Building a Cedar-strip Canoe

I had a hankerin' to build a canoe a couple of years ago. There is nothing quite like building your own boat, and I sure as heck wasn't going to pay $3000 for one from REI!

After a bit of research, I found Gilcrist's book and decided on a plan. Unfortunately, there are no local suppliers of cedar strips. Walking through Home Depot one day I spied a new unit of 16 foot cedar 2x6 just looking for a home. I picked through the entire unit to find 6 relatively clear boards.

We sawed them into 1 inch wide strips, turned those 90 degrees and cut 1/4 in strips, After that, I ran them through the router table beading bit, then the cove bit.

Next the strongback was built of 2 x 6 fir and station molds attached. Once they were plumb and fair, I taped all the station edges with masking to keep glue off them.

Sheer planks positioned and laid. Then it is just a lot of glue, staples, nails and time. If you click the image you can see all the staples.




















The fiberglassing didn't look as nice as I had hoped.....all glassy smooth and professional like the images on web. I mistakenly thought the epoxy would fill any voids and sanding the surface perfectly flat was a waste of time. Oh my, was I wrong. When I laid the glass I found that the cloth just tents over the gaps and leaves a white spot.

Canoe version 1.0 had 3/4 x 3/4 ash inwale and outwale screwed every six inches and ash decks about 12 inches long. Beautiful but a little heavy. The boat weighed almost 70 lbs. The seats were fairly large too and I used cane for the seat. The cane tore, so I took off the gunwales, decks and seats and replaced them with 1/2 x 3/4 fir inwales and outwales -- not screwed but epoxied. I added little trapezoid shaped doublers where thwart and seats attached. Seats were ash 1x2 but only 7 in wide. Now the weight was only 55 lb. Much nicer now for portaging. The total cost was less than $600, most of which was the glassing material.

Well for a first time job, it turned out ok, and heck it floats! We have enjoyed many trips to the Kenai canoe trails -- impossible without a boat.




















So, on th next boat I will do more surface prep before fiberglassing, But gee, I'm having an awfully good time right now, so it might be another year.

How did the old song say it? "Love the one you're with"       Thas' right baby!