Semi-Final coat of epoxy and ready to come off the stations. Decided not to do final until after my maiden voyage trip.

            She's finally off the stations (2/8/05) The bow and stern stem patterns have yet to be removed.  As I said before, I screwed up and used duct tape on the sides of the patterns. Glue that ran down stuck like it was welded and it took some real doing to get them loose.  There were some serious moments here . . . . but they finally came out with no damage.  I'll never again use duct tape on stations. When it was time to come off, my neighbors, came over and gave me a hand. 

    You should think ahead.  Now that she's off the stations, you must get the strongback out of the way. It's something you'll probably use again so you don't want to discard it nor put it outside in the weather.  In my case before starting my canoe project, I built a large storage rack above my shop door. The strongback just barely squeezed by (the far shop wall) and I was able to store it here for future use, out of the weather so I didn't have to worry about drying out or warping, etc.  Also, note here the 1X4 cross pieces installed on the underside to help keep it true and level and to prevent it from distortion.

                 3 Position canoe mounting jig so that one can work with ease on the inside of the canoe,  bottom, left, or right no matter where.  With the saw horses 32" high, this made the inside height perfect for working without having to break your back. The end pieces fit tight to the hull because the tumblehome keeps the hull from moving.  To prevent scuffing or scratching I added carpeting on each side and bottom of jig. Note that the jig heads have three flat sides. To change from one position to the another, all I had to do was slide the canoe toward me and then tip to the flat side of the jig I needed.   Not seen here are two 3/4X1 strips of wood nailed to the sawhorses, one on each side of the jig heads to prevent them from sliding off the sawhorse. I added some paste wax to the top of the sawhorses so changing positions was a piece of cake.

              The jig heads were fabricated by first making a foam (gator board) template for each end at the exact location of that station (think it was 3&7) then transferring the pattern to 3/4 plywood allowing for thickness of carpet padding at three points. As you can see, the supports for these jig heads are three 1X4" boards. At each end three mortise and tenon joints.  Wedges pull the jig headboards tight to the shoulder of the 1X4's.  It turned out to be a tight fitting and extremely stable canoe support, easy to assemble, disassemble and store.  Worked like a charm. (Joe Fennell gave me the idea) Thanks Joe.

     Inside now has to be cleaned of all glue runs and drips and sanded smooth to get ready for glassing.  This is also a time consuming chore however, with the 3 position jig, it was not nearly as bad as I had thought. Everyone had warned what a pain in the rear it was. Note the lack of all those messy runs seen on many other sites.  I was careful and tried not to have any messy runs.  The more messy it is the more work getting it sanded off. I also made some special tools for this which I will show at the end of these instructions.

    I had been told by several other builders that the inside was the worst part of the job and was dreading it. By using this jig with canoe leaned on her side at this height, I was easily able to work without back pain. Though I found it a time consuming job, it turned out to not be nearly as bad as I had expected. I also attribute some of that to the fact that I kept my running, dripping glue to a minimum. Obviously, if you are sloppy and make a big mess of runs and drips, you will later have to clean it up causing you a lot more work. By the way, here I'm using the special hand scraper I made that worked better than anything else I tried. (Shown later in the Tools used area at the end.)

     After getting most of the larger pieces of glue and smoothing several strip edges with the special scraper, I switched to 80 grit paper on the B&D orbital sander, with the 3/4 rubber adaptor pad from Newfound. The last sanding I used 100 and 120 grit. I would not attempt to use the orbital without this "hook-it"  pad. It makes the edge surface of the disc soft and flexible but still do a good job of sanding. Without it I'm sure one would get deep gouges in the wood from the edges of the sander pad.
Thanks to Michael Vermouth of Newfound Boats of New Hampshire for this info. By the way, I purchased his "How to" video and it was outstanding.  Also a big help.

    In case you are wondering why the football has such an odd pattern, . . . the entire football is made of aromatic cedar, except for the black, which is more Peruvian walnut.  I saved those pieces that had variegations much the same as a cedar chest.  I didn't have enough of them to make a perfectly aligned pattern so I let it fall as close as I could.

     Very visible is what has been scraped or sanded and what has not. By the way, I made most of my own special sanding blocks to sand the interior, glue runs, etc. to hand sand where an area was difficult to work the B&D sander. (in "Tools" area at end_

   Beginning the gunnels by installing  3" Mahogany spacers to the inside hull with epoxy. These spacers will make the scuppers for draining water from the canoe. All the rest of the gunnels are ash 3/4 X 1/2" seen laying in the canoe.

