Just posted a video on YouTube where I steam bend the ribs into a skin on frame canoe from start to finish. Enjoy! ___This post was originally featured on our Instagram feed.See the original post and discussion here. Follow Cape Falcon Kayak on Instagram »...
Category: Building Notes
More progress on the new pedal drive canoe prototype
More progress on the new pedal drive canoe prototype. Started the day by opening up some oak billets that I let sit in plastic for too long, and was not surprised to find them covered in mold. Fortunately, after resawing them into ribs and rounding the edges very little of that actually remained. After...
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Building the deck for the next pedal drive prototype
Finally found some time to build the deck for the next pedal drive canoe prototype. This one is a mini tandem/big guy solo and once again, I’m pushing the limits of how small of a canoe I feel like the drive could work in. At 15’6” long, 34” wide, and 12.5” deep, a 325...
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Video: Building canoe seats
It’s hard to justify the time it takes to build a canoe seat when you can buy a good one for $40. Unfortunately, the new pedal drive system requires some custom seating geometry so I figured I would use the opportunity to film seat building instructions for our canoe building course. It’s very weird...
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Doing some surgery on the pedal drive box for the next round of testing
The next step for the Pedal Drive Canoe is to test it with all of the available “flipper” drives and a few different fin sizes. I already bought the standard Hobie Drive and also a cheap knock off of their older design, so this week I pulled the trigger ($1080 ouch) on the Hobie...
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Timelapse: Adding an extra coat of polyurethane to the bottom of the canoe
Normally, I keep all the doors and windows open for ventilation while applying the 2-part polyurethane, but yesterday that backfired on me because the same wind that was pushing us up the river was blowing sawdust into the workshop, and I came home to a slightly rough skin. Oops. So anyway here I am...
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Timelapse: Skinning the pedal drive canoe prototype
Sound on! I put the skin on the pedal drive canoe yesterday, and shot a few updates for our online skin-on-frame canoe building course. This time I ended up using my buddies Grex pneumatic stapler, which was much easier on the hands than the good old Stanley T50. Skinning canoes is always nice because...
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Finishing and oiling the canoe frame
Today I completed the canoe frame, drenched it in oil, then left it to dry outside for a couple days. My backyard is the sunniest spot so right now it’s sharing space with the vegetable garden. I’ve added some weights, clamps, straps, and struts to try to compensate for some of the shaping irregularities...
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Installing the pedal drive base plate
Today I took the plunge and install the base plate for the pedal drive. After 20 years of managing to avoid the stuff, I’m still feeling pretty indignant about all the epoxy work in this new modification. Unfortunately I just don’t see any way around it. On the positive side, I think there’s a...
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Video: making winders and lashing the canoe
On my kayaks, I normally hand wrap my winders but with so many stringers on a canoe I usually take a shortcut with the drill. These definitely aren’t as nice to lash with, but they’re a heck of a lot faster to make. The cord itself is a flat waxed artificial sinew that is...
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Timelapse: Another view of bending in the canoe ribs
Just another view of bending in the canoe ribs. Here you can see the bending technique really clearly. My secret? Good bending stock and steaming for the right amount of time, efficient workspace setup, and staying relaxed. It’s amazing the symmetry you can achieve by eye just by combining those four elements. Surprisingly., most...
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Timelapse: Steambending a solo canoe
Here we are filming an updated steam bending video for the canoe building course. Like I said in the last post, every couple years I synthesize the recent feedback from my students, and then update the videos accordingly. This new video should be in the course within a couple weeks. ___ This post was...
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Video: Steambox construction
Every couple years, I like to update my video courses based on what I’ve learned recently and feedback from students. This year I’m updating the canoe building course so I thought I would share a few clips here and there just to show some examples of our videos. The new steambox design is 1/8”...
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Bryce’s canoe test bend
Bending test ribs is one of the most important parts of our building process. This gives you some steam bending practice and also lets you dial in the perfect steaming time for your particular rib stock. More importantly it lets you double check the shape of the canoe before committing to cutting all of...
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Back to the easy part: building the actual boat
Now that I have working prototypes for the pedal drive, rudder, and seat, I can turn my attention back to the easy part: building the actual boat. This is the white oak that we chainsaw milled last month. The grain orientation was wrong for what I’m doing so I started by resawing it into...
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