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I've sort of started building my first canoe...I say sort of because right now I'm just using some pine I have laying around to practice the techniques. Basically I'm going to build the first 2' of the bow while I wait for spring so I can get started on the full canoe in the garage. I've been toying with the idea of building a canoe for about a year now and finally decided to take the plunge.
Right now I have the stem molds cut out and I've formed the stem pieces around it. When I remove the clamps ( after leaving overnight ) the pine bounces back somewhat and I'm wondering if the amount of bounce back is normal.
The springback is normal as the strips haven't been glued togther yet. Even after gluing, a small amount of springback may be noticed but it is usually quite minimal and doesn't create a problem.
Thanks Glen was wondering why the picture suddenly started working..what did I do wrong?
Glad to hear the spring back is normal. I was worried that there would be too much stress on the glue joint...guess I'll head down and glue it up right now.
I'm building a prospector. Bought the plans here from Bear Mountain.
You say you are going to build the first two feet of the bow and wait until spring to do the full canoe. Using this method, how can you be sure that all of the stations will line up correctly. Will you have them all mounted to the strongback before starting this first two feet?
So the plan is to use the first 2 stations as my test rig so that I can practice making & shaping the stems and gluing some strips on etc using pine I have laying around. Then once it stops snowing here, I can free up space in the garage to build the full strong back and start from scratch on it....Basically I'm just trying to keep myself busy and figure doing this and making all the jigs etc I'll need should do the trick.
Cheers Ron!!! There are lots of things you can do before you free up the space!!!! Build the seats, a paddle or two to hone your woodworking skills....build the stations, a web site, feature strips...etc. I would surely use this season to play around a bit set myself up for the "big" building push next spring!!!.. BTW.. the Prospector is a great canoe, what drew you to that design??? Welcome...Juneaudave
A bounce back trick that works quite well is to use heat and lots of it.
If this is going to end up a problem.....try this.
Steam bend like you normally would, let it dry....then unclamp, add a wide (wider then the piece to be heated for protection) strip of metal so the flame doesnt get to the wood, clamp it back up, and heat it up, not so hot to burn it but hot hot. This works quite well with osage building static recurves. Problem we were having was once the limb tips were bent they'd bounce back to much. This helped save a ton of curve in the tips without having to 'over compensate'. We then glued on the backing strips which took all but a tiny tiny bit of "spring back" as we call it.
Doubt you'll need to go to this for your stems though as said once they are glued they do hold most of it and unlike a all wood bow where compression and tension is the game, it's only a shape here.....
Just thought I'd throw it in, who knows might be useful to someone for something ;)
