I have decided to go with wider cedar strips and therefore feel I should put in a football patch. I am looking for information on the net regarding installing a football patch. I can see the hardest part will be trimming the football to follow the curve all the while keeping good spacing for the filler plank. Then assembling it so that it is strong. I am looking for any helpful tips. My main questions are:
1. Trimming techniques of the football so that the filler strip will fit tightly.
2. Does a bead and cove get put on the football and filler strip, and how do you put it onto the football.
3. Assembly technique of the football filler strip into the canoe.
Thanks,
Phil
Football Patch
-
Glen Smith
- Posts: 3719
- Joined: Sat May 08, 2004 9:08 am
- Location: Baie-St-Paul, Quebec, Canada
You seem to be interested in the method used by David Hazen to strip the football first then strip the hull. I have never used this method and I see no interest in doing so. This being said, any strips of the football that will have to mate with the hull strips or a trim piece should not have a bead nor a cove. They should be bevelled with a hand plane for an exact fit as should the topmost hull strip that will be mated with.
-
Jeff in Pembroke
- Posts: 83
- Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2004 8:26 am
You might find this approach from One Ocean Kayaks useful. It's described for a kayak hull but it would probably work equally well for a canoe
http://www.oneoceankayaks.com/Wshophtm/Shop6.htm
Cheers,
Jeff
http://www.oneoceankayaks.com/Wshophtm/Shop6.htm
Cheers,
Jeff
If you are using a football because of your wider strips, that suggests you are concerned about the twisting, and probably don't know exactly how big you want the football until you get there. That's the usual reason the football is added last. I'll assume you don't want to build the football separately and fit it in as one unit. You need to decide whether to fill in the football from the middle out, or the edges in. I used middle out because a partial width strip looks fine on the side of the football where it's only a foot long, but could look odd in the center of the bottom, particularly if it happened to taper. If you use flute and cove, you need to decide whether to do the ends of the football strips, or to leave the last pre-football strip flat edged and fit the strips with a handplane. I did that. (Actually, I did that for the whole canoe, so I had a lot of practice by the time I got to the football.) I suppose if you had a molding plane to treat the ends, you could fit them that way.
Each strip is put in place and marked on one end. It is trimmed with a finetoothed saw (a dovetail saw works well) to match the space, and fine fitted with a handplane. That end is pushed tightly into place, as is the rest of the strip, (including edge bevelling if you do that) and the other end is marked, cut, and fit. Cut your first few purposely long and plane them down until you get the hang of it. If you do cut one too short, you run into the other advantage of starting in the middle: you need successively shorter strips so you can use it elsewhere.
You will have a tricky final fit on each side of the football. If you are fitting to a fluted edge, you need to plan ahead to fit the last piece in. Cut and fit, but don't glue the last three strips on each side. It's a lot easier with the edges flat and simply bevelled with a plane to fit each other, but if you do use flute and cove, you can get away with flat sides on only the second to the last strip, and its two mating edges. Spring that one in last.
Make sure the last few strips are tight, then remove them, add glue to the edges, and replace, with the second to the outside one being the last inserted. Make sure they fit tightly before you glue them: as you have several loose pieces, it's easy to deceive yourself about fit because the gap is distributed over several places. Make sure it all fits tightly, and if it does not, make a replacement for one of the pieces before gluing.
I guess this must have taken concentration: I don't seem to have any photos of the process.
Each strip is put in place and marked on one end. It is trimmed with a finetoothed saw (a dovetail saw works well) to match the space, and fine fitted with a handplane. That end is pushed tightly into place, as is the rest of the strip, (including edge bevelling if you do that) and the other end is marked, cut, and fit. Cut your first few purposely long and plane them down until you get the hang of it. If you do cut one too short, you run into the other advantage of starting in the middle: you need successively shorter strips so you can use it elsewhere.
You will have a tricky final fit on each side of the football. If you are fitting to a fluted edge, you need to plan ahead to fit the last piece in. Cut and fit, but don't glue the last three strips on each side. It's a lot easier with the edges flat and simply bevelled with a plane to fit each other, but if you do use flute and cove, you can get away with flat sides on only the second to the last strip, and its two mating edges. Spring that one in last.
Make sure the last few strips are tight, then remove them, add glue to the edges, and replace, with the second to the outside one being the last inserted. Make sure they fit tightly before you glue them: as you have several loose pieces, it's easy to deceive yourself about fit because the gap is distributed over several places. Make sure it all fits tightly, and if it does not, make a replacement for one of the pieces before gluing.
