Canoe

[catsittingstill]

Slow progress.  But reasonably steady.  I made and epoxied in softwood rails to mount the seat to.  (The seat for a Wee Lassie II goes in the bottom of the boat--rather like a kayak--rather than bolted to the gunwales.  However you need something between the seat and the hull that you can drive a screw into without piercing the hull.)

Making the rails was reasonably easy--I started with pieces of my 1 x 1.5 inch (true) white pine.  Those who have been reading this blog for some time will recall I ordered three times as much of this as I needed to make the boatshop doors; the remainder has been hanging around in the boatshop, periodically being pressed into service to make cradles and such.  With so much of it around, finding two fourteen inch pieces without knots was no particular problem.  I did have to cut off quite a wedge of wood so that the bottom side would fit the slant of the V hull, while the top side would sit horizontally under the horizontal seat.  I ended up doing this by securing the rails one at a time between a bench dog and a wonder dog, and then hacking off big chips with a chisel, and finishing up with the low angle block plane.  The rails looked really haggled after the chisel work (not my best work, that, but I was in a hurry) but cleaned right up with the plane.  The only trick was that I ran the plane blade into the wonderdog a couple of times.  Fortunately the wonderdog is made of some soft, lead-like metal, because it made bright chips in the wonderdog but didn't seem to hurt the plane blade at all.  Whew.

I also used the bandsaw (and the plane again) to make the rails narrower so I could creep them up farther under the seat and keep the rails off the butternut stripe, which I worked hard to make and don't want to obscure.  I made the rails 1/2 inch thick at the thinnest edge, to make sure there was enough wood there to drive a screw into without compromising the hull. 

For "clamping" I used bags of rice and lentils to weight the rails to the hull.  They're cheap; they go where clamps won't, and as long as I don't get hardener on the food, they can be eaten afterward.  I had to go buy an extra bag of brown rice, but I needed to go to the store anyway.

Once I had used the seat to check the placement of the rails, and glued the rails in place, I varnished the seat and hung it from my plank rack.  At about 7 pm I can (theoretically) give it another coat of varnish.  That would make it ready to cane tomorrow.

Walnut looks really nice with varnish on it.  I see why people are willing to put up with its evil ways.

Comments

[judifilksign.livejournal.com]

Do you weave your own cane? I re-caned a chair myself once. I found out later you can buy pre-woven caning to lace in.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Prewoven cane is available but it's all (as far as I know) natural cane. Now in most things I favor natural materials, but natural cane has a tendency to weather and weaken when exposed to water and sunlight, two things available in quantity while canoeing. This leads to embarrassments like when my brother sat too heavily in Gussie and split her caning so I had to replace the seat.

I prefer plastic cane, which holds up longer and doesn't swell or shrink with moisture changes. That means caning my own seats, but if I remember right it only takes a day or so. Not long compared to how long it takes to build a canoe, anyway.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Building canoes with your edible tools
Metal and wood are for use by mere fools
You build with them now and then have them for chow
Nothing beats building with edible tools

Building canoes with your edible tools
The lazier wizards use goblins and ghouls
With chisel-like teeth that pry underneath
The grain of the wood breaking wood-workers' rules.

I used to make rockets with the aid of a rabbit
She rough hewed the the wood for the nosecones by habit
My fuzzy grey friend the balsa would rend
So if offered roast hare I never would have it

Building canoes with your edible tools
And dragging the ship to the seashore with mules
Though most all boat-makers are great innovaters
No invention's so grand as your edible tools.

[boywizard.livejournal.com]

Hah! Much fun - I think I'll go eat my block plane (well, maybe not!).

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

That would be an expensive snack.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

:-) I like it! Do you have a tune for it yet?

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

No tune yet.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

http://files.fawmers.com/peteralway/Edible%20Tools.mp3

[boywizard.livejournal.com]

Edible clamps - now that's a thought. I accomplish the same thing by using lead shot (purchased at the local ammo reloader's supply store) in various containers, from 35mm film canisters to old vitamin pill bottles. Weights range from 2 oz to 5 pounds or more, as required. I haven't needed the flexibility offered by bags, but I could sew up a few if I have to.

Sounds like you are making good progress - in the water soon, I bet.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Oh, hmm. Lead shot. Hadn't thought of that. That's a good idea; I wonder how much they cost.

Regarding being in the water soon--oh, I hope so! The weather has turned rainy and uninviting but I'm sure there are a few nice days left in the year if I can just hurry and finish.

I'm pretty much down to the varnishing now. I just put the second coat of varnish on the seat about an hour ago. This time I tried squeezing the brush out into a paper towel when I was done and then "damp brushing" over everything to see if I could get the runs out. Because of the three dimensional nature of the seat I always end up with varnish all over my hands; if I try to do the last of the varnishing while it hangs from its drying thread it's like painting a pinyata.

Then I use orange based hand cleaner trying to get the varnish off (which kind of works) and then my hands smell...like eating oranges in a pine forest, I guess.

You know, I really wish they made wood-based perfumes. I'd love to have a white pine perfume, or a cedar perfume. Walnut I could live without.

[boywizard.livejournal.com]

I purchased a 25 pound bag about ten years ago for $25. I think it has gone up to around $40 now, in part due to the increased use by the military in the last few years. It lasts forever, though (unless you spill it on the shop floor, in which case you will be finding an occasional pellet about every time you are in the shop).

If you do much varnishing, you really ought to have an HVLP gun; hardly any overspray, and a really smooth finish. The turbine-powered ones are pricey, as are the professional-grade compressor-powered ones, but the prices of those have been dropping sine I bought mine 15 years ago. I have seen them as low as $35 on Amazon, although you have to have a modest air compressor to run them.

Ah, the smell of fresh sawdust - red cedar, pine, oak, the exotic hardwoods... it's all heavenly. (Well, OK, walnut is a bit off...but not so bad, really)

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Walnut smells a bit dusty and bitter to me...either it chars really easily or it just starts out smelling a little charred. It's not strongly unpleasant--it's just not a smell I would pay for :-)

The HVLP gun sounds interesting. All the canoe building books I've read talk about varnishing with a brush, so I guess it hasn't penetrated into the canoe-building community yet. I am not very good at varnishing--I always get drips and runs. To complicate the matter I suffered a herniated disc in my neck while varnishing Patience the first time, so now I try really hard not to hold my neck in weird positions to look along the boat, which means I'm even worse at spotting drips and runs than I was before.

However when I've seen spray varnishing mentioned in woodworking books they have talked about the elaborate measures necessary to avoid breathing the varnish--the fumes are reasonably strong with varnish that is just painted on, but apparently with varnish that is sprayed they are noticeably worse and become a health and even a fire hazard.

But a better way of varnishing sounds tempting...

[boywizard.livejournal.com]

The nice thing about HVLP is that unless one is really heavy-handed with the gun, you don't get drips and runs. It puts down a very thin, uniform coat of material. Also, because it puts such a high percentage of fluid onto the surface and not into the air, breathing it is not a severe problem - I do use a dust mask when spraying, though. If you are really sensitive to the solvents, an organic vapor mask would be useful. I have never had any difficulty (he said just before keeling over).

Downside - you can't really get into very tight areas, or behind or under things, so there are spots in a canoe that would probably need to be brushed.

I try not to spray (or brush) any flammable material near an open flame. I am planning to experiment with water-based varnish on my next project (not boat project, though).