Building a strip canoe is nothing new. Plenty of information is available just a search away on the web, and in several books.
When my husband, a.k.a. Mr. Hobby came home with this book a few days after Christmas, I knew that the project was no longer in the ‘just thinking about it‘ stage, he was seriously going to do this . . . now.
You may wonder why he would want to build a canoe when he could easily just buy one. Mr. Hobby has looked at several canoes and boats, but he hasn’t found one that totally meets his needs. By building his own, he can modify the plans to his own specifications.
When I say, my husband has too many hobbies, I am not joking. Being city raised as I was, he was already an avid hunter when we met in high school. I found it all to be pretty interesting. Ha, little did I know at the time where this would all lead!
As time went by, his hobbies branched out to include flint napping, arrow making, trapping, tanning hides and foraging the woods for edibles, just to name a few. Today, I am still fascinated at the things he does and I love seeing him pursue his passions.
I could fill a blog with the things Mr. Hobby does, and I seriously thought about doing just that when I began blogging (hence the name of this blog). But I digress, there’s plenty of time to fill you in on the horrors interesting life we lead. Back to the canoe . . .
A few days after the book showed up, Mr. Hobby came home with several sheets of plywood. The building was about to begin!
He cut sheets of plywood into strips and nailed the pieces together to build the base that will hold form pieces. Mr. Hobby tells me this is called the strongback. Right now the strongback resembles a ladder.
He also cut several form pieces from the plywood using templates that he drew from patterns in the book. These will be attached to the strongback and the canoe will be built around these form pieces.
The canoe will be made from western red cedar strips. This wood is not available at the local hardware store because it must be knot free. Luckily Mr. Hobby was able to find what he needed at a very reasonable price from a local lumber yard that sells speciality wood.
Then it turned bitterly cold with temperatures well below freezing. Evidently, this is not good weather for canoe building because the glue will not set properly at these temperatures. Mr. Hobby’s workshop is in the garage and it is not heated.
Being the ever resourceful guy that he his, he moved all the pieces into our basement. He will cut the strips in the workshop and bring them into the house for the actual building and gluing.
Here is the completed strongback with the form pieces attached.
Yup, there will be canoe building/assembly going on inside my house. Makes me smile, for I am a tolerant woman. Is it wrong to tout my own virtues
Hope you will join us for the next update.
Thank you!
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