Building a Cedar and Canvas Canoe : Saturday

On Saturday morning, our task was to fit out the boat with the trim that we manufactured earlier in the week. This included the grab handles, thwarts, yoke, seats and the outwale.

In the picture below, you can see the grab handles, thwarts and yoke. The handles, thwarts, yoke and rail were all cut from mahogany. The thwarts, yoke and grab handles have tapers on the ends to mate up with the inwale and are first radiused using a router and then made oval in cross-section using spokeshaves.


The decks were cherry (as were the seats - brought pre-manufactured and finished) and were cut from a steam-bent blank of cherry. The bend matches the sheer. We shaped and tapered the decks to fit between the spruce inwale and once the deck was installed, we rounded it over. The back of the deck is also thinned to make the boat a bit more elegant. I'll see if I can find a picture of that as we back up.

On the floor to the right of the canoe are the outwales still in the jig after steam bending. (they have the clamps on) These were cut and beveled to go over the planking and canvas and then soaked overnight in the pond behind the shop. Let's just say they had some interesting color and new occupants when picked out of the pond for steaming. In this picture you can see that there are temporary thwarts and handles installed to keep the canoe's shape while we plank and canvas the canoe. These are used to keep from damaging the finish trim.



Here is the canoe with the outwales installed and screwed in place. They've been tapered at the ends to reduce their width and would be sanded with a belt sander to enhance the taper a bit later.



Here are the finished products from the class - all beautiful work, indeed.


On the left is an Atkinson Traveler (17') , in the middle is the Model 1889 (16') and on the right is the Sojourner (13')