I recently finished my first homebuilt canoe.
After reading Jon's canoe thread from last summer I was inspired to have a go myself at builidng a canoe.
This site and several other websites as well as a kayak building book served as my guide.
I used mostly Norway spruce and pine from a local lumber yard. Plywood was used for the recurved stems.
Here are a couple of pictures to show the rough outline of the building process.
The gunnels and the keel stringer held in place with tempory braces.
I then added curved stems made from two layers of plywood.
The rib were steamed in a PVC pipe with a household steam cleaner then fitted in to place with a zip ties and G-clamps.
I had a very tricky time keeping the ribs even with a flat bottom for stability.
As a result the canoe has highly flared sides.
After the ribs were doweled in, I fitted with an inwale with more dowels to sandwich the ribs between the gunnel.
After the frame was finished I skinned the boat with ballistic nylon. It was attacted with a thin strip of wood screwed on and also sewn at the stem. I then gave it 3 coat of polyurethane. As I used no paint was used the skin stayed somewhat translucent so its possible to see the water when inside.
I launched it in wet and windy weather in nearby lake which didn't help alot as I am complete beginer at canoing. It turned out to be a bit unstable but perfectly capable and quite fast.
After reading Jon's canoe thread from last summer I was inspired to have a go myself at builidng a canoe.
This site and several other websites as well as a kayak building book served as my guide.
I used mostly Norway spruce and pine from a local lumber yard. Plywood was used for the recurved stems.
Here are a couple of pictures to show the rough outline of the building process.
The gunnels and the keel stringer held in place with tempory braces.
I then added curved stems made from two layers of plywood.
The rib were steamed in a PVC pipe with a household steam cleaner then fitted in to place with a zip ties and G-clamps.
I had a very tricky time keeping the ribs even with a flat bottom for stability.
As a result the canoe has highly flared sides.
After the ribs were doweled in, I fitted with an inwale with more dowels to sandwich the ribs between the gunnel.
After the frame was finished I skinned the boat with ballistic nylon. It was attacted with a thin strip of wood screwed on and also sewn at the stem. I then gave it 3 coat of polyurethane. As I used no paint was used the skin stayed somewhat translucent so its possible to see the water when inside.
I launched it in wet and windy weather in nearby lake which didn't help alot as I am complete beginer at canoing. It turned out to be a bit unstable but perfectly capable and quite fast.