Gunwales

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Bryan Hansel
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Joined: Fri May 14, 2004 6:36 pm
Location: Grand Marais, MN
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Gunwales

Post by Bryan Hansel »

I glued the gunwales on today. I decided to use ash (because I had a bunch of 3/4x in the garage) for the inwales and cedar for the outwales. I went with cedar for the color, but also because I want to see how well a softwood will hold up as outwales. The hull is extremely stiff with the carbon fiber interior, so I think I'll have plenty structure.

I cut the scuppers with a router and jig. I wanted the squarish look of ribs. This is what I came up with to cut them:

Image

I still need to clean up the hull edge, etc... Here they are on the canoe:

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The canoe with the gunwales on. The gunwales pulled out all the warping I was experiencing.

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I need to install flotation bulkheads in the bow and stern, the seats, thwart, deck, yoke and carry handles. I ordered a bunch of stuff from edscanoes.com, which had excellent prices, service and quality. Then I need to paint the bottom to hide the bugs and varnish.
Last edited by Bryan Hansel on Sat Sep 17, 2011 9:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Woodchuck
Posts: 140
Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2005 7:56 am
Location: Garden City, MI

Re: Gunwales

Post by Woodchuck »

Lookin good but for my money, I would have put a radius at each corner of the scuppers. For structural strength, a sharp corner is to be avoided, hence the radius. Ninety degree corners are never recommended for strength, always round, filet, fill, curve, etc. IMHO
:wink :wink :wink
Joe "Woodchuck" Gledhill
Garden City, MI
Snowman
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Location: Gatineau, QC

Re: Gunwales

Post by Snowman »

Bryan,

The build is coming along nicely!



nowman
Snowman back East
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Bryan Hansel
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Location: Grand Marais, MN
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Re: Gunwales

Post by Bryan Hansel »

Woodchuck wrote:Lookin good but for my money, I would have put a radius at each corner of the scuppers. For structural strength, a sharp corner is to be avoided, hence the radius. Ninety degree corners are never recommended for strength, always round, filet, fill, curve, etc. IMHO
:wink :wink :wink
Maybe, but I like the square look and I just don't think there's any structural strength issue here. If anything, it's overbuilt, like most gunwales on strippers. I've done square scuppers before and never had a problem.

Here's a bad picture of square scuppers on a Rushton's Wee Lassie that I built sometime around 2003. I hung the seat from the gunwales, used only one thwart, used 1/8-inch strips, a couple of layers of 3.2 tight-weave, and screwed instead of glued the gunwales to the boat. No issues at all.

Image
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Bryan Hansel
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Joined: Fri May 14, 2004 6:36 pm
Location: Grand Marais, MN
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Re: Gunwales

Post by Bryan Hansel »

These are the seats that I bought: http://www.edscanoe.com/cane-bucket-canoe-seat.html

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Glen Smith
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Location: Baie-St-Paul, Quebec, Canada

Re: Gunwales

Post by Glen Smith »

Yes, Ed has some beautiful accessories.
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