Installing Seats

[ibefishin]

I'm just finishing my first 15 foot cedar strip canoe and have delayed installing seats. I built a stapleless canoe to avoid holes and have no screws or hardware anywhere on the canoe. Now I'm having difficulty accepting the conventional method of hanging seats on bolts with spacer dowels. This means drilling a hole through my perfect gunnels and inserting an ugly bolt. Plus, it seems to me that this method would give some fore/aft sway to the seat just hanging from the gunnel. There must be a better method.

I am now considering wood cleats epoxied to the sides of the canoe with the seat arms then epoxied to the support cleats.

Has anyone tried this or have a better method of installing seats?

 

[Greg Nolan]

seats

Placing seats on stringers or cleats is fairly common in traditional boat/canoe construction. In such cases the seats often become structural elements, serving the same role as thwarts -- hence the use of braces running from the seats to the gunwales -- to provide outward bracing for the gunwales.

In traditional construction, the cleats and/or stringers are usually fastened from the outside, through the hull (and ribs, if any).

I have no experience with gluing things to a cured epoxy/fiberglass surface, but from what I've read, if the gluing surfaces are carefully and properly prepared, I would think glued-in cleats would work well to support a seat.

 

[Greg Nolan]

stringers

Also, see post # 34 of this thread --

http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?t=5797&page=4

 

[Dan Lindberg]

I hung my seats on my 1st stripper,
and glued cleats on for my 2ed.

The 3rd will also be hung, but with SS hardware.
I feel that I can save a small bit of weight by hanging them vs cleats. BTW, if you hang them, use the smallest fastener you can to avoid large holes in the gunwales.

IMO, either method has it's drawbacks.

With the glued cleats, the seat becomes structural, and with most of the rest of the canoe "moving", I believe that it puts more stress on the seat joint, and eventually will fail either the joint or the cleat to hull bond.

With the hanging method, you have to support the seat for the lateral forces, as the verticle bolts don't. Side to side is easy, just put a lump of silicone between the seat and hull. Fore and aft, add a cross brace. For my 1st, I used a 1 piece dropper, that spanned the ft and rear bolt on each side, with the appropreate material removed for lightening. But that was heavier and a pain in the butt. It looked nice though.

Also, you didn't ask but, as you build more, you'll learn that glueing the gunwales on is a mistake, as often you would like/or they need, removing, and cutting them off with a saw is a real pain.

Oh, and pics, we need pics here of canoes to drool over.

Dan