X canoe build

[Alan Gage]

I'm curious... is the bump in the boat the seating station primarily or does it help with stability as well? Without it, I imagine it would be like trying to sit on a log in the water, difficult to keep it from spinning over.

The widest portion should be about even, or just behind, where the seat will be. The flare occurs more abruptly than most boats because I wanted to keep it narrow and tapered for as long as I could. Not only for speed but also ease of paddling (narrower so easier reach). The stern half is considerably wider than the bow and, as you surmised, that's where most of the stability comes from. The actual water line won't reflect that shape. While the water line is wider in the stern as well it's not nearly as exaggerated as it appears above the water line. So primary stability should be a bit squirrelly but I'm hoping it will firm up nicely when leaned a bit.

As I'm sure you noticed it also has more tumblehome than most other solo boats, giving it a more exaggerated appearance. The widest spot on the hull is just over 28" and the gunwale is 21.5".

Alan

 

[Alan Gage]

Last night I cut out and glued up the bow and stern shoes and pulled the metal staples. This morning, before leaving town for the day, I roughly cut them to shape on the band saw to save some planing and then glued them in place. This time I remembered to hollow them out a bit underneath. Not only for a little weight savings but mostly to ease the transition of the fiberglass on the inside. First I augered out as much as I could with the spindle sander and then softened the edges a bit with the orbital sander. Doesn't have to be perfect. It can be shaped better, if need be, once the boat is flipped over.


20141113_001 by Alan Gage, on Flickr


20141113_002 by Alan Gage, on Flickr


20141113_003 by Alan Gage, on Flickr


20141113_004 by Alan Gage, on Flickr

Tonight when I got home I roughly shaped the stems and started planing and sanding the hull. Used the plane to knock down the high edges where strips joined on curves (which is most of the boat) and then gave it a couple rounds with the orbital sander. It will still need to be gone over with a couple more strategical passes and the stems given there final shape. I'm hoping I can get that done tomorrow evening and start 'glassing Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon at the latest...I hope. Some of that will depend on whether or not I need to add a fillet to the transition between the end of the tumblehome and the shear strip.


20141113_006 by Alan Gage, on Flickr


20141113_007 by Alan Gage, on Flickr

I must say, it looks dang sexy. Much better in person. I may be biased though.

Alan

 

[Hanz]

That looks awesome! At 18.5' it must be really something to see.

Thank you for taking the time to post the photos. I learn a lot about the individual steps with the builds documented this way.

 

[Alan Gage]

Thank you for taking the time to post the photos. I learn a lot about the individual steps with the builds documented this way.

It helps me too. Forces me to stop once in a while and take a look at what I've got. I also see things in the pictures when I'm editing them and viewing them here that I didn't see when working on the boat.

Had a bit of an off day today. Felt like coming home, locking the door, and having a few drinks. Instead I spent 4+ hours behind a respirator sanding on the canoe. It was a good decision. I feel better, the canoe looks better, and I know I'll feel better in the morning as opposed to the other alternative.

One more light pass with the ROS should take care of the hull tomorrow. Stems are pretty much shaped. I'll look at them with rested eyes in the morning and do a little more fine tuning. That oak shear strip is a real pain the arse. I don't think I'll be doing that again. Maybe a half oak strip mated up with a half cedar strip for the shear so it has a tough top edge but try to smooth the transition between the oak and cedar, especially where the tumblehome is so severe, is very difficult. The oak is so much harder than the cedar that you need to be extremely careful as any slip with whatever your working the oak with puts a heck of a gouge in the cedar. I found the best tool to clean up the glue squeeze out on the oak was the edge of the belt sander. Where there isn't any tumblehome the oak and cedar mate up quite nicely and the belt sander did a nice job of flushing the two. The rest will get a fillet of thickened epoxy to ease the transition as well as hide the ugly seam.

Just before heading in for the night I gave the hull a rub down with water. Not really for any technical reasons like raising the grain or highlighting missed glue spots. Mostly just because I wanted to see it look pretty.


20141114_001 by Alan Gage, on Flickr


20141114_005 by Alan Gage, on Flickr


20141114_004 by Alan Gage, on Flickr

Still hoping for fiberglass tomorrow but it won't be until later in the day. Will need to finish sanding/shaping, add epoxy fillet to the shear seam, and fill in any small gaps with thickened epoxy. Once that sets up I can sand it back smooth and 'glass away. It kills me to waste energy but you can bet I'll have the furnace cranked up in the shop tomorrow to get that epoxy set in a hurry.

