Start of my 16 foot canoe

[dvan]

Here is a pic of the stems on a jig for my 16 foot canoe project. The inner stem is three 3/4 wide by 1/4 thick pine and the outer is the same in walnut. My friend and I used a homemade steamer made out of a coffee can, pvc pipe and a hand held curtain steamer. After 30 min. the wood bent like butter. It was held on the jig for one week and had very little spring back. The stations went up on the strongback 12 in. apart and you can't get the size of the canoe by the pics, I sit it out in the driveway last week and got a look at it from 20 feet away and said to myself "man thats big". The last pic is me having a cold one after setting all the stations. I have most of my summer projects done so I can get back to work on it buy September. It will take about 200 hrs to finish.

[SHADOWFOX]

Very nice! Very interested to learn more about the home made steamer you and your buddy built.

[dvan]

As you can see in the pic the steamer was a “do it on the fly with what we got” project but it worked. In the last pic behind me is a more refined steamer out of bigger pvc and end caps not rags and this one uses a electric tea kettle. The kettle is hooked to the pipe with a small rubber hose. The pvc is at a slight angle. The steam goes in and the water build up comes out the end in a rubber tube back into the kettle. You can build one easy and any way so long as it holds the steam and drains the water build up. It does not take long to soften the wood so you can bend it. My friend that helped me is building a rocking chair and he is making the rocker bottoms on a jig he made and steaming the wood for the jig to see how that works.

[JR]

Man, this is a really cool project! I'm interested in seeing how the stems e together. Also is there just one jig? In the pic it looks like the stations have different shapes. Or are the statinons intended to eventually be individual jigs?

JR

[dvan]

The jig is for the stems that go on each end of the canoe, the inner (pine) goes on a station exactly like the jig on each end and the strips are laid. The outer stem (walnut) goes on the ends like a cap over the inner stem. Here are some pics of my first canoe. This design does not have stems but you can get the ideal. The stations actually are upside down on the strong back, ie you build a canoe upside down. The top strip (batten) is only to keep all the stations fair and the same spacing as the base. Once you get 5 or 10 strips on you can take the batten off. The last pic is the first layer of fiberglass, it really brings the wood color out. If you would like more info or are thinking about building a canoe I suggest reading Canoe Craft by Ted Moores, Building a Strip Canoe by Gil Gilpatrick, Strip Built Canoe by Randy Folsom and Featherweight Boatbuilding by Mac McCarthy. I have all of these books and they are very helpful. The books by Mac and Gil have plans in them to build a canoe. The one I am building now is a 16 foot prospector from Ted Moores website http://www.bearmountainboats.com/. The next one I will be building is from Mac’s book. Once you read about the process you will get hooked it is not as hard as you think but you need to have the space. My garage is to small to park a car in but just right for building a canoe so that is what I did and it does not hurt that I like to canoe. The first canoe was a solo 10'6".

[jabe]

Iteresting, nice work.