Still Laying up Strips

After about a week or so of finding an hour or two here and there I am getting close to reaching the transition point of laying strips vertically to horizontally, I will let you know how goes later.  But here are a few pics of what has been done so far.

Cutting strips and routering beads and coves

Opps forgot to mention buying some white pine and then ripping it into 1/4 inch strips.  Then these were routered to have beads and coves on each strip.

 

Templates Completed

Well my thoughts about the oscillating speed of the jigsaw was correct.  I reset the oscillation to 1 and the speed to 1, only to slowly increase the speed to 3 and this allowed me to more accurately.  I cut slightly outside the line to ensure that I could later fair everything up with the rasp.  Here are some of the forms after being cut out.

Once cut I clamped the matching pairs together and then fared them up with the rasp, only later to clamp them all together a paired set at a time to ensure that they were all flush.

Once these were done to what I thought was as accurately as i could make them I double checked them to the original template printout and they were good.  So on to setting them up on the strongback.  I did this and did not have the camera with me, so what you see below is after I had them mounted and centered with a line from the 1st and 11th template I installed the others.  Then came the forming of the stems with the rasp, which took some elbow grease and liquid refreshments.  Then they too were installed on the strongback, and when they were I then leveled all the templates and ran a temporary wooden strip along the top.  What you see below is the forms taped and the first strip to get a idea of the sheer line of the canoe.

Then I started to add the first sheer strip that was screwed to the templates, with the new strips added being glued together and stapled to the templates.

Tracing out station templates

Trying to take it easy today, but thought I would clean up and organize the garage to get ready for the next step.  I picked up a couple of pieces of plywood for the station templates, previously I traced out the stations into paper and bristle board paper and today I stated to transfer this to the plywood.  I started by ripping the plywood in half to create four 2 foot by 8 foot pieces.  Then using the square to ensure that the center line of the templates would be the center I copied the station images onto plywood.  Now I need to double them up before cutting to make them uniform.  I tried to cut out station 1 and 11 when I screwed two pieces of plywood together using the jigsaw.  This did not go as well as I hoped, I think that the speed on the saw was too high and I buggered it up.  So I them proceeded to bugger up the center station number 6, which may come back to haunt me when I need to buy another piece of plywood to finance that mistake.

Now I have to test out the variable speed idea on the jigsaw before trying to ruin another perfectly good station.  Let you know how this goes, if it appears problematic i will have to take the plywood somewhere that I can access a bandsaw.  I am going to call it a day..

3rd Post Strong back has been built

Well it has been a hell of a long time since my last post.  Finally I took the two planks that I made  down from the shelf.  Having decided that i would not be making anything longer that a 19 foot canoe the planks that I had made 18 feet long I shortened to 17 feet.

Gil suggested that a cross brace could be added to prevent warping.  I decided to cut 15 3/16 inch cross braces out of a piece of 2x6 and inserted them at 34 inch intervals between the two planks.  This allowed me to clamp the planks together as I went to make sure that they were 18 inches wide on the outside the entire length of the strong back.  I had previously cut the supports for the forms at 18 inches wide, but when I measured them out at 18 inch spacing I did so from the end of the planks.  This meant that I had very little end of which to mount one of the end pieces of the forms.  Therefore, I unscrewed the 2x4s and then found the center of the planks and worked from there making sure that the 18 inch spacing was correct.

I will take a couple of pictures the next time I am out in the garage to show you the strong back.  Then I will have to pick up some plywood to start drawing out the forms before getting them ready to cut.

Cheers until next time, hopefully not such a long delay between inspiration this time.

2nd Post: Gilpatrtarick's Book and Getting Started

Here is the Gil Gilpatrick's Book Building a Strip Canoe.  I hope to build something along the lines of what appears on the cover of the book, but I may have to use Pine because it is more readily available.

Cutting the 1/2 inch plywood into 5 1/2 inch wide x 8 food long pieces.

Oh, forgot to show you the saw horses that will be used to support the Strong Back once it is built.

Once the plywood was cut into the 5 1/2 wide pieces I cut one in half to make two four foot pieces, another two I cut into a 6 foot and a 2 foot piece.  To get an 18 foot long strong back I first placed an eight foot piece of plywood, then another 8 foot piece butted up against it and finally a 2 foot piece butted against that one.  Then I used glue and 2/3 inch screws to bond a 4 foot piece to the first 8 foot piece I referred to, then butted an 8 foot piece to that 4 foot piece, and then finally butted a 6 foot piece to that one.  Once done, I had staggered joints along an 18 foot long doubled layered section of one of the sides of my strong back.  Then I added a third layer on the first two, once again staggering the joints, but this time using 1 inch screws to held hold the glued plywood pieces together.  That meant that once all three layers of one side of the strong back has been glued and screwed together, I had built a 1 1/2 x 5 1/2 (2 x 6) solid piece of planking.  Make sure that as you glue and screw each piece in place that you make sure that it is flush on each side to ensure that the plank runs straight and true.

Here is a close up of the 2 foot piece of plywood that I staggered joined at the end of the 18 foot long section
.

Above is the 4 foot plywood piece that was glued first on the opposite end of the same 18 foot section.

As mentioned above I then glued and screwed a third layer to these, also making sure to stagger the joints.

Above you can see the three layered 2 x 6 plank on its end,  also below is a close up of the triple layer that makes up the plank.

Now have to do that one more time to get the second plank ready.

Getting Started...Saw Horses and Strong Back

Since moving back to Newfoundland, and finally getting a garage built, I wanted to embark on attempting to build a canoe.  I discovered Gil Gilpatrick's book on canoe building when looking through books at the library, gave it a read out of interest.  So come hell or high water, I thought I give it a go, and if it is high water I hope the bloody thing floats.

So far, I have gotten a couple of saw horses built, nothing fancy just good sturdy saw horses.  Yesterday I began to rip 1/2 inch plywood into 5 1/2 inch wide 8 foot lengths to get ready to glue and secure together to make the forms for a 18 foot strong back.  So off to the garage on a rainy day in March.  I am hoping to get this done soon because I have to then clean up the shop to get my motorcycles out and serviced prior to the arrival of spring and May 24 weekend.

I will keep you posted and provide images of how things are going once I down load a them from my camera.