Alan

 

[Momentum]

Nice work Alan! Very sexy lines indeed. (the boat I mean)
I still can't fathom how or where you get all the time to do what you do, but we all appreciate you documenting your builds.
I too, like to use the belt sander for sanding items like this. I actually did the exterior of my entire hull with the belt sander. It worked great.
If the oak was this much of a pain for the exterior, how do plan on shaping the the transition on the interior face? Do you have any special tools to show us?

 

[Odyssey]

WOW. I love this stage in every stripper build I see. Sanded out and just before the glass.
That's a lot of boat to love at 18.5', and it's beautiful. Thanks Alan.

 

[Hanz]

Oh man O man. I wish I could run my hands on it - It looks so good I want to jump into my computer screen.

 

[memaquay]

You are living the life! I'm envious, I have to sneak in a half an hour here and there, I haven't even found my cedar yet! I'm really looking forward to seeing your canoe on the water, it looks like a rocket!

 

[Alan Gage]

I too, like to use the belt sander for sanding items like this. I actually did the exterior of my entire hull with the belt sander. It worked great.

I have a friend who is a cabinet maker. It's amazing to see what he can do with a belt sander. I certainly don't have that level of skill. There were a couple spots on the shear strip where I was too focused on one area only to find I'd taken a big whack out of another area at the same time.

If the oak was this much of a pain for the exterior, how do plan on shaping the the transition on the interior face? Do you have any special tools to show us?

No special tools yet. I've tried some curved scrapers but so far the sanders, wood block covered with sandpaper, sharp chisel and planes have done the trick. I did put together a cheap fairing board from 1/4" ply that worked nicely. Just cut out a piece 16/3.5" and screwed a couple blocks to it for handles. No sand paper in town longer than 9" so I just cut a belt sander belt with scissors so it was one flat piece and attached that. Worked very well.

I'm expecting the inside shear to be almost a mirror of the outside in terms of difficulty. I'm hoping the area with the most extreme tumblehome will be fairly easy to work with as it will be an outside corner. Hopefully it will be easier to shape and I won't have to worry so much about messing up the cedar when I mainly want to concentrate on the oak. Closer to the bow and stern, where the hull has some flare, will be more difficult on the inside for the same reason it was easy to work on the outside of the hull. The one thing I have going for me, and that I keep trying to remind myself of (though not always heeding it) is that this boat doesn't have to be perfect, or even close to perfect. I don't know how it's going to float or paddle. It might not see the water more than a couple times. No need to knock myself out trying to attain perfection. I doubt I'll be able to get a perfect seam on the inside but that's what thickened epoxy is for and it probably won't be noticeable once the whole thing is done anyway.

This morning I gave the stems their final shape and went over the hull with one last, light, pass of 100 grit in the ROS. Then mixed up some thickened epoxy, tinted with cedar dust and micro balloons, and filled in any cracks or gaps and well as adding a fillet to the tumblehomed section of the hull at the transition to the shear strip. I wasn't quite sure how to apply it neatly but I had an idea. I put the thickened epoxy in a zip-lock baggie, nipped off one corner with scissors, and used it as a piping bag. It worked great! A nice thin bead of thickened epoxy right where I wanted it. Came back with a gloved finger to smooth it out.

It would have been a good idea to put some masking tape on either side of the fillet to give it a clean line but I didn't take the time for that. I also mixed the epoxy too thick but didn't realize that until I went back to smooth it out. The epoxy had been in the house since it was delivered a few days ago, so it was about 10-12 degrees warmer than the shop. When I mixed it up the consistency seemed about right, maybe just a bit on the thick side, but once it came into contact with the hull and cooled down it seemed to get a lot thicker. So when I came back to smooth it with my finger it didn't smooth as nicely as I'd hoped, making it more difficult to level off the high/low spots. I had to get to the lumber store before they closed at noon so I didn't have time to try and make it perfect, which is good since I probably would have just made it worse. Once the epoxy is set later this afternoon I'll sand everything smooth and I think it will be fine. In hindsight I maybe should have used a popsicle stick or old cedar strip and given it a rounded profile on the end to shape the fillet. That would have done better than my finger and keeping it consistent. Though sometimes the forgiveness of a soft finger is just the touch needed.