I guess this must have taken concentration: I don't seem to have any photos of the process.
Alan
I am going to go with this idea for mine;
http://michneboat.com./A%20Different%20Football.htm
My be of interest to you,
All the best,
Doug
http://michneboat.com./A%20Different%20Football.htm
My be of interest to you,
All the best,
Doug
"Some people hear the song in the quiet mist of a cold morning..... But for other people the song is loudest in the evening when they are sitting in front of a tent, basking in the camp fire's warmth. This is when I hear it loudest ...." BM
Hi Glen, can you give me more information on this, "method used by David Hazen to strip the football first then strip the hull"
Thanks,
Doug
Thanks,
Doug
"Some people hear the song in the quiet mist of a cold morning..... But for other people the song is loudest in the evening when they are sitting in front of a tent, basking in the camp fire's warmth. This is when I hear it loudest ...." BM
-
Bill from Louisiana
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Thu May 05, 2005 9:30 am
Football & Keel-Downward Stripping
I'm developing a stripping method which starts with the two halves of the bottom football being created separately on the forms, then glued together. Stripping then proceeds from the edges of the football downward, ending at the sheer.
The method greatly simplifies and speeds up stripping, makes tighter joints, and eliminates the precise fitting of individual strips at the keel line. But here's the catch: it depends on having previously built a canoe on the forms and accurately having made reference marks on the stations so the initial reference strips of the second canoe can be attached at the marks made from the first canoe.
This is not the Hazen method where the bottom football is created from strips paralleling the keel line, then cut to football shape. The football created here looks exactly like a canoe stripped in the usual manner.
In a nutshell, one begins stripping the second canoe with a reference strip at precise marks that were made on the stations where the football area from the first canoe ended. In practice, the football area extends onto the stems only enough so that the reference strip just lands on the first few inches of inner stem. The football area from the first canoe can be defined as that area still unstripped when you decide to leave off alternate-side stripping and continue with only one side until it's over the keel line. At that stage when building the first canoe, accurate marks are made on each station at the outline of the football. I used a narrow-kerf pullsaw and cut slits into the forms where the football edges were.
For the second canoe, once the initial reference strip is stapled onto the stations at the previous football marks (the slits in my case), one then strips the canoe bottom on one side from that line inward toward the keel on one half of the boat. When stripping has covered the keel line for that half, one very accurately cuts down the keel line to form an exact half of a football. That half of the football is then unstapled and removed from the forms.
Now strip the second half of the football in exactly the same manner, starting from the reference strip and stripping inward until the keel line is covered. Accurately mark the center line (I used a laser) and cut down the line so you have the other half of the football. Don't remove this half of the football from the forms.
Now bring the first half back to the form and position it exactly where is was initially. The joint line between the two halves will need some precise planing and sanding to get a perfect fit, but it is possible to get a hairline fit if you were careful when marking and cutting the two lines. When the joint looks good, glue the two halves together on the mold.
You can now strip downward, alternating one side to the other and cutting the strip ends at the middle of the stems. You'll achieve tighter joints as you are pushing strips inward against a convex surface, rather than trying to force strips outward into a concave surface as in the usual stripping method.
I'll soon be posting pictures to explain this, as it looks like it will be a big improvement in cedarstrip building--if you are building the second canoe off the forms.
The method greatly simplifies and speeds up stripping, makes tighter joints, and eliminates the precise fitting of individual strips at the keel line. But here's the catch: it depends on having previously built a canoe on the forms and accurately having made reference marks on the stations so the initial reference strips of the second canoe can be attached at the marks made from the first canoe.
This is not the Hazen method where the bottom football is created from strips paralleling the keel line, then cut to football shape. The football created here looks exactly like a canoe stripped in the usual manner.
In a nutshell, one begins stripping the second canoe with a reference strip at precise marks that were made on the stations where the football area from the first canoe ended. In practice, the football area extends onto the stems only enough so that the reference strip just lands on the first few inches of inner stem. The football area from the first canoe can be defined as that area still unstripped when you decide to leave off alternate-side stripping and continue with only one side until it's over the keel line. At that stage when building the first canoe, accurate marks are made on each station at the outline of the football. I used a narrow-kerf pullsaw and cut slits into the forms where the football edges were.
For the second canoe, once the initial reference strip is stapled onto the stations at the previous football marks (the slits in my case), one then strips the canoe bottom on one side from that line inward toward the keel on one half of the boat. When stripping has covered the keel line for that half, one very accurately cuts down the keel line to form an exact half of a football. That half of the football is then unstapled and removed from the forms.
