Building a Canoe- Making the Frame

At the end of my last post, I wrote, “With any luck I’ll have a mostly framed canoe by Tuesday morning.” Wow, that was so incredibly optimistic. I learned this week that building a canoe is a marathon. Hopefully I’ve shed all time goals.

There was a bit of a time press this past week. Mike and I had cut the ribs. They needed to be bent before they dried out. But first mortises had to be cut into the gunwales. Stems needed to be built. Those cut ribs needed to be prepped. Tests needed to be made. First, the mortises.

The nice lady at Harbor Freight pointed me to the plunge routers. Seventy-five dollars later, I own one. I took it home, read the manual, watched some youtube videos, and proceeded to teach myself to use the beast with an ancient and warped 2×4. Then I built the mortise jig, put it on the router, and attacked the poor 2×4 again.

The results were not pretty. I couldn’t see my cut lines. I was trying to cut too deep. I removed some parts from the router so I could see, and made shallower cuts, then the deeper ones. Next thing, I’m cutting mortises in my gunwales. While not perfect, currently they are full of canoe ribs, so I guess they were good enough.

Cutting the mortises into the gunwales.

The gunwale mortise-cutting jig.

I needed a table saw, to make spreaders, to prep the ribs, maybe to make the stems. For the price of two day’s rental, Home Depot would sell me one. It’s in my office. I move it to my work area every day with a little garden cart.

I used the table saw to make the spreaders. The center spreader was installed between the gunwales, and then the capture forms pinched the ends together. When I saw the shape of the canoe come together for the first time, a well of emotion engulfed me. I had to fight back tears! It was a short, but powerful, moment. Now, get back to work, John.

The appearance of this simple shape provoked a powerful emotional response.

The stems took me a full day and part of another, as well as three boards. Let’s say I made some grievous errors, and some minor ones that were just as useful at making the stems unusable. With the help of the table saw and a half-dozen stems-worth of trial and error, they finally got installed. So did the keel, with much less trouble.

These joints should fit tightly. Try it again!

Needless to say, Tuesday had come and gone and there was no nearly framed canoe. Yet.

Brian Schultz at Cape Falcon Kayak spends a lot of video time explaining steamed wood-bending technique. There’s nothing like actually doing it, though. For a goober like me, bending oak is way harder than Brian makes it look. I broke several ribs just trying to learn how to bend them, and several more getting the test ribs in the boat. There was quite a bit of Brian Schultz texting going on through all this, too.

Wrestling with ribs.

Friday was rib bending day. The intention was to fill all those mortises. Every single rib was a wrestling match. Several mortises were split. Many ribs were broken. When I was finished, the boat looked like a chimpanzee had done the work, and I only had two pieces of rib stock left. Many texts to Brian were exchanged, with photos. He suggested I remove the most offending ribs and re-steam and re-install them. Brian, thank you so much for your help!

Cracked mortise. Clamps and glue fixed it right up.

Reinforcing the mortises with clamps.

Does this look professional?

I re-steamed half the ribs in the boat. They were still not perfect, but as good as I thought I could make them.

Does this look symmetrical?

I clamped the stringers on.

Does this look like it’s going to be a canoe?

It was a long and tiring day.

The boat shaping, and the rocker, are undoubtedly going to need more work. But, I have a have a mostly framed canoe.

Even though I’m building a canoe, I just may go fishing next week.

Every day is a blessing. Don’t waste it- Go fishing! Go paddling! Take a walk! Stay active!

John Kumiski
www.johnkumiski.com
www.spottedtail.com
www.spottedtail.com/blog

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