July 12 Canoe Progress
I was away last week, so no photos or updates from then. My buddy worked a bit on fitting the bolts to the seats, and we continued that work today. This is the last update on this project from the church shop. If we’d thought to bring some paddles, we might have taken her down to the Fork of the Thames and dropped her in the water to test out. (well, not that we really had the time, but we were tempted!)
First thing we had to do was replace two of the seat posts that we’d made last time. Unfortunately the drill bit had wandered a bit while drilling through it — I suspect it followed the grain which curved a bit — and it was too close to the side. We were more careful here to pick straight grained pieces and that worked out.
The seat and posts holes still needed a little “wiggling” with the drill bit to give us room to fit the bolts easier.
These are stainless steel bolts of varied lengths.
The yoke is bolted in place (loosely) and the rear seat is nearly there.
Then we picked it up and tried it out. Note how it tips toward the back. This is pretty close to exactly what you want, so that you can more easily see out the front. I tried it out also, and it’s pretty good.
As an aside, I remembered to bring my bathroom scale today, and the canoe is right now roughly 49-50lbs, which is pretty good for a cedar strip. All that remains in terms of additional weight is to spray on a few coats of spar varnish.
We wet down the sides to wash off some dust and eyeball the sides and concluded that the sanding job is pretty good and there is no more need for more. (well, maybe a touch on the gunnels.)
View of the inside. Unfortunately we need to remove the seats once more before spraying finish.
Here is a closeup of the carriage bolts holding the yoke in place. I posted this one to show you the scarf joint closeup. Look right along the inwale and you can see the top side of a scarf joint. This one needed a slight bit of attention with some extra epoxy a while back, and still needs to be sanded smoother. Once it is sanded more you should only see a thin line crossing the piece. We tried to position all the scarf joints like this, so you only see a small line. The long angled seam of the joint is on the sides of the inwale (and outwale) so that they are more hidden.
One shot along the inside, showing how the seat supports hang down from the inwale.
July 12 CONTINUED…