Butchered the strips that attach to stem near keel

[billberner]

I am building my first canoe and made a horrible mistake as I was stripping up to the keel. I kept trying to saw the planks off even with the stem even after the point where that didn't make sense anymore. I've attached a picture, but now the planks that meet the stem near the keel have the ends trimmed so that if I taper the outer stem to 3/8" (I am following Canoe Craft) and then mortise for that, there will be gaps int he planks that butt up to the outer stem.

Now I think my options for recovery are to either

1. shave down the planks a bit more with a chisel to where I can glue a small strip over the top (essentially creating a scarf joint) that will extend to the center of the inner stem, let cure and then sand down. In this case I can taper the stem to 3/8" as planned and mortise for it.

2. Make the mortise on the planks as wide as it needs to be to get rid of the butchering, then glue an extra strip to the sides of the stem so it would fit into this mortise. Glue the outer stem on and then sand down to flow into the hull.

3. Taper the outer stem down to 3/8", mortise so the outer stem just fits into that mortise and epoxy it in, then fill the remaining gaps with colored epoxy to match as well as possible.

Any suggestions? I am leaning toward #1 as it is closest to the original plan (I am following Canoe Craft). But I am not sure which I can get to look better.

[Cruiser]

Hi Bill,
The pic isn't showing up for me, so that makes things a little harder to help.

While you sort out the pic issue, I will give you a link to my last build and how CanoeCraft handles those stem areas

https://www.canoetripping.net/threads/l ... 054/page-4 starting at post#77

That is where I do the stems, you have pretty much completed everything leading up to that point. You may find a solution in the posts or the folks here can offers alternatives when we "see" what you are trying to explain


Brian

[Jim Dodd]

Patching in slivers to fill gaps is not a Sin.
As Brian states, a pic would tell more ?
Keep the faith ! You can make it work. The first is always a big learning experience. The next will be much better !

Jim

[billberner]

Now I see what happened with the picture, when I try to attach it, I get an error "the board attachment quota has been reached." I am not sure how to get around that. I checked under "Manage attachments" in my profile and it says I have not posted any. Looks like I need to contact the administrator for attachment permission. I will do that now and post the picture as soon as possible.

[Patricks Dad]

This forum does not support hosting photos directly. You can place your photos anywhere that is accessible on the web and then link them to a post here on this forum.

For example, I use facebook photos. I just put my photos up on facebook, capture a link address to the picture I want to post here and then include that link in the text string that is automatically generated when you hit the picture button above. (9th button from the left at the top of the post form - looks like a mountain with a sun in in the upper left corner)..

[Cruiser]

following

[billberner]

I did not realize we could not post pictures directly. I have moved one picture that shows the issue to Google Drive here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

That said, I was working on the canoe again last weekend and once I tapered the stem and fit it over the area, it seemed that the most reasonable solution would be to glue the stem on with thickened epoxy, apply it liberally and fill any voids left by my aggressive cutting with thickened, colored epoxy.

So I think I'm set for this issue, now to fair the hull and get ready for glassing...

[Cruiser]

An alternative would be to leave the stem a bit wider and fit it that way.

If you have already trimmed the stem with a taper, then consider leveling those areas affected and gluing in pieces that are a near match. Then do your slot preparation, which will cut away a lot of the "fix" and only leave what is needed to fill the gaps. the thickened epoxy will look after the rest. Once you get it all sanded down, I suspect very little will actually show.

Brian

[bill100]

Brian,

I appear to have made the same mistake.

I over did it following the advice to trim the strips square as you go.

Could you post a pic of your solution and how it worked out?

Bill Oliver