     Before finishing the gunnels, I decided to add one more coat of epoxy to the inside.  I also added an ownership plaque to the bottom with two coats of varnish over it. It basically states the canoe was handcrafted by me, (seen in later photo) the date begun and the date completed, etc.  Should the canoe be stolen, it would be easy to identify and they would almost have to destroy the canoe to remove it.

          Fancy shenanigans!
April 4th, 05 --- Before installing the outer gunnels, I had to install both bow and stern decks since the screws from the gunnels were longer at the deck area and had to also hold the decks in place.  Since I wanted my dream canoe to be the best I could make it and different, I decided to add walnut burl decks. I could not find thick pieces without having to go to the bank for a loan they were so expensive. So after several discussions with people who knew wood well, I opted to go with veneer.  The good part of this was the weight saving. After several calls and e-mails and experimenting with veneer on several pieces I got the hang of it and went for it. To insure no water or moisture would get to it, I completely encased the upper deck in three thick layers of epoxy, and two underneath, sanding with 320 between coats, and 1200 on the final for a top glass finish. Since I had installed flotation cells, and they had to be enclosed also, I then built two 1/8" panels and also added walnut burl veneer to them. They were installed with brass screws with brass finishing washers as removable panels.

            Adding the inner and the outer gunnels. All must be clamped tightly since they are installed with epoxy to make water tight joints. This was to eliminate moisture later causing rot .

     Cutting the close celled flotation pods that are tight fitted and installed  in both bow and stern.  After checking for fit, each was well coated with epoxy and dried for a day.  Then recoated again and installed tightly in place. The idea here was to not only add flotation but to strengthen each end of the canoe considerably.

            Finished gunnels. Outer gunnels were epoxied and screwed with #10 Phillips head brass screws.  Large block of stern flotation can also be seen here.

     After finish sanding and going over the gunnels to make sure all was correct, I put my straps on the hull and pulled it in one inch to make the beam exactly 34", then I installed the bow thwart and also the yoke.  Bow thwart is contoured and made from ash, and the yoke is contoured cherry. I purchased the yoke ready made from Michael Vermouth at Newfound to save the time it would have taken me to make it.  Price was reasonable and all I had to do with it was to add four coats of varnish. After adding the yoke and the thwart I added the final coat of varnish, before adding the seat.  I had already added the supports for the seat with strong rails and epoxy.  FYI - in case you do not know, epoxy must be attached directly to the wood . . . . it will not hold over varnish.

     View of the solid seat installation rails.      Cherry contoured yoke and seat.

  Overall view, seat, yoke, thwart.  Seat location was calculated at 24" aft of the centerline of canoe by using the weight of my dog, his special deck, and the misc. items stored under his deck, plus extra water.  It turned out to right on the money.   On the test run, she sat about 3/4 to1" high in the front when I got her loaded (with me and gear weight in) at our local river. Exactly where I like it. On this test run, I actually used a lot of my camping gear and what was not taken, I calculated the weight and where it would go and used full gallon water jugs and concrete blocks to simulate trip weight.

     Rusty's special deck required strong supports. He weighs about 80 lbs.  Each side has 4 healthy supports epoxied in place (before varnishing) with stops at the rear to keep it from moving.

     To make the deck light but strong, I used two 1/8" pieces of plywood with plenty of epoxy bonding them. Far lighter than the old 1/2' ply I used for him in my Mohawk. The outdoor carpet also was given a healthy coat of contact cement. The deck is light and strong.  Rusty's a rather large old dog.  When I made my test paddle at our local river, I saw that his rear was too close to the back edge so I added an extra 4", (that's why the rear access hole is too far forward) He has to sit up there for a long day of paddling and I wanted to make sure he's comfortable. (I also add a soft pad when on long paddles)
My next project will be to come up with some sort of shading for him that won't catch wind. Sitting up there in the hot sun all day was hard on him on my maiden voyage. Like me, he's getting old.

     The deck was installed to allow plenty of storage under it for his food and lifejacket, extra propane tanks, small axe, machete, or tarp and any other misc. items needed, depending on how long of a trip. Very handy to stuff a lot of small items so as not to have too much clutter.

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