandsaw. If you
don't have a bandsaw in your shop you can get by doing this procedure with a
jigsaw or skill saw. Bandsaw is a good tool to have but when you're using a
bandsaw pay attention pay attention to where your hands are because even though
bandsaws seem like tame machines you can really get hurt with them. Watch out
where your fingers are when you're cutting and when you're done cutting make
sure you come up with all ten.
The next step will be to glue our breast hooks together like this. The reason for
cutting them the way I did is so that when this fits into the bow of the canoe
the grain will be running parallel with our rails. Before we glue them up we need
to plane them.
Check your stock for squareness and after you've done all four I'm going to
show you how to build a simple jig to glue them up. Consists of a piece of
plywood, a piece of poly, two wedges, three blocks. Lay your breast hook stock
out like so. Wedge and block. Block here. This breast hook stock against that
block. Wedge. Block. Fasten them down drywall screws.
Now we're ready to put some epoxy on them.
Coat them generously and after you get all four pieces well coated it's usually
a good idea to let it soak in then go back and re-coat it again. Now they're
well saturated with epoxy and go ahead and glue them up.
We're going to clamp them loosely to start. That will keep them from riding up
when we apply pressure with a clamp. Put four clamps on each breast hook. Now
we'll wedge them up tight with a hammer. Well you can see I removed all the
clamps on the gunnels and now we're ready to pop the hull off the jig. Over
the years I've built a lot of boats but I still get a charge out of lifting a
new hull off the jig. Remember to undo all four screws that was temporarily
fastened to Kielsen and the backbone together and you'll probably need some
help. My wife Polly's going to help me lift this one off. We're about ready to
fit the breast hooks but before we fit the breast hooks there's two things we
need to do. We'll need to route this off the excess sheer and it's a good idea to
cut a stick 27 and 3 quarters inches. That's our measurement inside a plank
to inside a plank to spread the hull apart because she wants to fold up a
little bit.
Trim the excess sheer that you can't with the router with a handsaw. Trim the
stem head off 1 1⁄8 of an inch above the rail. Okay now we're ready to fit the
breast hook. Sand the excess epoxy off and choose the prettiest side. The side
you want down that you won't see mark it with a B. As we go through this procedure
and you're doing it at home take a little extra time with this. This is a
very visible part of the boat and careful joinery here is a good idea. So
I'm going to mark the excess wood here and saw it off. First I'll draw a line
between the two after tips and then I'll draw a line up at the bow part of it
where it touches the stem square to the center line and we'll saw that off with
our bandsaw or a jigsaw. Push the breast hook up against the stem and position it
so that the center line of the breast hook is directly over the center line of
the boat. Use the rails and planking as a guide to make sure that that center line
is right on center. Once it's centered take a flattened pencil and we're going
to reach underneath and hold the pencil along the stem, mark along the stem and
along the sheer strake. Now we're going to saw these lines out on the bandsaw.
After you've smoothed up your bandsaw cut check it against the sheer strake.
Make sure that the top edge of the breast hook and the top edge of the
sheer strake has a nice tight fit. You'll notice that the tip of the breast hook
and the stem does not fit and we need to copy the bevel so that we can trim off
the bottom of the breast hook to fit tight against the stem. We're going to do
that with a small bevel set. If you don't have one of these you can just rivet two
pieces of steel together and it'll work. I'm going to use my block plane as a
straight edge. I'll push that up tight against the stem and then I'm going to
hold the bevel set against the bottom of my plane and push it up against the stem
to copy that bevel like this. Okay now we need to transfer these marks, this stem
bevel, onto our breast hook and saw that bevel. Clamp the breast hook in the vise
with the bottom of it facing you. We're going to draw the bevel that we copied
from our bevel set on both sides.
Next we'll connect these two lines on the bottom part of the breast hook with a
line. Now we'll saw this angle off and then take it back for a test fit. Be
careful to leave the line, it's your only reference. You'll notice that even
though we cut the stem bevel we still have a gap here. There's about an eighth
of an inch gap and at the after edge there's about a sixteenth of an inch
gap. So in order to make this fit we need to remove some stock off the bottom edge
of the breast hook. This joint here at the top fits nice and tight and we've
already checked that. So what I'll do is turn the breast hook over on the bottom
and I'll draw an eighth of an inch which was our gap here and squeeze my pencil
down to a sixteenth of an inch back here. I'll do the same thing on the other side.
