Seats.

Finally settled on a seat design.

34mm square pine stock. Edges rounded over on the router table, and then a vee-groove routed into the pine.

6mm marine ply for the spreaders, with no stiffening since the rails will be screwed to the boat.

The the ply was chamfered with a plane, and then filleted to the rails with thickened epoxy.

Closed-cell foam will finish the surface off, and provide padding for my bum, once the seat's been varnished.

Paint, paint, paint

The Christmas Hiatus is past, the weather is slightly better. This means there's been time for two coats of marine undercoat , followed by one coat of light blue gloss. Just got to leave her now for it to harden off.

Paddles

The "sugar island" paddle blank, with the carving guides set using spray paint.

The blade is roughed down to 3/8" with a smoothing plane, then contoured using a spoke shave and finished off with a cabinet scraper and sandpaper on a long board.









The grip was "carved" using a belt sander.















And the finished item waiting for a glass-fibre reinforced tip and varnish.

Varnish

Inside of the hull now varnished.

The first varnish

Finally managed to get the first coat of varnish down on the inside of the hull.

The Costs

Supplier	Details	Category	Cost
Fyne Boat Kits	Instruction Manual and plans	Canoe	£ 53.50
Fyne Boat Kits	6kg Epoxy, glass mat, glass tape, colloidal silica, wood flour, brushes, undercoat, varnish, topcoat, mixing sticks	Canoe	£ 213.00
Force 4	Chandlery - A4 stainless steel M6 eyebolts, hatches, A4 stainless steel M4 socket head screws and nyloc nuts, A4 stainless steel bungee fixings	Canoe	£ 25.00
Boltemeup	A4 stainless steel screw M4 x 20	Canoe	£ 4.35
Boltemeup	A4 stainless M8 washers, nuts, beta pins	Trolley	£ 9.50
eBay	Golf trolley wheels 240mm	Trolley	£ 6.50
spares box	M8 A2 stainless threaded rod 1000mm	Trolley	£ -
spares box	Scrap ply for trolley	Trolley	£ -
Jewson	Piece of meranti for thwart	Canoe	£7.11
Jewson	2440x1220x6 BS1088 Marine Ply @16.50 plus delivery @12.5 + vat	Canoe	£ 90.28
Marsport	West System Epoxy 1.2kg pack	Canoe	£ 33.20
Axminster	West System Colloidal silica, pumps, syringes	Canoe	£ 33.48
Wickes	18x28 pine 10pk gunwales	Canoe	£ 8.40
Wickes	18x44 pine 2 off gunwales, rejected	Canoe	£ 4.10
Wickes	34x34 pine 1 off, seat rails	Canoe	£ 2.99
Wickes	34x34 pine 2 off, paddles handles	Paddle	£ 5.98
Wickes	18x144x2400, paddle blades	Paddle	£ 5.85
B&Q	Strip wood, paddle blades	Paddle	£ 4.28
B&Q	Varnish, paddles	Paddle	£ 5.98
Screwfix	Consumables - sanding sheets, masking tape, cable ties filling knife drill bits swarfega disposable gloves	Canoe	£ 31.69
B&Q	Sanding belts	Paddle	£ 7.68
Screwfix	Sanding belts	Canoe	£ 9.22
Toolbank	Gouges	Tools	£ 8.90
Screwfix	Spokeshaves	Tools	£ 28.51
B&Q	Jigsaw	Tools	£ 24.98
B&Q	Big cramp for paddle	Tools	£ 14.98
B&Q	Belt Sander	Tools	£ 19.98
Axminster	Cabinet Scraper	Tools	£ 4.83
Axminster	Marking gauge	Tools	£ 8.87
Axminster	Spring clamps	Tools	£ 7.96
Axminster	Curves (french, flexible)	Tools	£ 5.52
Axminster	Planes - set of 2 - block + smoothing	Tools	£ 28.61
Axminster	Big cramp for paddle	Tools	£ 10.00
	Grand Total		£725.23

Paddle Cad 2

I should have done this at the start. Having a full size smooth symmetrical plan of your paddle is the only way to do this.

So if my Ash ever turns up at the sawmill then I'll use these to make the some nice paddles.

