Sept 3, 2006

Rainy damp cold Labor Day weekend. Too rainy and cold to go out in the boat, might as well get an early start on one of this winters boat building projects.

The new boat, Indian Girl, is a 12'6" canoe, large enough for one adult and maybe one small grandchild(which I have plenty) to be used for exploring Belle Isle Marsh and Pamet Harbor down the Cape. The boat will be built from scratch using plans purchased and designed by David Nichols of Austin, Texas.

The past couple of days have been spent reviewing the plans and the accompanying DVD. Then working from a set of offsets I have begun to draw or loft the station molds which will form the shape of the canoe. These station molds will not become part of the finished hull but will only be used to bend the plywood around them during the construction after which they will be discarded.

Jan 21, 2007

Now that winter and some really cold weather has finally arrived, progress on Indian Girl, the 12'6" canoe has proceeded along at a faster clip. The ladder frame on which the boat will be built has been set up. The station molds which will form the shape of the hull have positioned, fastened to the ladder frame and braced. The laminated bow and stern stems that we fabricated earlier have also been positioned and fastened to the ladder frame.

Since plywood generally is only manufactured in eight and ten foot lengths the next phase of work consisted of scarfing two pieces of plywood together to form a twelve foot plus length of plywood to form the bottom of the canoe.

Jan 29, 2007

More progress. Assembling and glassing the bottom.

Feb 3, 2007

It was a busy Saturday morning down at the shop today. We had to build a doll house and epoxy a plank in place on the new canoe we're currently building.

We then shifted gears and did the final fitting of the next plank on our new canoe "Winnimmiset". Christopher and Emily put on their work aprons and applied a coat of epoxy to both sides of the joint while Elvin and Papi prepared the clamps. Emily constantly reminded Papi not to over tighten the clamps. Thanks to Emily, Elvin and Christopher the plank went down beautifully. At this rate we should have the entire hull planked completely by next week.