Finally a bit more progress on the pedal power canoe. I spent the last week measuring and testing the seating geometry of every pedal drive kayak I could get my hands on.
Next I made a final decision on drive location, which was pretty brutal and amounts to nothing more than a coin toss, because I can come up with equal arguments for all possibilities.
I ran into an unexpected issue with my design blocking the functionality of the reverse feature on the Hobie drive so I had to figure that out as well.
I got stuck for two days trying to figure out how to build this whole thing out of a quarter sheet of 1/2” plywood. Until yesterday I thought I was gonna have to spec the base plate at 5/8” which would force my students to buy a another half sheet of very expensive plywood which is something I would never do to people so I had to figure out a workaround.
I did the final layout for the base plate, and started planning the building sequence, which is pretty important with complicated glue ups so you don’t accidentally back yourself into a corner.
For the plywood on these prototypes, I’m using this new Australian pine plywood I’ve never seen before that is literally half the price of anything else right now ($75 a sheet!). It’s not marine plywood, but it’s got a good glue, and considering that I’m encapsulating the whole thing in epoxy I think it will be fine.
On a different note: quick question for all you woodworker/boatbuilders, how do we feel about Hickory for canoe outwales?(gunnels on a non skin on frame). I know it’s not technically rot resistant but it’s super tough and the local hardwood store has an absolutely gorgeous almost completely clear 12 foot long 6/4 board at a great price. It seems like if we are using ash for outwales why can’t we use Hickory?
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