Sixteenth of an inch here, push it out to an eighth of an inch here. Now on the
top edge, this top edge, that fits. So I'm just going to put a line on the bitter
end here, right on the bitter edge, so that I don't remove any of that stock and
I'll plane a winding bevel from a sixteenth of an inch to an eighth of an
inch.
Well we've planed our winding bevels, now we'll try a test fit. See how it looks.
Nice and tight along the shear and up at the stem and the after edge looks good.
The next thing I'm going to do is mark where the breast hooks after edge lands
on the shear strake. So we'll know only to spread the glue from that line forward.
The next thing we need to know is how far down on the shear strake to spread
the glue. So I'll take a spacer block and we'll just mark along the bottom edge of
the spacer block. That will be the bottom edge of our breast hook and we'll know
where to line it up. The breast hook is a little bit thicker than our rails
because ultimately we're going to plane it off with a little bit of a crown in
it. We're going to mark out the breast hook now. Hang with me on this. If you
don't get it the first time, rewind it and watch again. On the outside edge of
the breast hook, square up from the bottom on both sides. We have to do this
because of the angle of the side of the breast hook. Next step, take your spacer
block and line the outside of the spacer block up on that sixteenth inch mark. Draw
a line on the inside of the spacer block. We have to come in that sixteenth of an
inch because that accounts for our bevel. Next measure down along that line an
inch and a half and make a mark. Other side. Then with a combination square
from that point you just marked, draw 45 on both sides. Measure in from that apex
an inch and an eighth. That determines the width of our rail when it's cut on a
45 degree angle plus a little. Then take a round can, line it up at those two
points and draw it. Now take it over to the bandsaw and saw it out.
Both breast hooks are now glued and clamped in place. The next step is to put
our spacer blocks in. I've milled out a bunch of our spacer blocks, half inch by
three and a half, bucked them up on the bandsaw. I've got one I've marked template
and I'm going to use that to create the spaces. I'm going to lay these out along
the rail one at a time till we get to the other end. Start with the template,
create the space first, then a block, space.
When you get to the end, if you find out that your space is too little, you may
need to shave a whisker off your template. If you find out that your space
is too big, you may need to make a longer template or sometimes just adding a few
layers of masking tape will get you the distance you need. If it doesn't work
out after a couple tries but you're close, you can fudge the last couple of
little bit. Your eye will never read it in the finished boat. Now that the spacer
blocks are all laid out, we need to mark the rail where they are. I just take a
tick mark with my pencil on the gunnel at either side of each one. After I've
marked them all out, I'll spill them all back into the boat, put glue on the
inside of them, glue on the sheer strake, clamp them in place with a clamp pad on
the outside so I don't dent the rail. Well, our spacer blocks are in now. When we
install them, we were real careful to keep them flush with the sheer and we
wiped off all the excess epoxy all the way around. It's a lot easier to get it
off when it's liquid than when it dries rock hard. The next thing we need to do
is to rough plane our breast hooks and get a little crown in them. Then we're
ready to install the in-wheels. What we're after here is about an eighth of
an inch of crown across the top. When I do this, I'll leave all my clamps in the
boat. That gives the boat a little ballast and makes it a little more stable
when I'm planing it. Well, we've made our rough crown on our breast hook here. We'll
finish that up a little bit later. The next thing we need to do is fit our
in-wheels into the breast hook tabs. The first thing we need to do is take a
spacer block, hold it up tight to the sheer, and draw along the tab. Next, we'll
hold it down against the sheer strake and with the flat pencil draw along the
heel of it to represent our angle. The spacer block, the tab needs to be cut
exactly as the spacer blocks land on the sheer. The next thing we'll do is draw
along the 45 degree angle with a straight edge. I'll use the spacer block
for that and we'll clean that bandsaw cut up with a chisel. Now we're ready to
chisel this out, prepare it for the in-wheel to land on it.
Check the fits with a straight edge.
With the breast hook tabs cleaned up nice and smooth, we're ready to take the
bevels and transfer them on to our in-wheel. Place the bevel set against the
tab and we'll recheck this 45 and we'll draw it on the end of the in-wheel. Use a
nice sharp pencil and get a very fine line. Next, we need to take this bevel in
the vertical plane and transfer this onto both sides of your in-wheel, front
and back. Now we're going to saw this off. After you cut it, see if it fits. It's
kind of tricky bending it into place. Wrestle it in there and get a clamp on it.
