Freedom 17 Strip build

[stripperguy]

David,

It once took me 4 years on the calendar to finish a sailboat that I built, so your progress is speedy by comparison.
Some projects just have to wait for other priorities to be addressed. We all know the drill.
But maybe a strip or two a night, with some photos??
This is strictly a selfish request, I'm still mired in other priorities myself, so I need to see those photos...

 

[Momentum]

Ha! 4 years is nothing. Try 20. Yep...go check out my Hiawatha thread.
Priorities are very different for everyone, and no one should feel any sense of discouragement or down in the dumps feelings because they didn't finish their build in record time. There wouldn't be any fun in it if you always felt that you had to get on to the next step because "you were behind". No sir. please take your time, and let it evolve around your life.

 

[wysedav]

All right, here's a little update.


One strip away from the gunwale!



I added my feature strip.




This is how I keep the strips tight to the forms, a little hot melt glue every once in a while. It shears cleanly off the cedar when I tap the form with a hammer.

 

[Hanz]

Looks good!

Thanks for the update.

 

[Alan Gage]

Looking good. The feature strip looks very sharp!

I like the hot glue idea. Interesting to hear you say it shears off the cedar when removing the forms. I would have expected it to stick to the cedar rather than the form.

 

[wysedav]

A little more progress. I was at Lowes yesterday and poking through their Cedar pile I found three more pieces of pretty good cedar which I bought for $21. I should be all set with cedar now.



I've been nagging the reclaimed lumber guy for a while now for some clear softwood, he finally got tired of me and told me to take this piece. It's 14' x 3" x 11" clear redwood. Score!! Now I think I'm going to have to build another one!




I planed a little section to see how it would look. I don't know if I have bad cedar or what but the redwood seems so much nicer to work with. I think I'm going to make the football with the redwood.

 

[Alan Gage]

Holy Hannah thats's a nice chunk of lumber! I mentioned that my cedar wasn't real nice to work with either and I started wondering if part of that's because I bought 4" wide instead of 6 or 8". It takes a substantial healthy tree to get a piece the size of your redwood. A 1x4 on the other hand can come out of a pretty small tree, could be salvaged from a larger piece that's in poor condition, or be the leftovers after the best (largest) pieces are removed. I'd guess the bigger wood you start with the better quality it would be on average. Buying mine 4" wide was substantially less than 6" wide in the same grade.

Alan

 

[stripperguy]

Dave,
The second boat I built (1978?) was redwood...I found it to be heavy, oily and brittle. The oily part shouldn't bother you, I was way back in the polyester era.
I built a standard USCA competition cruiser with a low sheer line and oak trim...it weighed 65 lbs!! Back then, it didn't matter, I was much bigger and stronger.
The brittle part may bother you, depending on how much twist, or maybe how much off axis bends you need. I remember snapping many strips near the stems, where the twist is greatest.
But the color and grain was great...

 

[wysedav]

Update on my build..I'm stripped up to my design waterline. The redwood is just layed in place for now.

SG, I think you might want to take another look at Redwood. It is a little more brittle but also significantly more dent resistant and depending on the wood you select just as light as cedar. I built a 17' kayak entirely of Redwood and it came in at 32# all trimmed out. Where I had to significantly bend the wood I just used a hot air gun to heat the wood and held it in place until it cooled. Worked great!!

 

[stripperguy]

Dave,

It's looking good! Is your workspace warm enough for you to glass? Now that the leaves are gone (hopefully work and kids remain) you could zip right along.
Which way do you strip your bottoms? Alternating one side to the other? Or a straight joint on the keel line?
28 lb/ft[SUP]3[/SUP] vs 22 lb/ft[SUP]3[/SUP] is enough to keep me away. I'm not a gram weenie, but as I continue to shrink I need every advantage I can get!!
Modulus for redwood vs cedar is 1.10e6 to 1.11e6...and yield strength redwood vs cedar is 7900 psi to 7500 psi (hardly worth considering when encased in glass and resin). Except for the density, those woods are nearly interchangeable...

 

[wysedav]

Now that the holidays are over and I finished all of my chores I can get back to work on my canoe. I had hoped to be finished stripping by Christmas but I guess I missed that, no biggie as long as I'm done before June when I'm planning on going on a trip down the Allegash in ME. (Hopefully before Alan laps me again!!) SG I'm doing the football the same way I did my kayak, two strips along the keel and then fill in both sides. I'm going to use the darker redwood for the entire football as I'm all out of cedar, hope it looks OK.

 

[wysedav]

A little bit of progress...finally. I'll take some better pictures when I have a little extra time.

 

[Alan Gage]

Great to see you back at it, Dave! Boat looks good. Can't wait to see it closed in!

Alan

 

[wysedav]

Well we had a snow day yesterday so I finally made some decent progress on the canoe. First I ripped a whole bunch of strips both Redwood and Cedar so I can make some cool patterns in the hull. I though I'd show my setup for ripping as it worked really well, I've done it a bunch of different ways and so far this was the best.



Using a slightly thicker strip as a feather board works great because it has enough flexibility so I don't need to adjust it as the strips get thinner. The other clamp and strip at the top of the picture just ensures the feather strip doesn't ride up on top of the board I'm ripping. I was ripping ~14' strips by myself with this setup and I didn't have any burns or divots in the strips from when I stopped to reposition my hands.



This is the push strip I used, nothing spectacular -- though it could use a handle



This side view of the push stick shows its best feature...I cut a rabbet slightly less deep than the strip thickenss. This way when I push down on the pusher stick it traps the strip and the main board in place so I can get perfect strip thickness all the way to the end of the board. It's also a really good safety improvement.

 

[wysedav]

I decided to add some diamond shapes to the hull of the canoe. I thought I'd show what I did, it's pretty easy and doesn't really take much time.



This is the pattern I used to make the smaller diamond halves.



Here I've broken a bunch of sticks to fully cover the pattern, I also added a reference line so I don't lose my shape.



I skipped a couple of pictures but this is what I did...first I used the plane to put a slight bevel on the strips to they can follow the curve of the hull. Next using the most important green tape I pulled all the strips tight, the tape is on the outer surface only. Next I marked the profile lines and trimmed on the bandsaw and cleaned up the cut with the plane.



Now if you flip it over you get a nice tambour door efect. Fill all the grooves with glue and install on the hull.

 

[wysedav]

And here it is installed on the hull. This system works great, it's easy, fast, the joints are super tight, and all of the trimming is done off the canoe.

 

[wysedav]

This is what they look like glued in place, picture is very distorted. Basically two small diamonds on the ends and a big one in the middle. I'll probably add some pin stripes around the perimeter of the diamonds.

 

[Iskweo]

I definitely like it but I can see some headaches on the way. That is going to be tough to finish stripping.

 

[wysedav]

I don't think it will be especially tough, it will just take longer. I added a border around the triangles, I think it looks much better. The pinstripe is much whiter than the pictures indicate, there is still glue smeared on the wood.

 

[Robin]

I don't know much about stripping so please excuse my ignorance, but will those diamonds be weaker than straight one piece strips?
I'm looking forward to how this progress's.
Thanks for posting your build.