Skin on Frame Canoe Build Time Lapse 7.
With the frame mostly complete we are down to the finishing touches and cleanup work. Whether it’s a house or a boat, this is the time on any project where time starts to dilate in direct proportion to how little you have left to do. Anyone who’s ever built a small boat knows exactly what I’m talking about here. It’s like there’s a force field at the end of the project that doubles in intensity every time that you cut the distance in half. When I taught classes in person I honestly think that the most important part of my job was just to keep peoples’ hands actually moving! Having fairly low finish standards doesn’t hurt either.
Despite my general disdain for all things superfluous, something I really missed on last year‘s solo canoes was the sheer blocks that I added to the top of the gunwales. These add a couple hours to the build and I have absolutely zero functional purpose but I couldn’t help but put them on this canoe. I’ve gone for a fairly mild rise this time which doesn’t look quite as cool, although it is a lot easier to get the outwales on.
Because the shaping on this canoe is different than anything I’ve done before I find myself completely at a loss for seat location placement, so rather than gluing a bunch of little seat mounting blocks all over the inside of the gunwales, I decided on a single longer lamination that would give me a lot of options. This wasn’t any harder than gluing on seat blocks, and it looks great, so I paused the build for a day and made a video about how to do it and put it in the building course.
With the frame finished, the next step is to take it outside and drench it in oil and let it dry for a few days before skinning.
Build time in minutes:
10 pegging the keel to the stems
40 making sheer blocks
20 gluing on sheer blocks
25 making seat blocking
15 gluing on seat blocking
(Wait for glue to dry)
35 planing/shaping the sheer blocks
35 shaping the end of the seat blocking
45 final stem shaping
35 sanding the frame
Task time: 4 hrs 20 min
Total build time so far: 29 hrs 45 min.
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