Cutting up bending oak for this particular boat kind of sucked. I realized that the wood I had been saving for this project had more inclusions than I thought, so I decided to dig to the bottom of the pile where I abandoned some decent boards a few years ago. I planed and sliced...
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Video: Cutting tenons for the canoe seats
Thanks again to @chbecksvoort49 for this tenon cutting method! ___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: Building the seat frames
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...
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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 »...
Quetico Trip Report
“Hi Brian, I saw your email today about the updates to the canoe course and it reminded me that I never sent a report on the trip to the Quetico / Boundary Waters. It was the first long journey with the canoe and it shined! We were in the Quetico for 11 days in...
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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: Can anyone tell me what’s going on here?
Can anyone tell me what’s going on here? This freshly cut totally fine looking and smelling white oak snaps apart like crackers with about half the force that it normally takes a very strange break? It actually broke into three pieces with the middle piece about 2 inches long flying out of the way....
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Video: On the water testing seat height and angle
Here I’m testing various seat height and angle configurations before making my final decisions on the next boat. Basically I’m trying to figure out how flat of a seat and how low of a seat back I can get away with for the River Skiff. Playing a bit of rebar roulette in the industrial...
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Video: Nice finds at the salvage yard today
Nice finds at the salvage yard today. Clear yellow cedar 1×6 (full dimension) $1.39 linear foot. CVG red cedar 5/4 x 10 $5 per lineal foot. Trash grade cedar 2 x 12 x 16 with a clear 2×4 on each edge $2.89 lineal foot. ___ This post was originally featured on our Instagram feed....
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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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