And I blame the kids for fingerprints on the window...

I was sitting in a chair in my living room last night working on a material list for a canoe last night. The chair just happens to be in front of the window above. As I was sitting, I heard some strange noise like a LARGE bird or moth banging against the window. It wasn't until I got up from my chair and looked behind me that I saw the frog on the window.

Darned if I know...

We've been growing vegetables in garden boxes on our front porch this year. Mostly tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash and zucchini. Recently we found the oddity shown in the picture above in one of the bushes. It is growing on a zucchini plant but looking like a half-and-half summer squash/zucchini. Is this an accident of cross pollination? Has anybody ever seen anything like it?

We've been referring to most of what we're growing as "stealth vegetables". You don't see them one day and then all of a sudden you find a giant whatever-it-is ready to pick!

We've even got a stealth melon growing out in our front flower beds by our driveway. It must have been a seed that was in the compost I dressed into the ground in the spring. At any rate, a vine appeared and I let it grow out of curiosity. At the moment we have a large melon (8" or so in diameter) of indeterminate variety growing out there. It could be a watermelon, cantelope or honeydew - I just can't tell yet!

Wordless Wednesday

Tech-Tip Tuesday

As I've mentioned before, there has been great interest in from future students to build tandem canoes. For the most part, we've built solo boats because they are smaller, lighter and use less material and therefore are less expensive. One of the unique challenges that my class has is that we have no "fixed" workshop to leave our boats in as they are built. We need to carry the boats in from a storage barn and back out again every week. To be able to do this without altering the shape of the canoes as they are built, the strongback and forms must be very rigid and strong enough to take the abuse of moving them around.

While the 15 foot long canoe would only about 1-1/2' longer than the Wee Lassie II, it is about 7" wider. Also, the 15-footer is probably at least a third heavier in both forms and boat. Not insignificant weight. For this reason, I have shied away from offering a tandem canoe design.

This year, I'm finally relenting and trying a 15' canoe. I'm doing everything that I can think of to put both the forms and strongback on a diet. First, is the strongback. I'm thinking of using a box-beam design. It is a lighter-weight approach, but I need it to be rigid for moving the boats. Box-beams are just that - a beam with a box-shaped cross section and are usually hollow. Because of this configuration, they are not always rigid in torsion (read: twisting). I'm trying to avoid this twisting by using rigid foam for the beam's core.

The picture at the top shows the materials that I'm using. At the top is 5.5mm thick Luan plywood sheet. In the middle is a 2" thick foam insulation board. At the bottom is a piece of 2x4 framing lumber. Some 1/2" plywood (not shown) will be the top for mounting the patterns.

First, I squared up the foam's edge (it had a tongue-and-groove feature) and then cut pieces 3-1/2" wide that were 8' long. There were 6 pieces. I then took two of the full length pieces and cut 2' from the end. The goal here is to stagger the joints when I laminate the foam together. In the picture below, I've pulled the joints open to emphasize their location and show the spacing. There are three 2" wide laminations showing here.


The next step was to cut some blocks from the 2x4 for the bottom of the beam - about 5-3/4" long blocks - these are to keep the beam from spreading and to give something rugged to clamp to and screw to when in use. I'm envisioning this beam sitting on workbenches or sawhorses as the canoes are being built. The picture below shows the pieces sitting on the foam. At this point, the beam is upside-down.


The next step was to rip the Luan sheet. I made the sides 5-1/2" wide to allow for the 2x4, the foam and the 1/2" plywood deck. There are 4 pieces. As the butt joint between is in the middle of the beam, I made up some 5" wide 2 foot long butt blocks to glue to the sides. I made it 5" wide so that I had room to put a square up against the sides of the beam for setting up patterns. The bottom edge of the butt block will be at the bottom edge of the beam. (Where the 2x4 is...)


This picture shows the dry-fit of the beam in its proper orientation- foam core, Luan sides, plywood deck and 2x4 bottom blocks. Tomorrow, I'll assemble the pieces using the foam adhesive in the tube below. The sides will be screwed to the deck and the blocks to keep things together while the adhesive sets.


Stay tuned!

A little bit of progress

Well, I've been making progress on a few fronts lately. It's been coming slowly, but it has been coming. First, I've made the decision to build the Chestnut Prospector "Ranger" canoe for the tandem boat in my class and ordered the plans. In order to protect the intellectual property of the designer, I'll have to ask my students to buy the book which contains the plans, but that's not a bad trade-off, really as the book contains a lot of great information. It's a 15' long canoe that's just shy of 3' at it's widest point. It should feel stable but still be fairly easily paddled. A good compromise.

I'm still working on making the strongback and forms for this design lighter. I'm planning on a foam-filled box beam for the strongback that will be set on either sawhorses (stackable or folding) or benches in the shop. The top will be 3/4" plywood to allow us to screw down the patterns and the sides will be luan ply. In between will be layers of foamular insulation that are laminated to each other and the luan with construction adhesive. Periodically, there will be 2x4 or 2x6 blocks to improve the torsional rigidity. I went to the lumberyard this morning to get the materials that I wanted only to find them closed. I then went to our local "big-box" store to see if they had what I wanted. They do, but I didn't buy them there - I was planning on using construction adhesive to assemble the beam, but hadn't considered the fact that the adhesive might be incompatible with the foam. Dang. A bit more research. The forms will also be "lightened" by the removal of material where it isn't necessary from the patterns. I need to keep this light so we're not moving 140 pound of boat and strongback around. My goal is to get a prototype built before next weekend is out so I can have a material list ready for sign-up on the following Monday. The other trick is going to be organizing the shop this year to accomodate the different stages of build that are going on. We'll see how that goes as time goes on.

I've got the majority of the frame complete and put two coats of semi-gloss polyurethane on it. I think things look pretty nice, actually:



I also picked up black nylon rope, webbing, hardware, grommets, elastic and such for deck rigging. I need to bore some holes in the frame to allow me to attach carry loops at the bow and stern, deck rigging and hatch straps. My next major task is to build the foot braces and to finish up the coamings and hatch.

I'm not impressed with my first attempt at the rear hatch - the wood was wet with boiling water and then using a steam iron and damp cloth, it was steamed around a plywood form to get the oval shape. I broke the first one due to wild grain, but the second went better with no fractures. After the wood dried, I removed it from the form to apply glue, but I couldn't manage to get it as back on the frame as tightly as I'd like. The picture below is the first attempt. There are gaps between the laminations that I'm not happy with. I need two of these - one slightly larger than the other - as the hatch rim and the other for the hatch cover.


I also need another piece for the coaming, but the radii are much bigger (as is the part) and I anticipate fewer problems. I'd purchased some ratcheting straps to try to pull things onto the rim, but I think I'll go "low-tech" with a Spanish windlass to try to clamp the wood around the form as it's gluing. Sometimes the simplest ways are the best.

Tomorrow is another day and I'll take another stab at the coaming and the cover rims.

Wordless Wednesday

Sorry, no Tech Tip Tuesday this week...

But, I hope you'll be pleased with the posting just the same.

The wooden boats we build aren't meant for sitting around and looking at - they're built to be used. Yeah, that involves a few scratches and scrapes, but you built the boat, so it can't be that hard to put on a bit of epoxy and varnish when you need it, right?

This little trip was started with a phone call from a friend of mine about a week and a half ago. He'd just been paddling on a little piece of water nearby that is generously called a river and thought that I'd be interested in paddling it as well. I've lived in this area for nearly my entire life, driven over and past this piece of water, but had never thought to paddle it because I couldn't figure out where to put in. After much to-ing and fro-ing over the past week, we finally connected and planned to hit meet at about 5:00PM and hit the water. I also got in touch with DaGoof to invite him as well.

Because the put-in location was so difficult to get to we met at a local car dealership to follow my first friend. We arrived and parked in a decently sized parking lot that was very close to the river.


When we got closer to the river, we saw the following - a dam that controls the river flow downstream from this location.


Upstream, there is a very busy bridge of a state highway the crosses the river. There are a few houses that are along the river bank. The friend who called me was introduced to this stretch of the river by the fellow who owns the house on the left. Tough location if you love to paddle, eh?


What always amazes me is that there are these little hidden gems that are an oasis in the middle of very urban locations. This river runs literally right through the center of a large town.


We carried the boats down to the bank and prepared to put in when the home-owner arrived from work and disappeared into his house arriving with several bottles of restorative beverages for the group. After some Q&A about the canoes and some instruction about the river itself, he provided a boat for our mutual friend to paddle.


We paddled for about 5 minutes upstream at which point almost all trace of civilization seemed to disappear. The unfortunate trace of civilization that didn't disappear was trash along the river. - mostly in the form of floating debris. I wasn't thinking or I would have packed a trash bag to help to reduce the trash that I found. I fully intend to go back and help to remove some of the trash along the way. It is vitally important to be a good steward to your local waterways to encourage more people to enjoy the water and become good stewards themselves.

We were treated to a visit by a beaver swimming in the river until we got to close and it retreated with a slap of its tail on the water. The gentleman who owned the house told us of a variety of wildlife that he was along the river including a bobcat on an overhanging branch.

The trip was wonderful and there was an amazing quiet to the whole trip a remarkable remoteness between a busy state highway and a busy street. There were overhanging branches and trees with small sandbanks and lush foliage that was just showing the first tinges of fall.

Two large trees that completely blocked the waterway finally brought us to a halt. We could have gotten out of the canoes to carry over the trees, but opted to turn back owing to the fading light.


On our return, we were greeted by the gentleman who owned the house along with another friend of his who he'd called to come see the canoes. One of the few problems with a wooden boat is that you need to plan an extra 1/2 hour on either end of the trip to explain the boats to people who have an interest in your boats!

Sometimes the most surprising wilderness is actually the one in your backyard!