Now strip the second half of the football in exactly the same manner, starting from the reference strip and stripping inward until the keel line is covered. Accurately mark the center line (I used a laser) and cut down the line so you have the other half of the football. Don't remove this half of the football from the forms.
Now bring the first half back to the form and position it exactly where is was initially. The joint line between the two halves will need some precise planing and sanding to get a perfect fit, but it is possible to get a hairline fit if you were careful when marking and cutting the two lines. When the joint looks good, glue the two halves together on the mold.
You can now strip downward, alternating one side to the other and cutting the strip ends at the middle of the stems. You'll achieve tighter joints as you are pushing strips inward against a convex surface, rather than trying to force strips outward into a concave surface as in the usual stripping method.
I'll soon be posting pictures to explain this, as it looks like it will be a big improvement in cedarstrip building--if you are building the second canoe off the forms.
When people figure out what's really important in Life, there's gonna be a big shortage of canoes.
-
marchmyres
- Posts: 31
- Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 9:54 am
- Location: Aberdeen, UK
Creating the football reference marks
Sorry, I see no way to create the reference marks for the second boat except by building the first boat.
Your implication that the first boat is crummy is incorrect. The first boat is built in the standard manner according to Canoecraft. And the first boat must be indeed perfect if you are going to take reference marks from it for the speedier method of stripping the football on the second boat. So the first boat is a very usable canoe that you can be proud of.
Gary
Your implication that the first boat is crummy is incorrect. The first boat is built in the standard manner according to Canoecraft. And the first boat must be indeed perfect if you are going to take reference marks from it for the speedier method of stripping the football on the second boat. So the first boat is a very usable canoe that you can be proud of.
Gary
When people figure out what's really important in Life, there's gonna be a big shortage of canoes.
-
marchmyres
- Posts: 31
- Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 9:54 am
- Location: Aberdeen, UK
Sorry Gary - I missed out the <sarcasm> and </sarcasm> tags. It sounds such an interesting techique I was wondering why it wasn't possible just to build the football first, since the sheer line can be cut independently? Build it using your method to a certain size referenced on the plans/stations. Notch the football for the stems. Then plank downwards on either side, cutting the sheer from reference lines on the stations?
The sheer line is indeed cut independently, but the lines of the strips on the sides of the canoe are dependent on the football shape. and they should be fair and nearly parallel to the waterline. And the only way I could see to make these lines come out fair was to take the strip-lines from a perfect canoe built in the usual manner--sheerline down to keel line.
If you just arbitrarily create a football of some shape on the bottom of the canoe, chances are that as you continue to lay strips outward from the football, the strips on the side would develop high and low spots and even waves. And especially if you are planning to use an accent stripe near the sheer, you want those lines to be pleasant and fair. So you have to create the football shape from the former canoe's reference points.
We've now created our two half footballs for the second canoe and glued them together to create the football. We start stripping outward from the football tomorrow. I'm taking pictures as I go and will post them when I'm sure all the bugs are out of the "football down" stripping system.
Hopefully, canoe designers will catch onto the ease of stripping a canoe with this new method and will start marking their plans and stations with football reference points so builders can make the football first, eliminating all that time-consuming joinery at the keel line.
Gary
If you just arbitrarily create a football of some shape on the bottom of the canoe, chances are that as you continue to lay strips outward from the football, the strips on the side would develop high and low spots and even waves. And especially if you are planning to use an accent stripe near the sheer, you want those lines to be pleasant and fair. So you have to create the football shape from the former canoe's reference points.
We've now created our two half footballs for the second canoe and glued them together to create the football. We start stripping outward from the football tomorrow. I'm taking pictures as I go and will post them when I'm sure all the bugs are out of the "football down" stripping system.
Hopefully, canoe designers will catch onto the ease of stripping a canoe with this new method and will start marking their plans and stations with football reference points so builders can make the football first, eliminating all that time-consuming joinery at the keel line.
Gary
When people figure out what's really important in Life, there's gonna be a big shortage of canoes.
Foobal Patch
Back to the original question, here`s a link to a site who describes the footbal patch;
http://www.almechd.de/almechd/paddling/bobs_index.html
scroll to Building, click an scroll to the "patchwork".
GeirB
http://www.almechd.de/almechd/paddling/bobs_index.html
scroll to Building, click an scroll to the "patchwork".
GeirB
Home page: http://www.kanokajakksiden.info