Canoe building tips

My first canoe...see here, was a little bit of a challenge and I'm ready to do another with some experience under my belt. Don't get me wrong, my canoe handles well in the water, I'd just like to show off a little ;o) John Lucking in Eagle River builds some beautiful strippers and I went to his shop this week for some tips.

He gets yellow cedar lumber from a small mill in Canada-2x10x20ft quarter-sawn boards are what he uses to cut the strips from. That is one area I don't have a source for yet, but decking cedar works well too...just not as homogeneous in color.

This is what I took away from the trip:

1. Use 5/16" bead and cove bits to mill the 1/4 " strips for a tighter fit. John seems to like 7/8' width on the strips.

2. Don't staple, but clamp strips to forms with squeeze clamp. Each form has cutouts to accept clamps. Use a long clamp to pull the strips together if necessary. This is visually pleasing, and is a LOT less work than pulling about a thousand staples.

3. Assemble with the bead up so clamps don't damage the cove....although, using an appropriately sized dowl in the cove will protect it if you want to do it that way.

4. If using an accent strip, lay it first and add towards the sheer second. Lay the accent strip so it rises up toward the ends. An accent level with waterline will look odd.

5. He builds with a small interior stem and a cold laminated Ash nose. The inside of bow and stern are covered with a small feather-shaped piece of plywood. Avoids the necessity of cleaning up that nasty area of fiberglass and is a little cleaner looking.

6. After laying up the strips, the ends of canoe are belt-sanded flat and a notch cut in the "keel" to accept the ash laminations. Laminations are clamped with bungie cords and or nails until dry.

7. Gunwale sections are 5/8" Ash. He cuts scuppers in the inwale and screws them together. I personally don't like the extra weight of metal, and epoxy certainly won't fail.

8. Finishing West System 105/207 and Behr varnish

Sand outside of hull. lay glass on outside. One layer of 6oz is all he uses--no extra 'football'. Sand the outside smooth. Flip the hull and lay interior glass, sand.

Glass resin inside is layed with latex-gloved hands, mixing 5 pumps each of resin and hardner per batch.

Add the gunwales and decks, cut the painter hole in and whatever else.

Flip it upside down again and finish the outside/varnish. Clean up the drips on gunwales and finish the inside with non-gloss varnish. Use high gloss on brightwork.

8. Seats hang from inwales with wood cylinders for spacers and brass bolts. The whole assy is epoxied together. I like the idea of using trapezoid shape spacers to minimize the tendency of the seat to rock.