New canoe in the works.

[Dave Wermuth]

Hopefully this is of interest. I've been working on a new canoe the last couple weeks. I recently completed a 16' "Pond Hawk" (Dan Miller form) and have delivered it as a gift. This is a solo canoe 14.5' long and 32" wide. I started with an 18' Penn Yan guide basket case. I took the lines and built a form and one canoe. Ferdy and I paddled it in Quetico a few times. Then I cut the form down to make a solo canoe and this is the second canoe off the form. My helper is especially good at finding the tacks that I drop. With any luck I will be canvassing this one at the Quiet adventure symposium on March 2nd at MSU pavilion. Michael, my 7 year old grandson and I will be exhibiting again this year. I will be using the hand stretch and right side up method of canvassing that has been working well for me lately.

 

[patrick corry]

Yes, very interested. I'll be building in earnest once my unheated barn workshop temperatures rise in the Spring. Yesterday I installed spruce inwales on which I had spent significant time milling and end-tapering... but one broke at the start of the upsweep to the stem! There was some innocuous looking grain irregularity, not a knot, but apparently enough to fail under strain. Very frustrating since now I'll have to start over and the replacement will come from a different board and may not match the appearance of the good inwale! Might have to make two from a new board in case.

I'm curious about planking. I see lots of canoes that require a "gore" plank after the garboard plank like yours. I assume there's no weakness in this approach, but I am wondering why builders don't move the second plank a bit and spile the ends to fit against the garboard without the gore plank needed. Not a criticism... just curiosity since I'll probably be facing this in the future.

Edit: Here are pictures of three sides of that "innocuous grain irregularity". On closer inspection it was a little worse than I thought! In fairness, my barn workshop is poorly lit. Maybe that's why I let it get past me....

And, the successful other side!

 

[Gil Cramer]

Dave
Glad to hear that you will be @QWS, oops, QAS. Do you have any videos of using your canvassing technique?

 

[Dave Wermuth]

Gil, I do not have video but it's the same way you stretch by hand except once it's stretched I flip it right side up and Try not to drop anything between the canoe and the canvas. Easy on the knees. I leave about 24-30 inches undone at the end until after fastening up the stems. Then when I pull up to fasten the last little bit I don't have any trampoline effect if there is a bit of hollow in the hull. Works for me. Patrick, I think there would be more waste of wood and time if I tried to fit the second plank to the first. And filling in that sliver is pretty easy to do.

 

[patrick corry]

I think there would be more waste of wood and time if I tried to fit the second plank to the first. And filling in that sliver is pretty easy to do.

What about the tiny sharp point of the sliver? Does that land on a rib, and do you glue the last bit beyond the last tack(s)? Thanks for your reply. Pat

 

[Benson Gray]

I'm curious about planking.

The pictures a the link below may interest you. Different manufacturers have used a broad variety of different planking patterns over the years so this problem can have a variety of solutions.

Benson

Planking patterns?

I have been collecting some pictures of planking patterns from canoes recently and it appears that this could be another good identification clue. Many other people have suggested this in the past so it might be helpful to have several known examples in one place for comparison and discussion...

forums.wcha.org

 

[Dave Wermuth]

Patrick. Yes it needs to be on a rib. It could have the tip anywhere I suppose but being on a rib with a tack to hold it seems best