Gil Cramer
The wooden canoe Shop, Inc.
Sometimes good looking wood simply breaks just to frustrate the bender.
What went wrong?
- Thread starter patrick corry
- Start date
I'm not a builder so I don't know if it would be different for wood/canvas stems vs. stripper stems, but here is Nick Schade demonstrating how he bends laminated stems.
OP
OP
patrick corry
solo canoeist
Life got in the way, so it took some time for round 2! Much better result this time. I could still get to bending faster, and there was a snafu with the compression strap at the end (conflict with form length) but overall the result seems good. This time I ripped the 7/8"x1 7/8" blank into two pieces 7/8" square, and bent with the grain oriented as quarter sawn rather than flat sawn.
You may have to restart the video to see the beginning.
You may have to restart the video to see the beginning.
MGC
Scrapmaker
Bravo...
I use wedges to jam the piece in place as I form it. Then I go back with clamps. It looks like your form was made to use exactly as I use mine. The wedges are a much faster way to hold the piece in place and especially if you are working solo.
Here is a very crude single use form I made for bending torpedo stems for a repair. You can see the wedges jammed in place securing the cherry outside stems. I use quick release bar clamps because they are quicker to tighten than C clamps.
Note, I only bent one stem at a time because I had to change the shape of the form for the second end of the boat. Interestingly, even though the canoe appeared to be symmetrical, the ends were not the same inside or out. The decks were also quite different although it's not something that your eye would ever detect.
I use wedges to jam the piece in place as I form it. Then I go back with clamps. It looks like your form was made to use exactly as I use mine. The wedges are a much faster way to hold the piece in place and especially if you are working solo.
Here is a very crude single use form I made for bending torpedo stems for a repair. You can see the wedges jammed in place securing the cherry outside stems. I use quick release bar clamps because they are quicker to tighten than C clamps.
Note, I only bent one stem at a time because I had to change the shape of the form for the second end of the boat. Interestingly, even though the canoe appeared to be symmetrical, the ends were not the same inside or out. The decks were also quite different although it's not something that your eye would ever detect.
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This is not unusual. The canoe in my avatar has outside stems and I'm sure that the inside and outside stems on both ends originally came off the same set of forms in 1936. The restoration occurred about seventy years later. Different forms were required for the outside stems to get a good fit since the inside stems on each end had slightly different curves by then. Your mileage may vary...
Benson
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MGC
Scrapmaker
Thanks Benson...Yes....I suspect that is not all that unusual. The canoe I was working on was (I think) built on a standard 15 foot Rushton style form but with torpedo stems fitted to achieve the unusual 15 1/2 foot overall length. The person who did this (Brown) hand fit the decks. The widths, coaming radii, lengths were all slightly different dimensionally even though they appeared to be identical to the naked eye. When I formed the coamings I also had to make two completely different forms.
In the case of your WP, the hull probably started out pretty fairly symmetrical. The torpedo Brown was probably a one of or if not, one of a few. I suspect the production methods were not as refined.
Mike
In the case of your WP, the hull probably started out pretty fairly symmetrical. The torpedo Brown was probably a one of or if not, one of a few. I suspect the production methods were not as refined.
Mike
