After the fibreglass is wetted out, two more coats of epoxy are applied to fill the weave of the cloth and then finally bury the cloth. This surrounds the fibreglass completely in a blanket of epoxy. This is important so that any scratches the canoe receives don’t cut the cloth. Damage to the cloth fibres […]
Archives for July 2014
Fibreglassing the outside
By far the most nerve wracking part of the whole build this far is applying the fibreglass. I’m pretty confident in my woodworking skills. Most of the mistakes I made in planking I could repair or hide. But I’ve always been lousy at painting. Which is mostly the same skill set as fibreglassing I think. […]
Fairing the stems and lots of sanding
The stems are glued in place, and now it’s time to shape them into a fair curve with the rest of the hull. This is another spokeshave job, so I really had fun doing this. I did use my #4 smoothing plane to bring the bottom of the stem (on top of the inverted boat…) […]
The final strips
The stripping is done, and the hull is complete. Fitting the strips to the second side of the hull was a tricky bit of business. Each strip needs to be custom cut and the ends tapered to match the angle between the centre line and the last strip. I did need to add a […]
Trimming the shear lines
The next step is trimming the shear line. The strips have been left excessively long below the molds to ensure that there’s material where it needs to be for this step. The shear positions are transferred to the strips and the points joined with a thin batten to make a fair curve. Here you […]
Mortising in the Stems
Just a note, this is another process that is more complicated to explain that it is to actually do. Where the strips have gone from being horizontally adjacent to the inner stems to being vertically on top of them, material needs to be removed for the outer stems to fit flush. In woodworking terms this […]
Trimming the centreline
The planks on one side are all on. After adding enough planks to cover the centre line and dutifully marking it I got to trim it flush. I had transferred the centre line up from the station molds with a small jig and joined them with a straightedge. Most of the waste I […]
Epoxy to the rescue
It’ s important to get the rolling bevel on the stems to match the angle of the planking. Otherwise the glue joint is weak and the planks pop off like what happened here. So instead of putting on another strip this evening I mixed up a cup of epoxy. I added cedar sanding dust to […]
Creative Clamping
The past weeks I’ve been adding strips almost daily. While I was going up the sides of the canoe I could add three strips at a time. The curve was gentle and predominately in one dimension. The curve was also in the plane which the strips are thin, so they could easily conform. Once I […]