Surface Fairing 2

Popped into the garage today, and checked out my surface filling from the other day. Where I'd used filler to cover blemishes, it sanded off totally smooth and perfect, to the extent I couldn't see or feel the edge of 100mm glass tape anymore.

I realise that I am going to have to do the same on the inside, which will take a couple of days. But, I like the idea of making the dimples and blemishes disappear, so it has to be done.

Paddle Cad

My paddle book has some measurements for a selection of paddle blades. The official method is to measure the elevations onto a piece of ply, then use a French curve to make a nice curvy shape. This gives the shape of half the paddle on the plywood. Cut the ply to get a half template, and then mark around the template onto the paddle blank twice to get the complete shape.

The trouble is, I found this wasn't very accurate, and my first paddle was slightly out because it was impossible to line up the template exactly symmetrical to the first side when marking out the second side.

(The image to the left has some pixellation which is why it doesn't look quite symmetrical, but printed full size, it is.)



Making a full template was slightly out too, because it was impossible to link up the marked-out points with the french curve accurately enough on the different sides of the template.

The solution was Turbo CAD.

This CAD package allowed me to mark out the template lines, and then link the ends of the template lines using a bezier or spline curve. Using the snap facility of the package, the curve is snapped to the ends of the template lines. The spline or Bezier algorithm gives the right shape. Because its a CAD package, it comes out perfectly symmetrical.

Print it out at 1:1 onto about 3 sheets of A4 and voila, a full size symetrical paddle template.

Hopefully this will translate to a symmetrical plywood template and a perfectly symmetrical paddle.

Surface fairing

This has to be the dullest part of the build. I spent a day sanding the hulll inside and out. Then I spent another day with the epoxy filler filling in everything that didn't seem flat, such as the slight dimples in the fibreglass bandage.

It was pretty neat sanding the decks though and grading them into the gunwales. She looks smooth and sweet now.

Should only take another hour to sand all the filler back and then I'll be ready to fit the seat bars and paint.

Paddle 2

This is the handle after shaping it first with the belt sander, then with sandpaper. I am impressed with it anyhow. I also don't know how I ever managed without a belt sander until now.

Paddle 1

This is the second paddle, composed from nine pieces of wood! Note the staples that stop the blades sliding when I tighten the cramps.

Seats part 1

The seats have been exercising me, but this is the solution I chose.

The wooden battens are 600mm long, and shaped to fit inside the hull. I'll screw and fillet them to the insides of the hull.

600mm allows me to vary the seat position fore and aft.

The glass reinforcement should stop the battens from splitting. The excess glass will be trimmed before fitting.

Details

I added a piece of 15mm copper pipe for the painter, and the M6 A4 stainless steel stud poking out of the bow will have a ring on it.

There's a wedge of wood glassed in behind the stud, and a nut on the end if it. Hopefully it will be strong enough.

The clamps are holding the deck in place while the glue dries.

Glassing my bottom

Next step is to glass the underside of the hull for strength and abrasion resistance.

I am rather pleased with the result.

The woven glass mat is easy enough to work with, using a mini paint roller, and working my way from one end to the other, it was easy enough to wet out the fabric and make a really neat job.

The excess mat will be cut off later.

Filleting & Taping

All the internal joints must be filleted.

The filleting material is epoxy resin mixed with wood flour (fine sawdust) and colloidal silica.

This forms an epoxy paste that in turns forms a rock solid joint in the hull.

Once the filleting epoxy has gone tacky, all the internal and external joints are taped with 100mm glass fibre tape set in epoxy. I found it easiest to paint some epoxy on, lay the tape in, then wet it out with the brush. All the crinkles disappear once you've completed the job. Marking a line 50mm from the joint helps give a neat edge to the tape.

Hull Assembly

Suddenly she looks like a canoe!

The hull is assembled using cable ties prior to filleting. The spirit levels ensure there is no twist in the hull.

Annoyingly the scarf joint on the starboard gunwhale near the bow has cracked and will need repairing.

4:1 scarf joints weren't enough.

Curved gouge chisel

This handy little chisel cost me less than £4.00. But you can use it to gouge out the convave surface on the hand grip of your paddle. Whacking it with a mallet does the job, but it cuts really neat little concave slivers and she's easy to control so you only take out as much wood as you want.

