Building a Wood Strip Canoe |
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by Seth Recarde |
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Now I'd been wanting to build a wood strip canoe or kayak for many years...too many. So I decided to go poke around the woodpile and see if I could get out on the water this summer in something better than that ancient blue plastic monster laying out by the shed (bruised & battered from years of rocky creeks ...and recently run over by our skid-loader while cleaning up the nearby timber pile...).
I found some clear (straight-grained & knot free) Douglas Fir boards left over from a batch of curved beams we'd fabricated last year. Perfect...air-dried and free! Back in the book again, I settled on the 16' "Chestnut Prospector" model. The Chestnut Canoe Company described it as "the workhorse of the north"...having the capacity to carry heavy loads and maneuver easily through whitewater and wilderness. A 2 person, large volume tripping canoe with a flattened, shallow arch hull that would also make it great to paddle in the leaned solo position. I could already see myself taking a month off (or 2...or 6...), loading it up with gear, and floating my way through some wild & trackless northern lake country. Perfect...after some tweaking of the design... I spent a few hours drawing with my CAD software, made some modifications to the lines and contours, and printed my plans along with full size templates for the station forms. In honor of the original design, I named it the "Nut Miner"...time to make some sawdust!
The following sections show my progress as I saw, strip, sand, fiberglass, and epoxy my way to a finished boat. Unfortunately, I didn't think to grab the camera until I had all the forms assembled, strips cut, inner stems glued, and had my first wood strip in place...so the pictures start there. |
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Wood Strip Boat Construction in a Nutshell |
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Here's the basic idea: Thin wood strips (1/4"x3/4") are bent over a set of hull forms, glued along their edges, and stapled in place. The end stems (at bow & stern) are laminated in place after the hull is completely stripped. The staples are removed, the surface planed fair (down to smooth curves), and sanded. A layer of light fiberglass cloth (4 to 6 oz.) is applied to the hull in a clear epoxy resin, then covered with 2 or 3 more layers of epoxy resin. The fiberglass cloth turns clear when 'wetted' by the resin, showing the wood core below. A layer of cloth/resin on both the inside & outside of the wood core results in a very strong, light, and beautiful boat. (Lighter than ABS plastic and full fiberglass hulls) The 'furniture' is installed (yoke, thwarts, gunwales, seats, etc) along with the end decks. A final fine sanding of everything is followed by 5-10 coats of marine varnish. Then you put it in the water and paddle away. Estimated time: 100 to 300+ Hours (This ain't a weekend project...) |
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The Hull Forms and Wood Strips |
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Click to see a PDF version of the plans
