Randy's Boat Shop

The inside of the canoe was glassed last week. There are a few ragged strands of glass at the stems but I will sand most of those out. I was pleasantly please with how stiff the canoe was when the epoxy curried. Only two coat of epoxy were used on the inside so there is texture to the glass that will make a non-skid surface. I am going to do scuppered gunwales as described at http://www.michneboat.com/Gunwales.htm. I cut 6 pieces of 3/8 x 3/4 out of a 2×2 by 16 foot Alaskan Yellow Cedar. My gunwales will be a little smaller than I wanted but they will still look great on the canoe. Most books recommend hardwood for the gunwales but I like the look of AYC and it will complement the Western Red Cedar well. There were some knots in the AYC that I will have to splice out. Since the strips are 16 feet long and the canoe is only 13 feet long, there will be at least 2 feet left over from each strip. I might have enough strips to double up on the outer gunwale. I estimate that I will need 10 feet of the 12 that will be cut off of the strips to make the blocks that are part of the inner gunwale. I think that I will have a 12 inch block where the center thwart will go and use 3 1/2 blocks with 3 1/2 spaces elsewhere.

For the thwart, deck and bulkhead I will be using Port Orford Cedar. I have 2×12 board that I have been saving for the canoe. I am in a quandary on the shape of the thwart. I could do a simple thwart or I could do a carved thwart that would be more practical for carrying. I will have to decide in a few weeks. Alaskan Yellow Cedar and Port Orford Cedar both have a strong smell when they are cut. The Port Orford Cedar is more spicy and the Alaskan Yellow Cedar is more musky smell. The boat shop was quite aromatic.

For the seats, I have a second 2×2 by 16 piece of AYC that I have cut into two 3/4×1 1/2 strips. I think that I will start with a woven cane seat using plastic cane. I talked to someone who cane’s at last year’s San Diego County Fair and he said that it was hard to get good quality cane anymore and he uses plastic cane for anything that will be outside.

After two moves last year, the canoe in storage for 4 months and sitting 5 months in my living room; I have started working on the canoe again. I finished sanding the inside just after Christmas and finally was able to make time to seal the canoe. The idea of sealing the cedar strips is so that you have a uniform color when apply the fiber glass cloth. The process is simple and was recommend by a fellow canoe builder. Put a thin coat of epoxy on the hull and let it soak in, once is starts to set, scrap off all the excess. I then filled all the cracks and crevices with epoxy thickened with cedar wood flour. Once the filler has set, scrap off any excess and wait a week for it to cure before a light sanding with 120 grit. The next step it to cut the fiber glass cloth to size.

The Portland Boat Show is going on right now and I made an Oar Rack to show off the oars that were made in the Oar Class that I taught last spring.  The pair of oars on the very right are the ones that I made during the class, the next pair were made my Russel Smith, the second from the left were made by Michael Simmons and the oars on the very left were some that were in the shop that I used to demonstrate how to leather an oar.

We used Alaskan Yellow Cedar to make the oars and used Daly’s Seafin Aqua Spar Clear Polyurethane Varnish for the finish.  Russel put on more coat to give the oars a nice warm yellow color to the oars.

The oar rack is made out of kiln dried Douglas Fir that I picked up at Building Material Recycling and was build in an afternoon.

I have started the scraping and sanding of the epoxy on the canoe.  I used a cabinet  scraper to get the most of the lumps off and then went over the area with a random orbital sander.  I still have to make one more pass and then I will put another coat of epoxy on to fill the low spots.  I will try using the cabinet scraper when the epoxy is green to see if I can reduce the sanding later.

I picked up a Stanley Baily #3 hand plane at the local building supply junk store while I was getting some lumber for an oar rack that I will be building.  This sorry plane had been drowned and has a serious case of rust but is not terminal.  The rust looks fresh and the screws and the adjustment knob turns so it is not rusted solid.  The front knob is cracked and will be repaired or replaced.  The rear tote is in good shape except for a bad paint job.   The first task is to disassemble the plane and clean up the parts.

I use electrolysis to remove the rust on the steel parts.   Electrolysis is a method of using a direct current to drive the iron oxides (rust) back to iron and oxygen.  The iron becomes a black slug on the steel that is easily washed off.  Many proponents of electrolysis cleaning use a automotive battery charger to send between 4 and 10 amps through the part.   I built a constant current source that drives 100 milliamperes through my parts.  Although slower, I am more comfortable with the lower current and some suggest that it does a better job.  The part in the tank is the plane iron (blade) and will be left there for about 24 hours.  The electrolysis works in line of sight, so to ensure even cleaning, I have four pieces of steel re-bar as my electrodes.

When all clean and tuned up, this little #3 hand plane will be put to good use.  It will join ranks with other Stanley planes that I have and the wooden planes that I have built.