The Keel

I bought a piece of oak and made the keel for the canoe. It's almost 12 feet long, so I bought a 6 foot board, ripped it and scarfed the two pieces together. 

It's just on there temporarily, until after the hull is primed and painted. 

Finishing bits

Kennebec put cap strips over the rib ends next to the decks. I put the first pair of these on and fit up one of the brass stem bands. These parts all come together at the tip of the canoe.

Gunwales back on

I trimmed the canvas and put the gunwales back on. 

Filling the canvas

I filled the canvas today. The filler is a mixture of silica powder, linseed oil and other ingredients that makes the canvas water tight. The first coat took about an hour and a half, working the mixture into the weave with a stubby paintbrush. The second and third coats go a lot faster. Between coats, the finish is rubbed smooth with a mitt made of scrap canvas. All told, it was about 4 hours of scrubbing the filler into the weave and rubbing it smooth. My arms are going to be sore tomorrow. I feel like I just swam about 2 miles.  This stuff takes about a month to cure, so I'll be caning the seats and varnishing in the meantime. 

Covering!

The day finally came!  I covered the canoe with canvas!  I used first moved the canoe out to between the two trees next to the garage.  Laura just had hand surgery, so I had pick it up by the two thwarts and carry it out by myself.  Then laid out the canvas on it upside down, flipped it over and set up the clamps and winch. Once it was pulled tight I got the stands out of the way. I stapled at each rib, starting in the middle and working my way to the ends.  At the second full rib on each end, I stopped and moved the operation to the garage to split the canvas at the ends and tack it down. 

Ready to stretch

Pulled tight

Stapled both sides in the middle

Working both sides towards the ends.  Weighted down with boxes of papers to push it down in the canvas.

Stapled up to the second full rib on each end and released from the winch.

Moved into the garage to do the ends

Both ends tacked in place and trimmed up

First coat of varnish

The first coat of varnish is cut fifty-fifty with paint thinner. It will have much more gloss to the finish after a couple more coats. The next coat has 25% thinner in it and the one after that has 15%, and so on. 

The dark corners in the ends present a challenge to varnish. Somehow it seems easier to turn the canoe upside down and wear it like a giant hat, diving into the tapered recess and painting the finish on at arm's length. 

Linseed oil

Prior to covering, the old dry wood is coated with warm linseed oil. This keeps the hull from soaking up water in use. The exterior is covered with canvas, but water inside the hull can easily run through the gaps between planks and get between the canvas and the hull.

This also gives you an idea the tone the wood will have when it's varnished. The lighter wood is cedar from Menards in Wichita. The darker wood is either original planking or cedar from Home Depot in Washington. From the inside the lighter wood won't be as noticeable because it's under the decks. 

Almost ready for varnish and covering

I spent most of the day sanding the planking. There are still a few spots where bits of the old paint is stuck between the planks and under the ribs. I've been scraping these out with a pallet knife, scrapers or using stripper to soften them. I stained the gunwales so they weren't so white. 

I know there is no turning back once I have varnish on, so I'm trying to fix all the little things before I seal them under the finish. This canoe is almost 100 years old so I'm not trying to make it look new. I have to accept some of the marks and not sand out every scratch. 

I did a dry run of the canvas stretching to see if everything is going to work. 

These two trees next to the garage are just the right distance apart. 

The canoe fits in, but it's a bit of a struggle. When I tightened up the canvas it slipped out of the gripper on one end, so I'll have to use more clamps. 

I plan on doing at least one coat of varnish before I cover. I'm shooting for having it floatable by the fall WCHA NW camp out in mid September. The canvas filler needs to cure for for 4 weeks before painting, so I'm on a tight schedule. 

Cap pieces

The gunwales are both on and screwed in place every other rib. Like this:

I used slot head rather than Phillips head because the Phillips head screw was not invented in 1917. 

The canoe had cap pieces closing out the rib tips alongside the decks. I'm making new ones from ash, with the grain book matched. Kennebec used these, but most of the other old canoes I've seen don't have these. In this case it a good thing because they cover a multitude of sins. They hide the spliced inwales, the new tips on the decks and the funky rib tips at the ends. 

First gunwale screwed in place

Even with the extras I made, I'm having to mill another gunwale. It turned out that some of the wood was really soft and spongy. This time I paid attention to the section of tree and cut from the heart of the log. Here's the new one clamped on. 

First gunwale bend

I steamed one end of the gunwales and cracked one, but successfully bent the other. 

I have a couple of spares, plus the cracked one broke close enough to the end that I think I can still use it. 

Gunwales milled

I've milled 4 gunwales for the canoe out of the log out back. I only need 2, but forming them to the canoe may be tricky, so some spares may come in handy. 

I took a piece of scrap from the gunwale stock and fit it up to the canoe to see how hard it will be to form the gunwales. The scrap is 3/8" square and the gunwales are a 3/4" half round with a lip attached. So the scrap is more flexible.

 I plan on firing up the steamer to get the gunwales formed without breaking. The steam box is 6 1/2 feet long and the gunwales are 15 1/2 feet, so the middle will have to bend on its own. I'll have to bend an end, clamp it up and let it set up, then do the other end. 

Completely planked

After one more run to the store for cedar, I'm finally finished planking the canoe!

One end complete

The final plank is on the stern after two tries. 

I also had the second to last plank on the bow formed and clamped in position.  I didn't nail this on yet so I can take it out of the way to form the last plank. 

Stern keel plank steamed and formed

You can never have too many clamps.

Stern keel plank

Put on the first of the 4 keel planks at the two ends. These are the most curved of all the planks and are not easy to get formed and nailed on.