Looks good. Get a clamp, some clamp pads. When you've got one end fit, clamp along
about two-thirds of the way up the hull. We can't really take a measurement to cut
both angles on the ends of the in-wheels, so here's how you do it. With a two-foot
rule or a small stick, place the ruler right in the apex. Come down along the
spacer blocks, pick an arbitrary mark and make a line. Squeeze the in-wheel down on
the spacer block and clamp it. Now transfer that little tick mark over onto
your in-wheel. Take your two-foot rule and at the same point where you mark the
spacer block, line it up on the tick mark along the inside edge of the rail and
make a mark at the end of the ruler. Now we need to copy the bevels and transfer
them onto this end of the in-wheel. With your bevel set, bend your in-wheel out of
the way so you can work. Put a clamp here and copy the bevels. First do the 45
bevel, transfer that onto your in-wheel. Then we'll do the vertical bevel next
and transfer that onto both sides. Now you're ready to cut it. Take a piece of
scrap wood, set it on the breast hook and then with your back saw, cut very
accurately just leaving the line. If an in-wheel fit should be too long, take a
sharp rasp and just gently remove a little bit of stock and then test the
fit again. Now we're ready to unclamp it. Butter it up with glue all along the
inside and on every spacer block and then we'll clamp it back in.
While our in-wheels are curing up, now's a good time to make the backrest. In this
particular boat it's a pivoting backrest and it's very comfortable when you're
paddling. There's basically two parts, the thwart part, the backrest itself and the
little blocks that the thwart pivots in. First we're going to make the blocks. I'm
going to trace it out from a simple pattern and go over to the bandsaw and
cut it out. After I've cut my block out, I'm going to go over to the drill press
and bore the holes. We need to drill two holes in our thwart block, one with a
two-inch hole saw halfway through. You'll notice I have a piece of tape on the
hole saw so I know where to stop. Then we'll drill a hole completely through
with an inch and a quarter bit. Notice the location of the hole. It's drilled on
the center line but very close to the top edge leaving a lot of meat below the
hole. Now that we've bored our holes, the next step is to smooth up our bandsaw
cut with a spokeshave. Once you've smoothed it up with a spokeshave, then
put about an eighth of an inch chamfer on all the edges and then roll that over
with some sandpaper. After chamfering, it's time to remove the stock left in
from the hole saw to create the shoulder. The finished one will of course need to
be sanded, round the edges over, clean up the inside of the hole, and then it's
ready for varnish. Now that we've made our thwart blocks, I'll describe to you
how I make the rest of the pieces that go into the backrest system. Basically it
consists of the cross thwart, which I usually make wider than the boat, 30
inches will do, and mill it or have it milled to an inch and a quarter square.
The backrest pads are drawn from a pattern, sawn out on a bandsaw or with a
jigsaw, and then if you want you can resaw them, stand them on edge, resaw them,
and you'll end up with a book match piece. Make these thin, keep them thin and
lightweight. The next thing we need to do is determine the length of our backrest
piece. So we'll go over to the boat and at 14 inches aft of center, that's the
location of the backrest. Take a tape measure at 14 inches aft of center,
square to the keelson, take a measurement from shear plank to shear plank, and
that's the total length of the backrest. Cross cut it to the proper length. Simply
epoxy and clamp the pads to the thwart. Leave about three-quarters of an inch of
space in the middle, that's where your spine goes when you're sitting in the
boat. Once this is glued up, cut to length, then you're ready to shape it. I do
that by eight-siding it, and without a spar gauge I'll simply scribe the lines
on using my fingers. Leave the center section about an eighth of an inch wider
than the two side pieces. Shape that down with a draw knife or spoke shaves
eight-sided to the end. The end of the piece will then need to be rounded over,
and I do that with just a piece of sandpaper like so. This is a one-inch
copper coupling that will need to fit on the end. I buy a piece of one-inch copper
coupling at the hardware store, saw it in half, and with a nice pressure fit just
tap it on the end. Okay, now we're going to ready to assemble the thwart and the
thwart blocks. First I'm going to take a copper rivet or copper nail and snip off
the pointed end, file the sharp edges off it, round it over, then I'm going to put
my block on with the shoulder facing the end, and I'll slip the pin in the hole
and cut off the other side of the pin. I leave about a quarter inch on either
side. Now I need to file the sharp edge off this edge. I'll slip the pin back in
the hole and bend it slightly in an S shape so it can't fall out. Need to bend
it over a bit more. I think I'll just tap it with a hammer. The pin needs to be
able to rotate in that shoulder without chafing the sides of the shoulder. Now
we'll do the other side the same way.
