canoe project

chris k

chris k

Active member
Well I freed up room in my garage finally finishing the semi v project. So I jumped right into the fiberglass canoe I found over the winter. After recruiting my wife to help get it on my work dolley. And getting it in the garage I began to look it over and take off the bits and pieces. The canoe had home made seats put into it with dry wall screws and most where so rusted they broke off when I tried to unscrew them. So I got the gunwhales off they turned out to just be PVC pipe. The hull seems solid and I will begin to take the black paint off tomorrow should be to hard i am covered in it just from brushing up against it. Well my entire reason for posting this is to ask a question the canoe has a "footing" for a mast looks factory but I don't have any of the hard wear or the want to restore it as a sailing
canoe. My question being how do I go about removing this. Its a medal pipe coming up behind the front seat and its fiberglased into the floor some how??? Now this is my first time messing with fiberglass so I want to take some challenges on this project the entire reason I got the canoe was to practice fiberglass work. Sorry for being long winded and not using proper terminology. Any info is appreciated. I'll post a picture tomorrow.
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Chris~

To remove the mast step, I would just cut the tube (probably aluminum) off flush with the pad on the bottom of the hull - a hacksaw (or Sawzall if you have one) will do the job.

If you want/need to remove the pad, I would grind it off. You will at least need to grind the top where the tube was to remove any sharp or rough edges. I use a 7" disc sander/polisher with a coarse (40 grit) disc. If it is wood encased in 'glass, you can probably get most of it out first with a chisel and a hammer. - then grind off the "footprint" on the bottom of the hull. Finish sanding with an orbital, with 80 or 100 grit.

On a different topic, I was not sure what you were saying about the gunwales. Are they sound/useable? I like to remove most of the aluminum from my 'glass canoes to keep them quiet. I replace the gunwales and decks with wood (lauan mahogany and cypress, respectively) and I sewed the seats from Sunbrella. I put 4" Beckson deck plates in each floatation chamber after removing the water-logged styrofoam. This started out as a 16' Mohawk:

Canvasback-Interior-smalladjstd_zps2399960c.jpg


Hope this helps,

SJS
 
thanks for the info i was thinking just cut it off and grind it smooth but wasnt sure. as far as the gunwales they are just pvc pipe slit open and slipped over the hulll and siliconed on. I am planning on replacing the bow and stern caps with cedar as well as the gunwales.could you do me a fovor and take a closer picture of your seats i have seen a few diffrent ways to mount them. oh i forgot two im going to fabricate a potage yolk support as well out of cedar. not sure if im going to use this boat for duck hunting. But i would like to one day have a sneak box and this will help me learn the fiberglass work. Any objections on using cedar? thanks again for the help.
 
Chris~

The seat frames in this canoe are the originals - aluminum tubing that sits on aluminum angle stock riveted through the hull. You can see the 3 rivets on the outside. If you will be making new seat frames, you can hang them on wooden "cleats" shaped to fit the hull contours and fastened from the outside of the hull. You can just make out the wooden cleats beneath the solid wooden (White Pine) seats in this pirogue.

Pirogue-Bowinterior_zps42717995.jpg



Cedar will be fine for your decks but is not strong enough for gunwales. I have used Lauan (Philippine Mahogany) and treated SYP (Southern Yellow Pine) decking for gunwales on canoes. (I used treated decking on the pirogue.) Other choices would be White Ash or Douglas Fir; White Ash is the traditional gunwale for canoes. Any gunwale stock needs to be clear and straight-grained. I fasten them from the inside with panhead SS screws. The gunwales (and decks) are set in 3M 5200. NOTE: The easiest way to round the upper edges of the gunwales is with a router AFTER they are installed.

I am not sure whether Cedar will be strong enough for your portaging yoke. I have used Yellow Poplar (Tupelo) for this purpose - but White Ash is the traditional choice. Cedar would probably work if you use full 1" stock. BTW: I have removable center thwart for my canoe - it last to small cleats mounted on the underside of the gunwales.

