15' 0" Freedom

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sluggo
Posts: 244
Joined: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:17 pm
Location: Vancouver BC

Post by sluggo »

The stripping is coming along. I'm at the bilge in the center of the canoe now. A few of these strips are quite stressed/twisted going from kind of horizontal to vertical. I'm doing maybe 4-8 strips per week now that the wife is working evenings. I stay with the kids most nights but get an evening or weekend morning to do some stripping. The rolling bevel is coming along okay. I definitely have some gaps to fill. I think this more of an issue of my strips not being planed, rather than the bevel technique. For example, a strip that is roughly 3/4" wide may dip down by 1/32" in some spots, thereby opening a gap. Ah well, I like the wood and so it goes.

I'm slowly trying to update my blog at the same time. I have too many projects on the go though. I just started building a 7/8wt spey rod... :shocked

Oh, and I also finished an Aleut paddle: http://bearmountainboats.com/phpbb2/vie ... php?t=2759

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Patricks Dad
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Location: Warrenville, Illinois

Post by Patricks Dad »

A bit of progress on my Freedom-15... Tonight I finished filling and rough sanding the inside and wet it down. Smells great. A few spots that need a bit more sanding to remove remaining glue but I think I'm on track for glassing this weekend....

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Randy Pfeifer
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sluggo
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Joined: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:17 pm
Location: Vancouver BC

Post by sluggo »

Right on Randy, looks good. What did you use to fill gaps?

d.
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Patricks Dad
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Post by Patricks Dad »

We were very cautious when stripping so only had a few things to fill. On our first canoe we used epoxy thickened with sanding dust to match the color. We masked adjacent to the gaps to fill and it worked ok but was alot of work and was time consuming. On this canoe, I simply filled with a wood paste from the tube (mixed a couple different colors to match the wood). It didn't require masking. It was ready to sand in less than an hour. I'm sold on the wood putty from the tube. I see no reason to fiddle with thickened epoxy. If I had large gaps or many gaps I might be singing a different tune.
Randy Pfeifer
(847) 341-0618
Randy.Pfeifer1@gmail.com
sluggo
Posts: 244
Joined: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:17 pm
Location: Vancouver BC

Post by sluggo »

Lots of progress here at Chez sluggo. I've finished stripping one half of the hull and have to turn the bilge and fill in the football on the port side. The strips at the stem where it turns the bilge were the most difficult to fit but I think it will work out okay. I used staples at the football, for no real reason other than it was fun and quick to use another clamping method.

You can see 1 butt joint in this picture, I think the boat will only have 3 butt joints in total, other than the accent strip. I wanted to utelize all of the cedar that I brought into the garage. I think I used 4 bundles corresponding to approximately 4 boards 3/4x7"x19'. I have 4 or 5 more bundles left for my next boat :thinking, and I only paid $120 for all the wood. The wood grain is fantastic although the board size and planing wasn't great. Some of the planks were closer to 1/2" rough planed. In terms of stripping, I think the biggest challenge I faced was using boards that weren't finished planed.

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Notice the prodigious bike fleet. That's a Gios Torino with 50th anniversary gold plated Campagnolo blue and white bike there, nestled between a fine selection of Rocky Mountain bikes and Trek carbon fibre road bike.
sluggo
Posts: 244
Joined: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:17 pm
Location: Vancouver BC

Post by sluggo »

I finished stripping the canoe yesterday. As for how I did the last two strips (see here), I fit them individually. The last strip was not bent at all, I just shaped a curve on one side using my apron plane. It wasn't too difficult. The worst strip was the 2nd to last one. It didn't bend so well and I have a healthy gap to fill. Which reminds me, I'll post a picture or two from underneath to show how many gaps I have (quite a few!). Using the rolling bevel with wood that wasn't finished planed was a bit wacky. But that's ok.

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Patricks Dad
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Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:11 pm
Location: Warrenville, Illinois

Yoke

Post by Patricks Dad »

I spent a few hours today whittling a yoke for my Freedom. God bless the guys that invented the angle grinder and respirator. Oh, yeah, the guy or gal that invented the band-aid too.

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I put a taper on the top of the yoke ends so that the bow of the canoe would be raised about 6" when the yoke is level on my (or better yet my son's) shoulders.


Now I need to get my seats woven.
Last edited by Patricks Dad on Sat Feb 23, 2008 2:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Randy Pfeifer
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Glen Smith
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Location: Baie-St-Paul, Quebec, Canada

Post by Glen Smith »

Nice yoke Randy! Doesn't Patrick have his seat weaver diploma? :laughing
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Patricks Dad
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Post by Patricks Dad »

He does but unfortunately, he's off working on another diploma in Arizona. I'm afraid I'm on my own with this set of seats.
Randy Pfeifer
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sluggo
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Location: Vancouver BC

Post by sluggo »

The yoke looks pretty sweet Randy. It looks like you glued the two types of wood together back to back? Is it maple and cherry?
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Patricks Dad
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Post by Patricks Dad »

The yoke is built from a piece of maple and a piece of sapele (same combo used on the decks). They were planed smooth and glued together with (unthickened) epoxy.
Randy Pfeifer
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Randy.Pfeifer1@gmail.com
sluggo
Posts: 244
Joined: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:17 pm
Location: Vancouver BC

Post by sluggo »

How was the maple for planing? I did some planing on some black walnut, it certainly was trickier than cedar. I had to be very careful of the swirly grain. Did you use a bench plane to produce the mating surfaces? I'm very tempted to try this with my yoke, mixing ash and walnut.

I used a angle grinder with sand paper for some shaping of a paddle. I think I used 30grit. It worked well, but it was kind of tense. Any little slip up and the grinder would really dig into the wood. I'd use a finer grit next time, my first attempt was based on info from the plans I used for the paddle. What grit did you use?

cheers
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Patricks Dad
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Location: Warrenville, Illinois

Post by Patricks Dad »

Planing the maple was easy with my bench thickness planer. You need to go at it slowly but the piece of maple I started with was in pretty good shape to begin with so it only took 2 or 3 passes through the planer. Yeah, that angle grinder is a bit scary. I think I used a 40 grit sanding wheel. The maple was hard enough that it wasn't prone to gouge quickly. However, the sapele is fairly soft (not unlike walnut) and it was removed pretty quickly with the grinder. Need to be fairly careful to avoid doing any serious damage. Cleaned things up with the belt sander, ROS and by hand.

Here's a photo of the yoke with a coat of epoxy on it.

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I've put off weaving seats about as long as I can....
Randy Pfeifer
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Patricks Dad
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Location: Warrenville, Illinois

Post by Patricks Dad »

Well, I managed to get enough ambition to weave my seats. It took about 4 hours each. Here's one of them:

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Now it's back to sanding (the inside of the hull and all those ribs) to prepare for varnish.

I'm coming up on the 1 year anniversary of starting this thing in just a few weeks. I filed for a HIN this afternoon. Hopefully it will be in the water this month.
Randy Pfeifer
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Randy.Pfeifer1@gmail.com
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Glen Smith
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Post by Glen Smith »

It looks like you chose "babiche" for the seat. Very nicely done.
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