Well we're closing in on the finish work of this boat. We have one more step where
we have to put the floor in. It's a fairly simple process. Here's how you do
it. The floor in this boat is two feet long and it replicates the garboard
planks, the curve of the garboard. We start out by finding the exact center of
the boat, four and a half, the center line, and we'll draw a line across the keelson.
Remember our thwart is going to be located 14 inches after center, so the
after edge of the floor we're going to make 16 inches, a little bit beyond the
thwart. So from the center line measure back 16 inches and once again draw a
line there. The floor being 24 inches long will come up 24
inches from that 16 inch mark and make a line there. Then we want to find the
center of the floor now, so we'll come back 12 inches and we'll draw a line
across the keelson there. So we have three points basically to plot the curve
of the garboards from. With all our lines drawn we take our piece of floor stock.
It's 24 inches long and about 19 inches wide. On our floor stock we're going to
draw a grid. Find the center of the stock this way and the center of the stock
this way and draw two lines square to each other. Put a little arrow here so
you remember which way is forward. And basically all we do to replicate these
curves is measure across. We'll go back to the 16 inch mark, find the width of
the garboards at the 16 inch mark and transfer it on there with some little
tick marks. Then we're going to measure at the center, the 12 inch mark right
here, measure across, make a little tick mark there and there. And the forward edge
find the width of the garboards at the forward edge and make some marks. Then we
just simply take a batten, thin piece of wood, bend it at those three points and
scribe it. We'll saw that out on the bandsaw and that'll replicate the
garboard planks. Lay out your grid exactly in the center of the panel in
both dimensions. Then measure your three tick marks, bend a batten up here and
draw the curve. Simple. Well I sawed this out on the bandsaw and I dressed it up a
little bit with a block plane. Now I'm going to drop it in here and check the
fit. It looks pretty good along the garboard planks but as you might suspect
we have a void here under the keelson and we need to take a measurement to see
where the floor panel comfortably touches the garboard. Put my tape in here
and press it down and I can see it's three inches so we're going to need a
piece of stock three inches wide, a little floor timber filler to go in there.
The next thing we need to do is figure out how thick, how deep that piece is
going to be. I'll take my combination square and just measure from the top of
the keelson down to the top of the garboard. That measures five-eighths of an
inch. So out of a piece of stock a little bit thicker, 11 sixteenths, I'm going to
saw out my floor timbers. It's 24 inches long and what I'm going to do is set up a
fence on my bandsaw, tip the table and resaw it right along here. So I end up
with a piece of stock that looks like this. These will be our floor timber
filler pieces and they'll go in here. I'll do one more check with the floor
timbers in there to make sure I've measured correctly and that looks good.
Now I'm ready to glue it up.
Now we're going to get some pieces of
thick stock, clamp three of them across the rails, we'll put a couple of little
stringers down on the floor and we're going to wedge this down tight.
Cut these sticks a quarter inch longer than it actually measures and that's just
about the right amount of pressure when you wedge them up tight. We have one
stringer, six sticks in here, but if you find that over towards the edge of the
garboard your floor timber is not tight to the garboard, just add another stringer
and some more sticks. This system will work good even for a long floor, eight or
ten feet long.
Well all our woodworking is done. Now it's time to talk about the finish. It's
important to put a good coat of finish on the boat. Good coat of finish protects
the boat, protects your work and it's also important to put on your safety gear
and protect yourself when you're putting on the finish. Sanding, painting, wear the
proper gear. The first thing we need to do is to coat the fiberglassed garboard
planks with a thickened batch of epoxy. Put some micro balloons in the epoxy,
trowel it on with a six inch taping knife. At that point hit any voids, any
dings, little voids in the scarf, screw holes, that sort of thing. Putty up the
whole boat. Let that harden. First start out by sanding the garboards. Sand them
smooth. Get all the shine out of the epoxy but don't sand through the cloth.
You can do this with a vibrator sander and 80 grit paper. You can also sand the
planking with this but remember go easy on it. It's thin plywood. You don't want
to over sand it. When the sanding is done vacuum it off and then you're ready
to paint it. Use a good paint like Interlux. It dries fast, hard, it's easy to use
and it really protects the boat. Before you put any paint on and really before
you sand with the machine you should knock off the corners on all the
boat. No hard edges so you have nice rounded surfaces for the paint to land
on. I put the first coat on after I vacuumed the boat with a bristle brush.
Thin coat. Let it dry. Sand it with 280 grit paper. Vacuum it. Take a damp cloth,
wipe it off. Take a tack rag, tack it off and you're ready for the second coat. Put
another coat on. Repeat the process. Sand it with 280, vacuum, damp rag, tack cloth.
