Am I the only person who is surprised by how long it takes to make a good set of canoe seats? If I’m being honest, it probably takes me 16 hours to complete a pair of seats with seat backs, varnish, webbing stapled on, everything. It seems like it should be a one day...
"St. Lawrence River Skiff: Building the seat frames"Continue readingCategory: Prototyping
St. Lawrence River Skiff: Varnishing the drive box and keel
I’ve been lucky enough to avoid epoxy and varnish for most of my boat building life, although both are making more frequent appearances since we developed the pedal drive adapter box. The plan here was just to varnish the box, but I decided to do the bottom board as well just to keep it...
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Timelapse: St. Lawrence River Skiff: Disassembling the dry fit and beveling the stations
Sound on! Yesterday I disassembled the temporary framing so I could bevel the laminated frames to match the angle of the stringers. After that, I went on a somewhat nerve-racking lightening spree, thinning out various scantling as much as I dared. Next step is to reassemble everything permanently. Song is is razzmatazz by Jules...
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Video: Vikings invaded the workshop overnight
Woke up to find this in my workshop this morning: Apparently Liz really wants the St. Lawrence River Skiff to have a Viking figurehead… ___ This post was originally featured on our Instagram feed. See the original post and discussion here. Follow Cape Falcon Kayak on Instagram »...
St. Lawrence River Skiff: Working out seating and flotation
Yesterday‘s project was working out the seating and flotation for the St. Lawrence River Skiff. The geometry for the pedal drive forces me to make a lot of compromise that I’m not 100% thrilled about but it is what it is. The seats are a bit lower than I prefer for pedaling, and a...
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St. Lawrence River Skiff: Drawing up another station
Yesterday started out with drawing up another station from the table of offsets to check the shaping toward the ends. I’m not planning on laminating another frame here, this was just to check the lines and also to inform my choices for beveling the stringers towards the ends of the boat. On the worksheet,...
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Video: St. Lawrence River Skiff: First dry fit of parts
First dry fit of the parts for the St. Lawrence River Skiff. Everything here is just held together by clamps and screws so I can see the shape and plan for seating, and also find and mark the bevel angles for the frames. A very annoying issue as always is figuring out how I’m...
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More work on the Saint Lawrence River Skiff
More work on the Saint Lawrence River Skiff. Little bit of a trick to keep the sheer line level and also flatten the bottom of the frame at the correct angle to intersect with the wide keel to keep everything plumb. I’m literally just posting this so I can remember how to do it...
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Video: A look at the pedal drive adapter box for the River Skiff
Spent the day building this adapter box for the Hobie pedal drive that I’m putting in the St. Lawrence River Skiff. Unlike the adapter boxes I put in our canoes, this one will be permanent instead of removable, and utilizes a different attachment system and thinner plywood, reducing the overall weight of the box...
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Laying out and laminating the river skiff stations
Yesterday I finished laying out the templates for a few of the station frames along the length of this 1.05% scale St. Lawrence River skiff, and today I laminated the frames with a core of red cedar between strips of mahogany on the outside. I also did the layout on a template for 1/4...
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Video: Destructive testing a station lamination
It actually broke at 108 pounds! ___ This post was originally featured on our Instagram feed. See the original post and discussion here. Follow Cape Falcon Kayak on Instagram »...
Shearwater update and moving on to the St. Lawrence River Skiff
For those of you who missedthe last boat building post, the skin on frame shearwater is on hold because my client is MIA. I’ll continue the build as soon as somebody pays me. In the meantime, I’m shifting focused to the next project, which is a modified version of the St. Lawrence River Skiff...
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Skin on Frame Shearwater Build, Day 8
Skin on Frame Shearwater Build, Day 8: 6hrs. More work on the keel. With the glue on the scarf joints dry, I brought the inner and outer keel assembly outside to do some sanding, and also I used a 45° chamfer bit on a trim router, to create the 1/2” wide flat spot where...
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Video: Final boat test before we leave for Mexico
Final boat test before we leave for Mexico. Here I am testing some foam saddles that I made to level out the outrigger and yet another pair of rudder blades. I’m still not 100% satisfied with the steering situation, part of which is the boat and the other part is the rudder blade. The...
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Video: Steaming in experimental reinforcement ribs
Here I’m steaming a couple of experimental reinforcement ribs into the pedal drive canoe to strengthen the framework around the adapter box. No idea if this will become a permanent modification or not but here is the process I used: I started with some very dry bending oak. Normally we prefer it to be...
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