Tech Tip Tuesday

If you're going to take the time to build your own boat, you should always use the best material that is available to you. You're going to spend many, many hours working on the boat and you want to have something you can be proud of. I figure that if you're building a canoe for the first time, you'll probably spend a great deal of your time looking for suitable materials for your boat. Don't skimp on the time you spend looking for good materials.

It only makes your life difficult to use the wrong parts or poor quality stock. I had one student show up at class with some Mahogany for trim and seat frames. He was trying to save money and use stock he already had. The wood was badly weathered and checked stock that had holes though it where fasteners had once been installed. I tried to convince him that it wasn't exactly what he wanted for his trim. I was concerned that it wouldn't clean up well and was not going to be strong enough. The only way that I could finally get my point across was to actually mill up some of the stock. At this point, seeing the milled stock the student was convinced things would be just fine. (Uh oh...) I then set up the two pieces of wood that were milled to be stretchers for the seat frame like they would be in the finished canoe. I had him sit on the stretchers with the expected result. CRACK! Thankfully, he only dropped the 3" to the bench.

Good material tends to yield good results. Enjoy the beautiful pictures!

Raw hull stock (clear vertical grain Western Red Cedar):


The trim (Teak):


Hardware (Brass, Bronze or Stainless) :
Rigging (quality bronze, clear, straight grained stock and hand spliced line):

Finish and coatings (No bugs around for THAT varnish job...) :


Necessary equipment :