Repaired 11/17/07
First two photos show what -- second two show
how. Before I completed building the hull, I was
concerned that the bow
and stern needed plenty of strength to hold the canoe well on my canoe rack
while traveling at speeds of 70 MPH. After much pondering, I decided to go
for the max. Knowing
I intended to add a hole through the bow and stern
for painters, I cut and taper fitted a solid block of
Popular 6" long and
epoxied it tight against the stems and hull, the top being 1" below the
decks.
(That's why the flotation blocks in flotation photo have a notch in the narrow end)
Before I drilled the holes, I searched the Net, and local marine
suppliers for small brass marine port covers.
Ordered some from a
supplier on the Net but they were way too small. NONE
to be had anywhere
of what I wanted. Fortunately, after giving up searching
for several days, I went back to the oldest
marine
supplier in our area (65 years in business) looking for a suitable alternate.
Luckily, one of the
older gentlemen who had been with the company for over 30
years was on duty. I told him what I was
looking for and he also said they
didn't have anything like that. I asked for anything that would work
as an
alternate. "No. . . can't think of a thing" he said. Then, as I was about to
leave, he said, "wait, would
this work?" And pulled out a dusty drawer from
under his counter . . . . WALLA -- They were perfect.
I had been asking
for marine hardware and they are not marine. . . what I
needed was what he had. They
are 3/4" solid brass eyes for heavy duty
tarps. Being that they are heavy solid brass, they polished up
great. I
took a file and added a lot rough groves to the inside for epoxy purchase, and
drilled my holes
.002 over the size of the tube part, requiring they be almost
driven in. After beveling the edges and saturating
both the eye and
the hole well with epoxy (with lots
of Cab-o-sil) I used a heavy rubber mallet and tapered
wooden spike to force
them tight to the hull. With the setup above, obviously,
you can only work one at a time.
I allowed each one to setup (epoxy harden)
for a full 24 hours before removing the weighted retainer.
You probably improve on this, but I have no doubts it is far strong
enough to hold the canoe extremely
well even under extreme loading.
Probably good for more than a 400% safety factor.
FINALLY - Out of the
shop on April 26th of 2005
Began on January 10th of 04 - 1 Year - 4 months - 16 days. However,
I have several excuses, (Grin)
no woodworking experience what-so-ever, a disabled wife, (I run all the errands)
4 very large
dogs,
house and yard chores, and 3 major hurricanes in
Florida, guess I won't complain. (I ran
out of excuses) -- Big Grin! If you have any woodworking experience at all
you probably could do it in
half that time and better than I.
Stern view - Bottom
Inside
My faithful paddling and camping companion, 10 year old Rusty,
checks out his new private
deck. He's itching to go to the river almost as much as I am.
Tools
May be boring reading but hopefully you'll find something useful here.
Remember, I do not represent myself as being an expert on woodworking.
Left row, all three of these you will use a lot. Right row are common shop items
that you
will also use a lot.
Bottom Left - is the best type of spoke shaver you can use. It has dual
adjustments to vary blade cut.
Center Left - A small 7" easily adjustable wood plane.
Top Left - A small 3.5" wood plane. I bought it as a collectors item for my old
tool plane collection. Never
thought
I would ever actually use it. On this project, I discovered how handy it was.
Used it quite a bit.
Keep those blades razor sharp!
These I found to be Most useful. The orbital
sander is a must. Cuts sanding time in half . . . and the
3/4" "Hook-it" rubber adapter is also a MUST. Though I purchased a B&Decker,
and it did the job, I found it to
not live up to their dust collecting claims. I had tons of dust all over
everything in the shop. Next time, I would get the
Porta-Cable model. The common coping saw I used more than any
of the other tools. (fine tooth) I found it far better and
faster than a hack saw, for working with cedar. When working on the inside, the
large wood chisel was handy at times
popping off the hard glue heads where other tools would not go
but the tool I discovered to make short work of getting
rid of the hardened glue
drips and also occasionally scraping the strips to even them up, is the small tool
at the center of
the coping saw. Info on
this tool below. When doing close cutting of the
strips for a tight fit, the Japanese type hobby shop
fine tooth saw is
extremely useful. It allows you to get very fine and accurate
cuts in tight areas. The sanding blocks
complement this saw (especially the long
one) by allowing you to remove a thousandth
or so of material not possible to saw.
(Yes, I know! Any dummy
should know that . . . grin) I'm just trying to cover
everything for those who may not. Grin again.
Sanding blocks of various shapes and sizes and different grits paper are helpful.
Shown from the top (You KNOW what sandpaper looks like) Though I made
more, with
different grits, these just give
you some ideas. The round blue one at the top came is handy working on the
inside. It is a piece
of kid's "tubie" water toy, the 5' long
toys kids play with around the pool. I made two of these and used old (but good)
broken belt
sander strips cut to length and
wrapped around the tubie, cemented well with contact cement and held on with strong
nylon
strapping tape for a couple days. Contact cement held fine when the tape was
removed. For contoured surfaces it worked extremely well. First one to the left, only needed for the bow
painter hole.
It is a 1/2" round sanding spindle for
a Craftsman orbiting sander. I discovered it fit perfectly over a small foam
paintbrush handle.
The one next to it I made only 3/4" wide with course grit for places places
needing a lot of material removed fast.
Others are common items.
For making certain the bottom is true and fair,
I found this to be necessary. It's a long sanding board 2 3/4" wide and 28
1/2" long. (Use whatever works best for you) It
eliminates the slight highs and lows, you might get from the stations,
glass and epoxy. The sanding strips can be purchased in
most grits from places who supply body shops. They come in this width and 17
1/2" lengths. I used only 100 grit. Michael at
Newfound Boats, uses a very flexible board for this but I was never able to find
anything that would work well enough for this.
When using this type tool, be very careful and make certain you do NOT
sand into the glass. THAT comes from all the experts I
discussed this with.
The oddball tool
It turned out to be the MOST useful tool of all, in cleaning up the inside of
the canoe. After working my fanny off
trying all sorts of different tools, I hit on this idea, made one, and it saved
my day. It is a weirdo. But worked better than
anything else. I took a 14" flat Nicholson file which had seen better days, and
broke off a large section. Ground down the
sides, and sharpened one edge. Needing some sort of handle, I decided on two 2"
- "C" clamps. I lucked out. The "C" clamps
angle when the ends were touching the wood also, (Note the masking tape) created
the perfect angle to make superb healthy
scrapes easily removing either glue or wood as easy as if it were a plane. Also
note the ends of the sharp edge are slightly
rounded to prevent gouging.
Last item -
Safety
I'm certain 90% of the readers already know this
but for that other 10%, remember this.
1. When working with more epoxy
than a spoon full, you should
always wear an approved protective eye goggles and breathing apparatus.
Especially so when working with any amount of Cab-o-sil which can
be
damaging to both your eyes and your lungs. It is so fine it floats in the
air
like super fine talcum. You do NOT want to breath this stuff.
2. Working with any
epoxy, or any type chemicals, always wear latex gloves.
3. Always make sure
you have good ventilation when working with the
above or any type chemicals.
I hope this has been of some help, you picked up a useful idea or
two,
and didn't get too bored.
I'm well aware that I get carried away at times and am too verbose.
Sorry about that!
"Go 'Gators"
Bill Logan
Ancient Webmaster
Should you care to see the photo documentary
of the one week maiden voyage
on the beautiful Suwannee River,
Double click
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