All Decked Out

Well, the gunnel's, thwarts, handles, and yoke (all of the athwart ships pieces) where done. Shaped, sanded, oiled and installed. There was no other wood work left but the decks. I had been somewhat dreading this part. The ends of the gunnel's didn't turn out very pretty, so inset decks where out, the ends of the rails had to be hidden. I though long and hard about just how to go about making the decks. First I though about sort of a frame and panel design. Using 1 by stock to make a frame, and 1/4 plywood for the panel. The idea behind this was to save weight at the ends of the boat. But the number of seams and joints made this idea less and less appealing the more I thought about it.

Then how the deck would mate with the inwales was a mental tripping point. They are round, I had a hard time figuring out how to curve or at least hide the gaps that would result. I could have gone the easy way and bought some plastic decks and have been done with it, but that would be quitting, and look like, well, you know what it would look like. That would be a last resort. Back to the 'moaning chair'. WTF, I thought, how much wood are we talking about? Not a lot. Make it out of solid wood. One problem solved. OK then, what about the shape? I had three options; a straight cut, a convex curve, or a concave curve. Time to make some mock ups. There was some paneling hanging around from a different project, which would be prefect for the purpose. Some quick measurements, a few cuts, and shazzam, mock up decks. The first was a straight cut, and right away you could see it didn't look right, or good. Back to the shop. A few more measurements, another saw cut, concave cut on the end. It looked good, but I had to see it the other way. The convex needed a new mock up, quickly cut, and done. It too looked OK. Now if you remember, the orignals had a convex on one end, and a concave on the other. With the too mock up pieces, I could see how that would look with 'new' pieces, and gunwales. A few minutes spent looking, and pondering, and convex on both ends was going to be it.

Next step, for the sake of accuracy, a pattern had to be made. The angle of the front, sorry bow, was different than the stern. Just a few degrees, but it would have been noticeable. Some sticks and some hot glue, and I had a accurate measure of the bow and stern angles. I transfered these to a big sheet of paper, and went to layout the curve. The problem now was centering the curve. For the mock up, a paint can was plopped down and lined up by eye, and it was good enough. For the finished piece, I wanted it perfecter. Back to the chair, this is perhaps the first time I really wished I paid attention during math class in seventh grade. Well, luckily I had help, the internet. It couldn't send me back to Mrs. Ramos' class, but I did find these. A few minutes with a compass and and a straight edge, and it was done. I had my pattern, and I just happen to have some wood, red oak, from a long past project, so full steam ahead right? Not quite. The ends of the gun wales had to be dealt with. Back to the chair.

There where some left over pieces of the gun wale stock, I never throw scraps away until well after a project is over, maybe I could do something with those. After some more chair time, I came up with the idea to put some short pieces horizontal and connect the ends of the gun wales, and to make it really 'fancy' attach these pieces with dowels, instead of nails or screws. This requires me to cut some short 2 inch pieces of stock, the use the belt sander in a stand I built to round the ends to a) match the radius of the gun wale, and 2) to round it in general so there would be no sharp edges. Some cutting, rasping, sanding, and more sanding, and some fitting thrown in, I had them done. The shaping was made much easier by a home made belt sander jig to hold the sander on edge. It worked great, except it you let your grip get too loose, and held the small peice just wrong, then it would fly across the room, and under something. Or you would want to get just a tiny bit more off, but sand a finger or knuckle a bit. A small price to pay for the art of a good canoe. Some clamping, a chalange in itself, glue, and the dowels, and finished and ready for the decks. Nope, not yet. Still had to make the decks themselves.

Making the decks was pretty straight forward, cut two pieces of wood into triangles, based on the patterns. Cut the curved end. Route a roundover on the top. And make a rabit along the sides on the bottom. Yeah, simple. I also had to make a jig to cut the wood into the triangle shape. Then it was time to sand some more, through the grits, till it was nice and smooth (enough). Finally time to put them on, but first a test fit, and hmmm, something is not quite right. The inwale is round, the rabit on the underside of the deck is square. The is a gap between the two, not big but noticable, and to me it looked like the entrance to the Holland Tunnel . More chair time. Little pieces where made by drilling holes in a 1x2 piece of oak, on edge. Trimmed and glued into rabits on the underside of the deck. Followed of course by more sanding. The result is not too bad. Time to install? Sorry no.

The tops of the decks where plain wood, they needed some type of decoration. This was a simple decision, back to the rubber stamps! Remember the boat load of stamps from the wifes' hobby? See the post on the paddles. A quick test on a scrap to see how the ink would react to the Watco oil was the first step. When that posed no problem, all I had to do was decide what stamps to use, and stamp away. Each stamp was chosen for a reason, and has some meaning. Meet me around a camp fire, with some beer, and I let you know what they are.

After the ink was dry, about an hour, it was two coats of oil, and let dry.

Now, finally they are ready to install. A few pilot holes, some stainless screws, and, and the wood work is complete. At least for now. And it looks pretty darn good.

Time to get this beast wet.

