Canoe Build

This page is all about building a strip canoe from scratch. 

I take no responsibility for any damages, injuries or liability that may result from the usage of the information on this site, this is meant as informational purposes only to show how I took on the building of a strip canoe from scratch.

I am not advocating any specific book, author, tool brand or tool type. 

Now that the messy stuff is done with, on to the fun...

First off, get yourself a book on strip building canoes or kayaks, the basic information is invaluable.  I chose Gilpatrick's book Building a Strip Canoe.  I did this for several reasons, it built a boat from the ground up, assuming no experience and also contained 8 canoe plans and a basic paddle plan.  I would rather spend the money on a book than $50 or $60 for a canoe plan alone.  Though some of the reviews on this book expressed discontent over the fact that the book does not talk about the finer finishing and detail work, I feel that as an experienced wood-worker you have an idea of what it means to do final finishing.  You only get out what you put in.

So I trotted myself down to the local lumber yard, got 2 sheets of plywood, 4 2x6x10', 3 2x6x8', 6 2x4x8', and 1 4x4x8' post.  I already had all the screws and such. 

I build up the strong-back to be 20' long utilizing 2 of the 2x6x10' and 1 of the 2x6x8' per side.  Then I cut the 2x4's into 18" lengths and attached the 2 sides together.  I ran some diagonals on the bottom and some other 2x4 pieces between the two sides for structural support.  Rather than using sawhorses I cut the 4x4 post into 4 equal pieces and attached them to the 4 corners to act as legs.  I cut the third 2x6x8' in half and attached one of the 4' sections to each pair or legs to give more stability in the lateral direction.  I also used some scrap 2x4 pieces to put a couple of legs in the center of the strong-back as well. 

The plywood got cut up to make the molds for the 19' River Runner Canoe.  The best way to do this is clamp the 2 pieces together, draw out the patterns and then jig saw the pieces out, this way you only have to cut each pair of stations once.  I used a power sander to round over the corners and take out the rough spots.  Then applied my blue masking tape to all edges where the glue will contact.

This now occupies 1/2 of my garage.

For the strips, a local hardwood dealer friend of mine had recently gotten stuck with an order of 1800 lineal feet of WRC decking.  This stuff was perfect because it was already planed and milled to be 5 1/2" x 1" thick.  He had lengths from 6' to 16'.  He had gotten 20' boards but cut them in half so they would fit in the pile better.  Though it was on the pricey side he let me have it at cost and there is still 1600+ linear feet of it in his barn for my next 10 canoe projects.  I purchased 150 linear feet of the decking.  Figuring I am cutting 13 strips from each board, so 13 x 150 = 1950 linear feet of 1" by 1/4" strips. 

I used a scrap piece of 2x4 to make a finger board I clamped to the table saw.  This jig along with my roller bars allows me to cut the boards by myself.

    After lots of practice I found the best pressure level to be just enough to hold the board in the fixture.  Too much pressure caused the blade to bind and not enough pressure could result in uneven board widths.

I would rip down 6 boards at a time, since the feather-board has to be adjusted every rip I would run 6 boards through at one setting, then move the feather-board and run the same 6 through again, working my way down to having no wood left.

Using convenient, free, wire coat hangers I hung my strips from the ceiling.

Then I built a scarfing jig.

    The original intent was to place the strip in the jig, clamp it near the back, stick a piece of rubber in there to keep pressure on the strip and prevent it from vibrating and use the router to slide up and down the 2 angled slides and plane away the wood.  This is an 8:1 slope.  This did not work out too well, tried several different router bits and no matter what, the wood kept splintering. 

So what I ended up doing was to mount my belt sander to a board using cable ties...    and then clamp the scarf jig behind the sander.  If I had a table-top belt sander I would have used this, but have to use what I have...I have a mark on the sander so I know where to hold the strip as it sands down to make the scarf.  This works very well and I have yet to sand away my finger tips.

At this point I only have floor space to scarf 6 strips at a time.    So right now I am scrafing 12 strips together a day.    I plan to scarf the first half of the wood pile into these long strips which range from 22' to 24'.  Then I will set up a routing jig setup to use my 1/4" bead and cove router bits to route a canoe-strip profile into the strips and start building up the canoe.  Once the first half of the wood is used up I will have a better idea of how much of the remaining wood needs to be scarfed into the long strips or what lengths I need to finish the canoe...

Using my router jig setup     I milled out the 40 large strips I had scarfed together.  These range in length from 21 feet to 24 feet.  From there I stapled the first strip to the forms so I had a base strip to glue the remaining ones to.  Using bungee cords and large rubber-bands, I held the strips tight against the forms and using masking tape I pulled the strips tight into each other until the glue dried.

            I did the first 3 rows on the one side, let it dry and then did the first 3 rows on the other side.  Alternating 3 strips per side I will build up the canoe.