39) Final Sanding

I spent a good part of Saturday doing a final sand of 120 grit on the entire hull. I found a couple of small places I still need to fill. I also need to dry fit the brass stem bands and seal the stems with one last coat of epoxy. Then it is time to varinish!

38) Sand, Plug, Fill - Repeat

Today I cut out over 70 plugs in scrap pieces of cherry. These were used to fill the countersunk holes in the outwales, sealing the brass screws inside the wood.

Before I filled the holes, I disassembled everything and sanded the decks, inwales and tops of the gunwales with 60 grit paper. This gave me an idea of all the places that needed filler (I wanted to use the leftover epoxy from gluing the plugs to fill any gaps). Then I epoxied the plugs in place and used the leftover goop to fill some cracks. Next time... sand the gunwales and plugs smooth.

37) Last Dry Fit

This weekend I dry fitted the seats and got my first glimpse of the finished canoe.

36) Outwales

The outwales were scarfed and tapered similar to the inwales. The outwales are attached with thickened epoxy and brass screws. Like most cedar strip canoes you see, I countersunk all of the screws. The holes will then be filled with plugs cut from scrap cherry. Because the outwales are screwed on, I was able to attach both at the same time. I did leave some clamps on for 1 day (to add a little extra pressure while the epoxy set). Overall this step was very easy and quite satisfying. Although, if you decide to go this route and countersink the screws, make sure that you buy a couple of replacement bits for your countersink (I have broken 6 or 7 bits throughout the build, including 3 on the outwales). Matt provided an extra hand holding the outwales in place while I screwed them in.

35) Deck Install

I installed the decks according to the instructions in Canoecraft (using epoxy and brass screws). I drew the pleasing curve you see on the bottom of the deck with the help of an empty flower pot in Matt's driveway. I then used Elie's new Bosch jigsaw to cut the curve. On a side note, I am now a Bosch convert, this jigsaw was smoother than any other I have ever used. The cut was so nice, I did not even sand the cut before I installed the decks... Awesome. Finally, I used thickened epoxy to fill any gaps.

34) Decks

I had plenty of cherry for the decks, but I wanted to spice it up a bit. I needed some contrasting hardwood to accentuate the deck (maybe some walnut or ash). Unfortunately, the Friday before I wanted to glue up my decks, I stopped by the local cabinet shop only to find that they were closed! I couldn't bring myself to just have plain cherry decks, so I headed off to Home Depot to see what I could find. All I found was poor grade softwood.... until I wandered into the hardwood flooring section. I finally settled on bamboo (trust me). I bought a little transition strip (the kind that helps you transition from a wood floor to carpet or tile) and was able to rip enough hardwood out of it for my decks. I decided to go with a bamboo racing stripe, flanked by two thinner accent strips on the sides. Here are some pictures of the glue up.

33) Thwart Dry Fitting

My seat and thwart bolts are silicon bronze (ordered from Newfound Woodworks). I just got the shipment, so I decided to dry fit the thward. Drilling holes in my new inwales took some courage. I spent a long time scarfing, cutting, gluing and measuring these inwales. I would hate to screw it up with a misplaced hole. So I measured 3 times and took the plunge. Installation was actually very uneventful, but the thwart adds a lot of visual appeal to the canoe.
Don't worry mom, here is proof that I wear my safety goggles.

32) Working on Seats

Erin has luckily volunteered to make headway on the seats. I marked out all of the mortises needed on the seat frames and Erin drilled the mortises out with a 1/4" brad point bit in the drill guide. I followed up with a chisel and file to clean up the holes. After I had the pieces finished I clamped the seat together and did a test weave. I ordered this 1/2" nylon webbing from the web (Erin picked out the color). Chris Glad emailed me some great instructions on how to weave the seats, I am also showing a picture from the back of the seats so you can get an idea how it is woven (it is very sloppy, but this is a test weave). I think it looks really cool. Next I glued the seats up with dowels and gorilla glue. I did a test glue of the joint with gorilla glue, as I suspected, the wood failed before the glue joint (sorry no pic). So gorilla glue will work just fine.

31) Inwales

For the inwales, I scarfed together two 8" strips of cherry. I thought of about 10 different ways to make the scuppered slots on the inwales. I decided that the easiest method would be to cut 1/4" by 3/4" by 3.5" spacers and glue them onto the inwales. I was not too sure how well this would work, but after I put them on it looked great. At the ends of each inwale, I attached a 30" long spacer, this allowed me to cut a taper down to a half inch at the ends of the inwales. Tapering the inwales and outwales adds a nice touch to the canoe. Due to a limited number of clamps, I could only attach one inwale at a time.



Both inwales on.

30) Sanding the Inside

Ahh, more sanding.... enough said.