I've only used flat chisels before, and they wander all over the place and generally dive under the grain of the wood. Not this one though, easy to guide to get it just right.

2P4: Two part paddle practice piece

Plan to throw one away.

This is the prototype two part paddle. Square section pine epoxied to an 18mm board about a foot long. Also pleased because gluing the shaft to the blade seems to work just fine and is considerably cheaper than carving from a single piece.

Then used the prototype to make sure that I could successfully shape a blade according to the method in the paddles book.

It seems I can.

Gunwales Take 2

The new home brewed router table was in action today, rounding over another 12m of the 18x28 strip I'm using for the gunwales. Then scarf them and glue them.

Also made a smidgeon of progress on the paddle: glued the handle pieces on.

MkII Router Table

I don't claim originality for this, but here is the MKII router table, zero cost.

First off, make a new base for the router. I used a spare piece of 6mm ply. Remove the plastic "shoe" on the bottom of the base, and use this as a template for drilling the plywood. Attach the plywood base to the router instead of the original plastic one.

Set the router on the base into the workmate. On the right is the 4x2 used as a guide fence. Using a forstner bit (or a hole saw), cut out a semi circle in the fence to accommodate the router bit. On the left is the bit guard, that helps keep my fingers out, made from scraps of 2x1 and 32mm square timber. The piece is fed from the near end to the far end. In use, the fence will be set about an inch to the left of the position shown to guide the work over the correct part of the blade.

Size Matters.

Hmmm. Looking at those gunwales they look a bit wide to me. 18x44 (2x1) planed may not be the way to go after all. I only did it because I had a load left over from a project. Bit of a nuisance given the time to rout, scarf, glue, but as they taught me in scuba school, do it once, do it right.

I'll pop down to Wickes in my lunch break and see what else they have.

When Scarf Joints Attack!

The plans call for me to scarf together a three piece gunwale. I need 5 meters for each side, and want the joints on the gentlest curves, but I realise these pieces add up to about 6m each. My average sized garage wasn't up to the task, so I had to glue them in the dining room and kitchen.

Don't tell Mrs.

The router table

To make the gunwales, I needed to round over the edges of the 2x1. With nearly fifteen linear metres to do, a router table was called for.

Rather than spend eighty quid at Screwfix, the solution was to clamp the router in my workmate. The block on the left is the guide fence, and the block on the right is the safety fence to keep fingers away. The router power switch if held on with a clamp, and a circuit breaker allows me to turn it off and on easily.

Using a rounding over bit, the job was done in twenty minutes.

Scarf joints

I'd originally planned to use a router to make stepped joints because historically planes and me have not been friends, and I wasnt sure how to achieve a 1:8 slope. But when I tried it on a test piece, setting up for 5 cuts on each piece was going to take ages and had a high risk of inaccuracy because each cut is so close to the previous.


Then I realised that using a piece of 6mm ply set back 48mm from the top of the joint would generate a 1:8 slope when using a plane. So in the picture, the bottom piece is one part of the wood to be joined, the middle piece is the other part to be joined, and the top piece is my guide.



By planing forward from the guide, the joint is formed. You know it's ready because you see each of the 5 plies in the wood, they are all the same width and the lines are reasonably straight, and the top of the slope is at the marked point in the wood.


The chips in the guide piece are where I pulled the plane too far back and graunched the edge of the guide. When the nose of the plane is at the end of the wood, and the heel of it is resting on the guide, I now have a 1:8 slope.

Just 10 minutes work with a half decent plane.

Planes

My bad experiences with the Wickes plane that wouldn't plane properly due to the upside down blade, and with my electric plane randomly tearing chunks out the wood, and school woodwork lessons where it was impossible to get square and straight edges, has left me with a fear of planes.

But lots of the advice I got for making this boat said to "just plane it down." I read up on what planes do, and how, and bought these two puppies cheaply. One is a smoothing plane the other a block plane.

What a revelation! After honing in the 30 degree edge, these are beauties. All the pieces of my boat are now "faired to the line" and all the curves look really good. I was able quite simply to get a clean accurate edge.

I now love planes.

Clamps

The received wisdom is that you need a lot of clamps. I have four G clamps already, four screw clamps, and I bought this packet of ten from axminster.co.uk.

They are not wrong about clamps. I used 12 at one point over the weekend.