The time came a week or two later to take her out. The best moment, if you have to pick one, was at the dock. I was sitting there waiting for my wife, and a gentleman walked up, looked the canoe over from stem to stern, and asked "How much do one of these cost?". I had no easy answer, do I tell him the cost of the materials, or what I would guess at a new boat of the same type would cost? I had to be honest, "Well, I really don't know. I got the hull for free, and rebuilt all of the wood work." "Ah, I see" he said "It's very nice". It took a while for me to come out of the clouds. We started our paddle. This is a nice boat, I'm glad I was able to save it from being cut up and sent to the landfill.

If you ever have the chance, do it. When you glide across the water, in a craft that you put some measure of effort into, each swoosh of the paddle, and every ripple of the wave as the bow slices the water, is a sound sweeter than no other. And besides, There is nothing......,

But you know that.

See you out there.

So I guess you want to see what it looks like.

Bow.

End detail, bow.
Bow again.
Stern detail.
Stern.
End detail.
The whole enchilada.
BTW, I have to do it again, more on that much later.

A Star and a Bruise

More fiber glassing. You could detail your self to death with any project. I want to get on the water, so I'm putting off what little details of this "restoration" if I can. Scratches, the stripes pealing off, etc. It doesn't effect the usability of the boat, just makes it look like a bit of a beater.
But there where two spots that needed attention before it got wet.
There was a bruise on the keel, in the bow, and a "bruise" in the glass on the side.
What, you may ask, is a star and a bruise on a fiberglass boat. Well they are both failure points, which basically weaken the structure of the boat. A star is a crack in the gelcoat of the boat. It look like a bunch of lines radiating from a central point. The most likely cause of this particular star would be if it was dropped and a hard surface, like a rock. The star below the water line can let water seep between the gelcoat and the fiberglass, which could lead to the layers laminating. This is a bad thing, and would lead to the end of the boat, or a more involved fix.
A bruise in fiber glass is when the resin cracks, but the cloth is still mostly intact. The usually can be identified by a soft spot where there shouldn't be one.
The bruise was an easy fix, it just required a reinforcing layer, or two. The best thing would be to reinforce both the inside and out, but I didn't want to put a lump on the outside of the boat, so I decided to just reinforce the inside with two layers of cloth. It looks like this;

And on the outside there is a little crease:

An easy patch, just two rectangle pieces of cloth and resin.
You may remember from the past, just how far a little bit of resin goes. I didn't have to worry about that on this fix. Not really because I got smarter and learned how to mix a very small batch of resin. In fact I almost didn't have enough resin to finish this repair. You see, I've been using plastic cups to measure and mix the resin. Cheap and requires no clean up, just toss it away when done with it. Well, I didn't have any more of the cups that I had been using. So I went went in search of a replacement. Since plastic cups, specially small ones, aren't very environmentally friendly, there aren't many in the house. But I did find some hiding in the back of the closet. Super, I could continue. I cut my cloth, gather the brush, and epoxy, and mix an ounce in the cup. Stir it up real good, get it well mixed. I paint the pre-sanded spot where the patch will go, apply the first piece of cloth and wet it out. Moving right along, be done in a jiffy. Apply the second piece of cloth, start to wet it out. Go to dip the brush in the cup. I look at where I'm dipping the brush, just as the bottom of the cup melts off, and the rest of the resin drops away with it. It would appear that all plastic cups are not resin proof. Who knew?
I was able to squeeze enough resin out of the brush to finish the repair. I gotta get some new cups.
The star was near the bow, it was close enough that a sort of skid place could be put on to a) patch the star and, 2) protect the forward keel from further abuse. The idea to do this was simple, cut two pieces of cloth, a square yard of fiber glass goes along way, in an elongated diamond shape, and attach them to the hull with resin. First let us note that you need VERY sharp scissors to cut fiber glass cloth neatly. If you want to test just how sharp your scissors are, try and cut some glass. Second, your shop scissors are not going to be sharp enough, no matter what you think. Third, your wife will not like the idea of you using her sewing scissors in your shop, to cut fiber glass. Forth, after being rebuked in your attempt to "borrow" the sewing scissors, you can do just a bit better using a straight edge and a utility knife blade. Until you move the piece you just cut, then it unravels at the edges and looks like you chewed it off. After a few attempts, and lots of strings of glass everywhere, I got two pieces that would do. Now this type of fiberglass cloth is supposed to be able to bend and fit to almost any curve, with out puckering, of wrinkling, etc. I didn't believe this due to the shape of the hull where I was going to put the stuff, the turn of the keel at the bow. I was expecting the first attempt to be a mess, a big sticky, stringy mess. So an appropriately large amount of tape was used to mask off the repair area.
Imagine my surprise and some what awe, when the cloth followed the shape of the hull with just a little coaxing with the resin and brush. You would not believe that a flat piece of cloth could bend in so many sharp curves, in different directions. The second piece also went on with out much bother.

The excess resin started to run up the sides of the boat, since it was upside down. Some quick thinking (quick for me any way) and a flip of the boat, so it was right side up, and the excess ran off the bottom. It did leave some resin stalactites that had to be removed, but it also meant that the resin was extra thick where the boat would hit, sand, gravel, rocks and stuff when it was brought ashore. Just a little more protection where it needed it the most. So not only did I cover the star, but also got a little skid plate.

There was no reason to use the term athwart ships.

Next up, and last for this season, are the decks. Then a canoeing we will go.