Anyway, now I wait. The furnace is cranked up to 11 and I have some other projects to work on in the mean time.


20141115_001 by Alan Gage, on Flickr


20141115_002 by Alan Gage, on Flickr

Alan

 

[Alan Gage]

Got a little distracted today. Found out my buddy Elliot was in town so I went and played with his toy cars for a while. Then to mom's for supper and finally back to the boat to sand down the epoxy I applied earlier today. Thought about waiting until morning to put on the fiberglass but that thought didn't last for long.


20141115_003 by Alan Gage, on Flickr


20141115_004 by Alan Gage, on Flickr


20141115_005 by Alan Gage, on Flickr

You can see at the bow, where the stem starts the sharpest curve, there is a little tuft that's not sitting down. I don't think I slit the cloth far enough and I couldn't quite get it to behave. I'll sand that down once it sets up. Otherwise it went very smooth. On my first stripper (Kite) I used a squeegee for the whole thing. Pour the epoxy on and spread it around with the squeegee. It was pretty fast and it conserved epoxy since it was easy to move it from an area with too much to an area with too little. No waste. That's how I started doing it on my second build (Barracuda) as well but it soon became apparent that squeegees don't work so well smearing epoxy upside down on that tumblehome section. So that one was a mixture of squeegee and foam roller. The roller worked so nice that I decided to use it on the entire hull this time and just hoped that I wouldn't have to squeegee too much of it back off.

It worked great and that's how I'll be doing them from now on until something better comes along. It was slower to apply on the big flat areas in the center of the hull but a lot faster on the vertical, and especially upside down, sections. I started in the center and worked all the way to the stern. Then stopped to go back and squeegee off all the excess. Then I did the same thing going towards the bow. The roller was able to dole out the epoxy pretty evenly and I don't think I even got 2 ounces of waste squeegeed back off.

Took right at 1 1/2 hours from when I started mixing the first batch of epoxy. The cloth seems to be laying well and I think I'll see if I can stay up late enough to roll on a second coat before bed. Then a 3rd in the morning and flip it tomorrow night.

Alan

 

[Alan Gage]

I'm sorry to report that the big flip will have to wait another day. The epoxy just wasn't setting up fast enough and I couldn't bear to leave the shop at over 70 degrees any longer so I backed it down to 60 and will let it sit until I get home from work tomorrow night. So all that happened with the canoe today was trimming the excess fiberglass and adding the 3rd coat of epoxy to fill the weave (I stayed up late and did the 2nd coat last night).

I'm surprised how much sag there is in the strips between the forms. It's not terrible but certainly noticeable in the right lighting. Nothing I can get a good picture of. I didn't have that issue on the Barracuda and thought I'd made the strips the same thickness but today I grabbed a couple scrap pieces left over from that build and measured them, along with strips from the current build. The Barracuda strips were a little over 5/32", actually pretty close to 3/16". The new strips are a little under 5/32", some of them pretty close to 1/8" (there were a couple skinny ones I noticed while stripping that I'm sure were down to 1/8".) So I guess that explains that. I'm curious to see if that evens out after the forms are removed. I'm also curious to see what it's going to weigh!

But don't despair on the lack of progress! I felt guilty not having some pictures to show so I set up the laser to show the water line as well as the rise in the shear. Before I started stripping I set the laser on the waterline of the forms and then put a mark on the wall. So as long as the canoe is still on the forms all I have to do is set the laser to that mark on the wall and, voila!, instant water line. This would be the waterline for 200 pounds total weight (including the boat).

Bow:


20141116_006 by Alan Gage, on Flickr

Stern:


20141116_003 by Alan Gage, on Flickr

From the bow:


20141116_009 by Alan Gage, on Flickr


20141116_010 by Alan Gage, on Flickr

And here's a couple showing the rise, or lack thereof in the stern, of the shear:


20141116_014 by Alan Gage, on Flickr


20141116_016 by Alan Gage, on Flickr

The original plan was the mark the water line at the bow and stern on the hull before fiberglassing so I'd always have reference marks but I forgot. Once the epoxy sets I could mark it on the outside of the hull before removing it from the forms but I know that I'll forget and sand off the marks later. Now I can refer back to the pictures and place it almost exactly by matching up the strips and staple holes.

