Froe mallet

I'm getting sidetracked from the canoe, but I'll use this to make canoe parts. 

 

I took a piece of Douglas Fir I found in the woods and put it on the lathe. 

The result is not a fine work of art, but then, in use, it will get all beat up anyways. 

Quartered log

The second split went a lot faster. I can actually move the piece now.  I managed to drag it and cart it with the wagon to the garage.  To split it into useful pieces, I need to clean up the faces and split off a piece small enough to run through the saw and planer. 

So I started shopping for a froe and realized in the box of old tools from my grandparents farm, there was a froe blade.

I bought a new handle for it, sharpened it up a bit and it's ready for splitting, as soon as I make a suitable mallet.

First split

The log is now split in half. 

Starting with two steel wedges. 

Replacing the steel with big wood wedges. 

Hammering. 

More hammering. 

And finally, success!  This took about two weeks, hammering a little bit each day. Sometimes you could hear it pop an crack long after I stopped pounding on it. 

Going to the source

I need some long, clear pieces of wood for the gunwales, and I just happened to have this beautiful Douglas Fir laying out in my forest. It's on a 30 degree slope, just to make things interesting. I need 16 foot pieces, so I cut off about 17 or 18 feet of the tree. Not having sprung for that $400 Stihl yet, this was a job for the axe. Halfway through, as I was catching my breath, I counted the rings and this tree was probably sprouting around 1900. 

The plan is to split the log lengthwise, quarter it, and keep dividing until I have a piece small enough to carry.

 

Back to work

I'm finally getting back to work on the canoe. I have 3 long planks replaced on the starboard side, but one of them cracked and will probably be redone.

Planking on the starboard side

I've started to plank on the starboard side now. My weekend pattern is to remove a plank and cut the replacement on Saturday, steam and nail on the new one Sunday.

Port planking almost finished

Except for a few small trim planks along the edges, and the centerline planks, the left side planking is on. Laura did all the nailing on the last plank we put on (the long tapered curved one one the right).

Steaming a too-long plank

This plank was about 6 inches longer than my steam box, so I improvised a door out of foam board. Laura was enlisted to help nail on the plank and this time she did some of the hammering.  She claims the ones she put in are ones without hammer marks around them.

Here's the plank all nailed on. It's the darker of the two long replacement planks.

Another plank

I nailed on another plank on the port side. There are about 4 more to go on this side, including the ends at the keel and a curved and tapered one in the middle.

Some on, some off

I put on two planks, one long and one short. And I took off two long pieces.

New steam box

My old steam box didn't make the move with us. It was made from insulation board and duct tape, and really wasn't going to last through too many more heating cycles. It was starting to melt a bit.

The new one is made from scraps of plywood. I gave it a test run steaming this plank.