The first strip goes on... (aka: starting to look like a boat!)

I've been busy working on the canoe, but due partly to a problem with the batteries in the camera, and partly to a flair up of my depression, I haven't been posting in a while. So, for those of you who have been anxiously awaiting an update, here it is!

This last week has been spent setting up the forms for the canoe, which give the boat it's final shape. Now that the forms are up, I have started putting the 3/16" x 5/8" strips on the forms, glueing them together and clamping them over the forms. These strips will make up the core of a fiberglass - wood - fiberglass sandwich to keep the canoe watertight, light but strong, and mildly flexible. Since taking this picture, I've got a couple more inches of strips on either side, and will soon have some pretty accent strips on, too.

Before I could start putting the strips on the forms, I had to carve the inner stem on each end with the spokeshave that my lovely wife gave me for my birthday last year to match the angle of the strips as they came off the forms. I got the stems just a little to sharp, though. They should have an 1/8" between the two angled side, but this should work anyway.

All of the strips were cut from 16' long boards of cedar and then a bead was routered on one side and a cove the other side. More on this later. Thanks to my wife, Sarah for helping me to rip those boards into strips on my old table saw. I could see her watching to make sure I kept my thumbs away from the blade, since I managed to cut the tip of one off a couple months back. Thanks to my buddy Scott for giving up an afternoon to help me run all those strips through the router. Twice.

In addition to getting all the cedar strips prepared, I've also been working on a few other bench projects. I'm doing them now, rather than letting the boat sit in garage, almost complete, while I do all the final projects necessary to put it in the water. One of these projects was to carve the thwart out of a nice piece of cherry that I got on a tip from my second cousins in Colorado Springs (Thanks Don and Linda!). The thwart is the brace that goes across the center of the canoe, holding the two sides apart and adding some strength and stiffness to the boat. I used cherry for a couple of reasons: it's fairly light, fairly gouge resistant, and VERY beautiful! I carved this thwart with a yoke in it to allow me to flip the canoe upside down and carry it alone for short distances, from the car to the lake, for instance. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! Working with a nice, sharp spokeshave is an intensely gratifying experience!

Anyhoo, that's not all I've been doing, but that's all I have time to write about for now. Thanx for hanging in there until I could get back to posting here!