Another Strickland UK

[cwf]

Hello, another new member, who's finally got enough time to get to grips with the bright ideas of his youth. My Strickland has been sitting in the garage for 35 years and seems fairly complete, the main problems

being a 6" hole, carefully fibreglassed, numerous cracked ribs and 2 large, rough bilge strakes. The canoe is 28 1/2" or 31" from the outwales and 14' 7" long.

So, I've spent some time scaping the inside. I then started on the hole and realised that, to remove the ribs I'd have to remove the inwale. Unfortunately that had been attached with mild steel screws and the heads had rusted. I finally found a small disc cutting wheel large enough (50mm) to cut the screw heads off from underneath, in the hope that I could then remove the inwale and expose the tops of the ribs. No luck, the screw shanks were rusted and were still holding the wood.

Then I made a hollow drill to clear the wood around the shanks, fairly hard steel required. One inwale came off fairly easily, the other needed more drilling. Most of the screws then had to be cut as they were too weak or too rusted in. I could now remove ribs and work out how much shiplap cedar was needed.

In the 3rd photo, I have marked with red tape where I think I should cut. I've come across one scarf joint, 45 degrees and positioned under a rib, so the three nails fastening the joint also go through the rib. Do you seasoned repairers feel I've allowed enough new material, spread out enough?

Also, there is a kelson and I'm fairly sure the ribs originally continued underneath. I was planning to replace just half the total length of rib, so I need to remove some of the old rib under the kelson (there is a further nail through rib and kelson). Is there an accepted method?

Many thanks for any suggestions,

Charlie.

 

[John Sand]

Welcome aboard!
Beautiful boat. In traditional boat building, plank butts should be separated by three plank or three frames. I'm not sure at all if that applies to glued scarfs. Certainly someone more experienced with canoes will chime in. Removing old fastenings can be very difficult. I've tried several methods and finally settled on drilling off the heads and pulling the shank out with needle nose pliers, but those were bronze screws. Good luck, keep us posted.

 

[samb]

Hi Charlie,
That looks like a very nice boat with the wide inwales.
I would make sure you sort out the ribs before the planks so you can be sure to get them the shape they should be. On a similar job, I used easily available European oak for ribs (which continue under the keelson). I obviously haven't seen the boat, but I might think about keeping the stubs of ribs that poke out from the keelson and sistering up your new half ribs against them. You can sort of see what I mean here
https://canoeguybc.wordpress.com/tag/raised-batten/

This would mean you don't have a weak line where the new ribs meet the keelson..
I have a possible job coming up which will involve the same rib repairs so will follow this with interest.
Sam

 

[cwf]

Hello John, I was told that butts should be well separated, and also that scarphs should be a much lesser angle than the 45 degrees I've found here, so maybe cedar strip canoes are different.

and hello Sam. I've been talking to Mark Edwards at Richmond Bridge, west London, who has a huge boat-building experience and he says he replaces only half a rib. The weakness will be under the keelson, so probably lessened. Incidentally, I have a number of rock elm planks, a few of which have been shaped to 3/8th half-round. Mark said they would probably be very hard by now, 25 years after I bought them and they were quite old then. He suggested 2 days soaking followed by a few hours steaming before fitting and nailing. There will be less of a bend than in your (I presume) photos. I offered some of the planks to Mark but there are some spare, if you need. I'm in Hammersmith.

Thanks for the feedback both of you, Charlie.