Alan

 

[Mihun09]

70 degrees would be beautiful, we are barely getting over 50 and I tend to stay out of the shop so not getting much done at all. It is getting chilly here though, -10C today with snow. If I had heat at the touch of a button it would be 70 all the time.

 

[Alan Gage]

70 degrees would be beautiful, we are barely getting over 50 and I tend to stay out of the shop so not getting much done at all. It is getting chilly here though, -10C today with snow. If I had heat at the touch of a button it would be 70 all the time.

Similar temps here, though we were a couple degrees warmer. We haven't seen freezing for about a week and the 10 day forecast shows it continuing at least that long. This is late December/early January weather for us, not mid-November. Of course the wind is blowing too. At least that's normal.

I actually prefer to have the shop in the mid-50's. When I get up in the morning and dress it's long underwear and multiple layers. I prefer not to have to take everything off to work in the shop. As long as I'm working I'm comfortable. But that doesn't mean that I want to trade.

It helps that it's a new building and well sealed and insulated so there are no cold or drafty spots. And overhead radiant heat makes it feel more comfortable than the air temp indicates. I leave it set to 40 all the time and crank it up to the low 50's when I go in....as long as I'm not working with glue or epoxy. So even when the air temp in the shop is 40 as long as the heater is running it feels like you're standing in the sunshine and makes a big difference.

Last year there was a problem in the propane supply chain and the record low temperatures drove the price in mid-winter, when everyone was starting to run out, from under $2/gallon to over $5. That's what I think about when I I hear the heater humming away to keep the shop at 70+ degrees when it's in the single digits and colder outside. I made it through the winter on one tank last year but didn't spend a lot of time in the shop. Hopefully I can do the same this year but this weather isn't a good start.

Alan

 

[Holmes375]

Man, that thing looks like its already a goin' and its still on the forms

 

[Alan Gage]

20141117_001 by Alan Gage, on Flickr


20141117_003 by Alan Gage, on Flickr


20141117_005 by Alan Gage, on Flickr


20141117_006 by Alan Gage, on Flickr

One last photo of the thickened epoxy fillet at the shear strip. It was far from perfect when I did it and I didn't spend much time sanding it. Just enough to smooth out the really high spots and taper the edges. Things don't have to be perfect to look fine once the boat is done. There are lots of things like that in strippers, or at least in my strippers.


20141117_008 by Alan Gage, on Flickr

Alan

 

[Alan Gage]

Weight as it sits now is 19.9lbs. Little over a pound heavier than the Barracuda when it came off the forms but this is over a foot longer and includes the gunwales. Inside fiberglass, seat, thwarts, and varnish is all that's left to be added. I'm hoping for around 27lbs. when finished. It feels like a wet noodle and I can't wait to stiffen it up with the inner lamination. The bottom bowed considerably when I set it on the scale and one of the glue joints let go in the bottom of the hull from the flexing. A loud "pop!" and the canoe suddenly moved. That was enough to give me a start but it's no big deal. Went back into shape once it was picked up and after it's fiberglassed it won't matter.

Got in a couple hours sanding the interior but it was so much fun I could hardly stand it so I knocked off a little early.

Alan

 

[latremorej]

Wow! Thanks for posting your build Alan! That thing is going to be a screamer, can't wait to see her on the water. Do you have any friends in Florida? Lol.

 

[Momentum]

Very nice. I love the lines. They look very sleek.
If the oak you installed as the gunwale is it as far as rigidity goes, how much will the completed boat flex under stress? Are there calculations that can be done for this? Maybe you have already done them.
I'm assuming you'll have some sort of thwart somewhere??? Aluminum again?

Great work Alan!

 

[wysedav]

Alan,


Swwet looking canoe...I think I'd do more swimming than paddling that though!!! I was wondering about the gunwale as well, I wouldn't think it would do much for you. Is it OK?

 

[stripperguy]

Alan,

It looks great!! Your sections at the bulge look much like my DY Special, I guess the great minds think alike!! (you and DY, that is!)
Weight is great too...I'd surely wait until it's all glassed before deciding if or how to beef it up...
And to indirectly answer mometum's question: it's very difficult to accurately predict the modulus of a composite. The geometries are easy to model and predict, at least with modern software, but the real world composite material properties is what separates the men from the boys. Sample build ups that can be tested for stress/strain (E) are the most reliable to accurately determine flexural rigidity.