For the final coats I like to use a foam brush. You can really lay it on and I have
a lot of control with these foam brushes. Makes a nice finish. Now I think it's
time to flip the boat over and talk about what we need to do on the
finishing for the inside. Let's talk about finishing the inside of the boat
now. One of the first things I do is to plane the rails flat before you sand
them. Then plane the inner surface and the outer surface nice and smooth. Get
all the little dents and glue and everything else off of it. Then when you
come up forward here, the last two feet of the rails, I put a nice gentle curving
taper in them. Do that with a block plane. Just plane this excess wood off. Up
forward here after you've planed your taper in, radius this corner. Make a nice
round here. When the rails are all planed, nice and smooth and sanded, then with a
block plane or spoke shave, just take a nice eighth of an inch off here,
chamfer, and then sand to a round. It'll make it a lot easier for the varnish to
hang on there and a lot nicer to feel. Next, come up and finish the crowning of
the breast hook. We don't want to have an excessive crown here, just a nice gentle
crown. This curve here needs to be drawn so that we have a nice continuous line
from our in wheels right around. Saw that with a jigsaw.
The next thing we need to do is clean up that cut with our little spoke shave.
When that's complete, then the next thing we need to do is put a nice big heavy
chamfer on here that starts small at about an eighth inch and fans out to
about an eighth of an inch. Up here on top, that gives you a nice place to put
your hand when you grab the boat. Then we're pretty much done with breast hook
and rail details. Next, let's talk about sanding the inside of the boat a little
bit. Once again, we've got to get as much of this epoxy off as we can and we need
to radius the edges of the inside of the planks. You can do that with sandpaper,
make nice rounds, get all the sharpness off of it, sand out any of the drips. On
the Kielsen, take a small plane and put a chamfer on both edges of the Kielsen
and roll it over once again with sandpaper and make a nice soft curve.
Back here on our floor, I like to bevel off the edges of the floor on the outside
where the garboard meets the floor with a nice 45 degree bevel. Well, when you
finish all these steps I've just showed you, then you're ready for paint and
varnish. One thing I don't recommend is painting the boats with epoxy. Epoxy
saturation makes these boats too brittle. But let's take a look at a finished boat,
one that's had all these steps done to it already. Notice the nice chamfer here
and radius. Good place to put your hand and grab the boat. I've also chamfered
the inside of the rail and the outside of the rail. Nice round over here to
accept the varnish. We planed a long taper on here and goes into a nice radius.
This customer wanted a bright sheer strake. That's okay, but I don't recommend
varnishing the outside of the boats because if you paint them in a light
color you get a nice shadow under the laps and I like that. It accentuates that
it's a lap strake boat. But finish is personal. You should have some fun with
it. I've even painted a couple of boats pink. Well speaking of finish, I want to
finish this one so we can go for a paddle.
Well now we're ready to install the thwart in our finished boat. I'm going to
clamp it up here temporarily with some spring clamps and I'm going to use some
leather pads on the gunwale. Our varnish is dry but it's not yet hard. We need to
make sure that our thwart is in fact 14 inches aft the center. So I'll do one more
final check. It also needs to be 90 degrees or square to the keelson across
your boat. That looks good. Well you can see now I've got all five coats of
finish on. We've got a pretty wild pale green on the inside. You want to make
sure that you put your final coat of varnish on before your final coat of
paint and then you can cut the paint right up onto the varnish. Now we'll bore
a hole right down through the in well. And I like to bolt them in the boat with
these nice diamond headed bronze bolts.
With our thwart in, the pins in the thwart blocks, that'll keep the hull from
really spreading out. For any reason it should get pushed that way. It's really
the only structural of thwart ships piece in this. The hull is stiff enough
basically without it but it's a good safety device in there to keep it from
spreading too far. And she is in fact done and we are ready to paddle her. Well
let me show you a little bit about how this boat performs. She's so light at
only 27 pounds she really flies along and with the v-bottom shape like this
she tracks like a freight train. So you don't have to concentrate on steering
the thing you can just paddle it along. She's got a real fine entrance and exit
so there's very little wake behind this boat and you can see that she moves
right out. It will carry quite a large passenger as well.
Well the shop works a lot of fun you know using the tools and thrashing the
wood and shaping it and spiling planks and all that but you know this is this
is really where it's at. This is this is really what I like doing. I like
building boats but I really like sitting in them and using them. And if you're at
this point congratulations enjoy your new boat. I'm going for a paddle.