Captain Dusty starts a new project

Randy's going to take over for a while and blog about his new project - a fabulous canoe that will be ready just in time for bug season. Take it away, Randy.

Today was the official start of building a canoe with my neighbour and friend Scott Cain. Scott has built dozens of canoes over the years and has agreed to teach me how to put one together on his form. The result will be a beautiful 15‘ cedar canoe, weighing about 55 lb., trimmed in mahogany and cherry.

In fact, the work began a couple of weeks ago, shaping and sanding the 1/4“ white cedar ribs and the 1/8“ cedar planking. Beautiful clear stock Scott had from New Brunswick, such a treat to work with, easily sanded and planed with the bonus of smelling good as well. I also trued up the 3/4“ ash for stems and the 16‘ mahogany strips for the gunwales.

Scott provided me with patterns for the seats and carrying yoke which I’ve made from cherry. My new shop in the basement has been a big improvement over the one in the garage, the main benefit being I can work in the winter since there is a woodstove, plus the space is larger and well lit, with a great view through the double patio doors to the back yard and lake.

Today we bent the stems around the form. The ash soaked for two or three days then was boiled this morning for about an hour and a half. The ends of two pieces were wedged in the form and Scott eased them around the bend while I drove wedges to lock them in place. One of them broke but having forseen this probability, we had 5 pieces prepared so the replacement took the curve, no problem. These will stay on the form now for a couple of days to take a set then installed on the canoe form. Stay tuned next week as construction begins. See below for more photos (captions by SB).