Sliding seat for 16.2 solo canoe

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Karl Huebner
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:59 pm
Location: Delaware Ohio

Sliding seat for 16.2 solo canoe

Post by Karl Huebner »

Well, I "restarted" my Steve Killing Freedom 16.2 solo and am looking at making a solo seat. The ones on rails i don't like. Are there any designs out there that I could duplicate?
Karl
16' Prospector style canoe
17' BMB Freedom 17
17' BMB Endeavour
14' plastic kayak
14' McCarthy style Wee Lassie II
1 Thomas Hill lapstrake Daisy May canoe
Coming Soon Freedom 16.2 solo
To be repaired
1923 St. Charles River
1967 Langford
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Glen Smith
Posts: 3719
Joined: Sat May 08, 2004 9:08 am
Location: Baie-St-Paul, Quebec, Canada

Re: Sliding seat for 16.2 solo canoe

Post by Glen Smith »

Why did you have to "restart"? Are you interested in a fixed or sliding seat?
Karl Huebner
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:59 pm
Location: Delaware Ohio

Re: Sliding seat for 16.2 solo canoe

Post by Karl Huebner »

Glen Smith wrote:Why did you have to "restart"? Are you interested in a fixed or sliding seat?
I stopped making canoes... I don't recall why, just did. I am interested in sliding seats but don't like the designs with rails that go under the inwales.
I noticed that the postings by Steve Killings in the latter parts of the Freedom postings are missing or deleted. As I recall, they had something to do with seat placement. Is that correct?

Thanks
Karl
16' Prospector style canoe
17' BMB Freedom 17
17' BMB Endeavour
14' plastic kayak
14' McCarthy style Wee Lassie II
1 Thomas Hill lapstrake Daisy May canoe
Coming Soon Freedom 16.2 solo
To be repaired
1923 St. Charles River
1967 Langford
User avatar
Glen Smith
Posts: 3719
Joined: Sat May 08, 2004 9:08 am
Location: Baie-St-Paul, Quebec, Canada

Re: Sliding seat for 16.2 solo canoe

Post by Glen Smith »

Hmmmm, I don't know what happened to Steve's posts. We will have the service provider look into this.

Can someone help Kurt with his seat question?
Karl Huebner
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:59 pm
Location: Delaware Ohio

Re: Sliding seat for 16.2 solo canoe

Post by Karl Huebner »

Well, there appears to be some competing designs out there.
1. sliding Bow Seat Kit (SBK)
Consists of two ash "U" brackets, 3 slide rails (one to mount gunwale to gunwale), spacers, and stainless hardware. Sold with or without seat.
Good example is found at http://www.essexindustries.org/index.ph ... ucts_id=23
Not what I was looking for. Seems that if I wanted to kneel, I might get my feet caught if I was unfortunate enough to flip over.
The best looking version of this design is found on the Green Valley Boat Works web page.
2. Dan Caouette's 2011 Welsh Brook 13 Solo Canoe has a simple but elegant design that will be adapted for my next Freedom 17 I build. http://clearstreamwood.com/WordPress/po ... solo-canoe Good idea in a canoe with taller (deeper?) bow.
3. Kurt Maurer's (aka The Sawdust Factory) Merlin has the design I like the most, a seat on a centralized pedestal. http://ngc704.home.comcast.net/~ngc704/ ... ge%203.htm See both pages 3 and 4. Will have to see how much the tractor style seat costs but I do like his plywood frame as compared to the tubes.
4. A pedestal style seat that has a sawtooth short box (3-4 inches tall) epoxied to the bottom of the canoe with a matching tooth box with a mounted (tractor style) seat. I know the seat can be made to be sturdy but do have some concerns about the forward and rearward movement with paddling.