These spring clamps are extremely handy because they are so quick to use.

The first cut!

The project is officially underway, with the cutting and marking of the plywood.

The sides of the boat at less than 2ft high, so I cut the boards in half length ways to make it easier.

By clamping two pieces together, I could make all the side pieces identical.

Thicknessing Jig

Before I could start, I needed to thin my mahogany thwart piece by 3mm. I made this handy thicknessing jig for my router to do the job. Clamp the piece in the tray, set the height of the bit, then carefully slide the router back and forth whilst moving it along.

If I ever make one again, I'd make it longer though..the router can only move across about 10" of the piece being thinned.

My router book said to use a dish carving bit, but I haven't got one, so I just used a worktop bit. Its OK, but at 12mm diameter you need to do a lot of ack and forth passes.

6mm marine ply -- it ain't heavy

So my four sheets of marine ply at 6mm definitely felt lighter than the WBP construction ply I put down on my bathroom floor.

Me and the driver could quite easily move the four sheets, whereas 12mm WBP is heavy enough to handle a sheet at a time for me and my grown up son.

The omens bode well.

Jewson's - Now that's what I call service

Jewson's always manages to impress me. Ordered the ply yesterday by phone, delivered this morning from Oxford.

Had a nice chat with the driver too - he was interested because he doesn't deliver much marine ply to residential addresses. Had a nice chat about how you make canoes from plywood.

Plywood Ordered

I made my head spin trying to find a supplier of okume plywood, and by trying to decide how similar okume and gaboon were, and where BS1088 fitted in. Of the half dozen wood suppliers and boat chandlers nearby whom I called, none knew what okume was or what standard their ply was built to. Found some prices on the net that were extortionate at over £60 a sheet and miles away.

Although I prefer to use quality materials, 3x the price was a quality too far, so I decided to take my chances with Jewsons. Paul at the Wheatley branch was most helpful, and confirmed that their 6mm marine ply is stamped BS1088 and is made of 5 layers. I think this is the best I can do and I hope the product will be good enough.

Scrapers

Very handy article on the West System website here about how to use scrapers, that you can make yourself easily, to remove drips and other imperfections from epoxied surfaces.

Paddles

Searching the net all evening gives me a headache.

Found this interesting blog on how to make paddles.

I liked the ideas so much, that I've ordered the book so I can read at leisure, without my face in the computer, and figure out what I am doing before I start.

Plywood

Nosing around Wickes the other day, their plywood was ~£25 a sheet, and it is WBP not Marine. They don't seem to stock full sheets of 4mm either, though they did have 6mm.

A quick call to the young girl at Beaumont Forest Products in Wycombe gave a result. She can order me in 4mm marine ply at about £17.50 +vat for a full sheet. So better quality and cheaper price.

Once the plans arrive, I'll decide on 4 vs 6.

Read an interesting article on plywood from the West System website here.

Paddles

OMG, this is addictive. I want to make my own paddles too and have started thinking how.

Helpful people

Paul at Fyne Boat Kits was once again fyne Paul, and filled me in on the epoxy system that his company offers. Even so, I think that the West system is the way to go, mainly because I can pop out and get more if I mess up.

I got a couple of responses on the song of the paddle website about the G4 PU varnish and polyester resin system of bonding to plywood. People have successfully used it to make boats. Mirror dinghies were apparently done that way. I'll mull on it some more, but I am leaning towards epoxy.

Starting to create a shopping list in an Excel spreadsheet.

Been worrying about hatches of all things. Luckily if you Google for "yacht inspection hatch" you turn up with plenty that look like this:




At considerably less than a tenner each they will go great in the end bulkheads.

Decision Made

SO after a week of deliberation, I decided that my first boat building project since I was 17 would be an open canoe. Although I think the plan is a bit pricy, I settled on the Wastwater 16 from Fyne Boat Kits because I like her angular lines and dory styling.

Deliberating whether to use polyester or epoxy resin. Polyester is a ton cheaper, but epoxy is what everyone uses today despite it being 3x the price.

Read the excellent guide for the West System marine epoxy that I found here. This particular epoxy system is widely established. There are a load of internet suppliers, and more crucially a number of retail outlets at boatyards close to where I live in case I need emergency supplies.

The picture gives an idea of what I hope to create: