"Knot Again" -- A "Soul Mate" Canoe

Click on the photos for a larger, uncropped version

Following yet another Green River trip, I decided it was time to build a canoe so I could share groover hauling duties. Actually, it was because I was looking for a challenge, and half a paddle seemed like a fun challenge. I looked at a number of solo canoes, and settled on the Soul Mate from Carrying Places Canoe & Boat Works. It's 15' long and 30" wide with a bit of rocker. As plans go, this set was less expensive but provides only half breath forms, so be ready for some tracing. The designer, Joe Ziemba, is very responsive to e-mail.

I started on the project New Years Day, 2007. This boat is built almost entirely from materials left over from other projects. The forms were made from MDF, some 5/8" and some 3/4" Since the canoe is symmetrical, I screwed the matching forms together before using the ancient ShopSmith to sand them to their final form. I ran into an issue with the 3/4" MDF since some of my strongback hardware as well as jigs I use for stapeless clamping were sized for the 5/8" material I normally use. In this picture you can see the "tuck in" designed into the center forms at the shear. Stripping this is one of the major challenges of the project.

Each time I build a boat, I pick up a few more good ideas to make construction easier. While the instructions that come with the Soul Mate plans are sparse, one of Joe's notes mentions marking the centerline with a shallow kerf rather than just a pencil mark. I did the 8" waterline in the same manner which made setting up the forms much easier since the kerf is easier to see than the pencil marks.

I used the same 2" square steel tube strongback that I've used on the other boats, and set the forms up using the 12" waterline to match to the top of the strongback risers. This gives plenty of clearance for the tip of the bow and stern, but I'm likely going to need a short stool when I start setting strips in the center of the football. Once again, I'm doing this boat with stapeless techniques and using a rolling bevel rather than bead & cove strips. I did use staples for the shear strip since the telltale marks will be hidden by the inwales and outwales.

I used a different approach to stripping on this boat than is commonly used on canoes. I chose to strip from the shear until I got past the "tuck in" portion in the center. This gave me five strips that follow the shear. At that point, I started building up the feature strips, using the 8" waterline as a reference. Doing it this way allowed better visability for fitting the strips through the "tuck in" portion, and left me with a slot for the inner tube sections that I used between the forms for holding the strip while the glue dries. The large "binder clips" work well with the inner tube sections, and a lots cheaper than the 1" pony clamps that I use at the forms.

The rubber bands work well for holding the strips, and can be used without much thought through the relatively straight section of the side.

I use the rubber bands in the same manner until I get to the top of the inner stem. As the strips start rounding out the turn of the bilge, it's necessary to use differential pressure on the band. I've gotten in the habit of starting at the top with a little tab of the rubber band, and coming down the inside of the boat with not much tension on the band. Once you start up the outside of the bilge, you can add considerable more tension on the band before clamping it with one of the binder clips. This snugs the strip tight against the previous strip, but doesn't put a twist on strip in that way it would be if there were equal tension inside and outside.

People have asked how I keep the strips from pulling away from the forms. Primarily it's just the use of the plywood "U" brackets clamped to the forms. About every fifth strip or so, I'll use a bit of hot glue on the inside to glue the strip to the form. It's enough to keep them tight against the form but not too difficult to pop loose when removing the form later.

Once I get beyond the turn of the bilge, I continue to use the rubber band and binder clips in some cases. On lighter weight functions such as holding the pin stripes in place, the band can be clamped with the binder clip and then pull on the end of the rubber band to put tension against the pin stripes. The binder clip maintains the tension on that portion of the band between the binder clip jaws. It typically isn't enough for a full width strip, but works very nicely with the pin stripes.

Once I've quit using the rubber bands as a loop, I can come back and fill in the open section, wedging the strip while the glue dries. I'm going to treat the football different on this boat as well, filling the football section with straight strips starting from the centerline of the boat and working out to the pin stripes. The football will be some of the lighter colored knotty wood like I used on the area between the shear and the feature stripe.

Woods used include western red cedar, alaskan yellow cedar (feature stripe, inwales, and possibly seat frame and thwarts), paduk (feature stripe), Port Orford cedar (decks) and Honduran mahogany (outer stems and outwales).