Again, if anyone has any ideas please let me know...
Karl
16' Prospector style canoe
17' BMB Freedom 17
17' BMB Endeavour
14' plastic kayak
14' McCarthy style Wee Lassie II
1 Thomas Hill lapstrake Daisy May canoe
Coming Soon Freedom 16.2 solo
To be repaired
1923 St. Charles River
1967 Langford
BearLeeAlive
Posts: 196
Joined: Tue Aug 18, 2009 7:00 pm

Re: Sliding seat for 16.2 solo canoe

Post by BearLeeAlive »

I am looking for ideas along this line for a solo too. I had looked at that last link before, and though of doing something along that line, but using wood rails instead of metal.

I have not found too many ideas different than you have, hopefully someone else has.
-JIM-
Karl Huebner
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:59 pm
Location: Delaware Ohio

Re: Sliding seat for 16.2 solo canoe

Post by Karl Huebner »

BearLeeAlive:

Have you finished your Kite? I was the pics that you have posted so far.
The Green Valley Kite, found on their web site, looks too dern good to put in the water. And I do like their removable yoke system, even though it is just a tad... "wood shop jig" in its appearance http://www.greenval.com/kite.html. The seat in that photo is screwed to the rails. If one could find a way to modify that system so that the seat slid and could be locked into place, that might also work (if one could relax about getting one's feet trapped.)
Somewhere, there is a system to fix a seat to rails that uses a leather strap but, so far I have not found any reference to it on the internet. Maybe it was on an older canoe from one of the annual WHCA gathering?

Next project within this project will be removable storage containers (like putting long decks on the bow and stern sections) for long trips. While it should not end up looking like a Kruger Sea Wind http://www.krugercanoes.com/prod01.htm, it may end up looking like a wood strip canoe with skin on wood inserts. Don't know. Should be easy enough... put the forms on the straightback and make the skin on wood frame ... put a structure to support a hatch, pull it off, skin it, paint it... yea, it will never be that simple...
Wanted to have it for a southern US flatwater trip in March but that is not going to happen... not enough time.
Karl
16' Prospector style canoe
17' BMB Freedom 17
17' BMB Endeavour
14' plastic kayak
14' McCarthy style Wee Lassie II
1 Thomas Hill lapstrake Daisy May canoe
Coming Soon Freedom 16.2 solo
To be repaired
1923 St. Charles River
1967 Langford
BearLeeAlive
Posts: 196
Joined: Tue Aug 18, 2009 7:00 pm

Re: Sliding seat for 16.2 solo canoe

Post by BearLeeAlive »

Karl, between work and other projects around the home, my Kite has sat until just recently. It is fully stripped and faired. Very little filler is needed in a couple skinny gaps, then a final sand and glassing. I hope to ramp up my efforts on it very soon.

I am not using their removable yoke system. For one, most places out here have little portaging, and when they do carts are used. When I do need one, I plan to build in a clamping feature to attach it to the gunnels. I too am not too keen on the look of the one that Martin Step built. Functionally it is great, but a bit of a visual eyesore to me.

I am strongly thinking of building the seat from Martin's plans. I quite like the look of it. If I do a pedestal, I will just eliminate the arms to the side.

I have also considered attaching to cleats on the side of the hull, as opposed to hanging from the gunwales. For one, due to the sharp shoulders on the Kite giving it fairly good strength near the shear, I plan to do a smaller uni-wale similar to what was discussed here a while back. This would not give much meat to hand anything on.

The trim work is still in the thinking stage for the most part.
Last edited by BearLeeAlive on Wed Feb 22, 2012 8:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-JIM-
Karl Huebner
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:59 pm
Location: Delaware Ohio

Re: Sliding seat for 16.2 solo canoe

Post by Karl Huebner »

I did find some canoe saddles at North Water http://www.northwater.com/html/products ... addle.html but I am afraid that $120 is too much for my tastes. On the kayak forum http://www.kayakforum.com/cgi-bin/Building/index.cgi there is some information on making seats out of mini-cell foam. Has anyone here tried that?
Karl
16' Prospector style canoe
17' BMB Freedom 17
17' BMB Endeavour
14' plastic kayak
14' McCarthy style Wee Lassie II
1 Thomas Hill lapstrake Daisy May canoe
Coming Soon Freedom 16.2 solo
To be repaired
1923 St. Charles River
1967 Langford
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