All the best,

SJS
 
Thanks that is how the seats are currentley in the boat but the one support needs to be refiberglassed on. I didn't think yellow pine would be appropriate to use on the canoe but knowing that makes it even better I just got in two drafts of number 1 yellow pine 1x10 so i will just make everything out of that. For the yolk I have 1 3/4 rough cut oak laying around I could make it out of maybe just plain it down to 1 inch. I wasnt going to use it figureing it would be to heavy but for the thwarts<? I think it would do well. Maybe? Any objections to this approach. Now that I think of it I should post some pictures of the oak some pieces are over 20 inches wide real beautiful wood once you get it plained and sanded right now its getting dusty from sitting in the lumber shed. let me know what you think about me using oak on the boat the more I think about it the better it is sounding, could even do the gunwales out of it. this is real clean wood not a knot in it. but i have never heard anyone say they used oak on a boat.
 
Chris~

Yellow Pine (aka Hard Pine) has long been a useful boatbuilding lumber, especially down south. Lots of workboats are planked with SYP.

White Oak (but not Red Oak) is also a workhorse lumber for boats - but it is very heavy and not commonly used on small boats like canoes. If I were you, I would use the Yellow Pine for your gunwales, seat frames and yoke.

If your Oak is Red Oak, better to save it for furniture. Red Oak is not rot resistant.

SJS
 
Thanks for the info this is all new to me working with boats I have always had some sort of boat but never worked on any. The oak I have is white oak and is super heavy. I guess I'll just go with the yellow pine. Well now I have some sort of a game plan for going about replacing the crap stuff I took off now just to see what lies under the paint and get the sanding out of the way. I will probably start fabricating the replacement parts for the canoe in the next couple weeks just so by the time I am done sanding and gel coat and all that other good stuff I have been reading about I'll just role right into putting it back together.
 
Just for going out on the lake fishing with my son I may use it on occasion to get to a blind but I dont plan on hunting out of it. I really just got this canoe as a project to learn how to do some fiberglass work.
 
The traditional wood for gunwales is ash. You used to be able to order a set of ash gunwales--you'll need 4, 2 inwales and 2 outwales. They were pricey, and shipping was especially pricy due to length. There was at least one retailer who made a set that was scarfed to make shipping simpler. Never used them, but I think the idea was to overlap them and screw and glue together when they were installed.

The first time I replaced mine I got lucky and a friend's neighbor had a backyard schooner project and some left over ash. My friend sawed and planed a set for me.

Another option is to order plastic gunwales, which are standard on Royalex and plastic canoes. I see no reason they wouldn't work on a glass boat. The last canoe I restored had rotten wood gunwales. It was intended to be a remote pond canoe that got left in the woods, so I replaced the ash with a set of plastic gunwales I got from Old Town. I am lucky enough to be able to drive to the Old Town factory, but for those of you from away, shipping may be an issue with these, too. I had to cut down the Old Town replacement gunwales to fit a Mad River Explorer. They installed with rivets, not screws.

They're going on 6 years now, and if anything the boat paddles better than it did with wood. I like not having to worry about them rotting under the 6 feet of snow that were up at Big Secret Trout Pond this winter.

Which reminds me, ice out is coming up there--time to go check things out!
 
i have seen the ones you can order that are cut in half and shipping is pricey. ill mess around in the shop with the yelow pine and see if i can make some magic and make the gunwales if not ill just go with the pvc pipe the way they had it.
 
Jeff and Chris ~

Although the inwale/gunwale combination is traditional - I believe it derives from the canvas over cedar canoes where an inwale was needed to tie the frame (cedar rib) ends together - a single longitudinal has been sufficient on several 'glass canoes I have built. One benefit of the gunwale (outwale)-only approach is the ability to drain water when you flip her.

On my Mohawk, I used Philippine Mahogany (luaun). It was a full 3/4" thick and 1" high. I kept the lower edge square but rounded over the upper outside corner with a router. I was surprised to see, too, that I no longer needed the middle thwart once the new gunwales were installed. Although I have a removeable middle thwart for carrying, I seldom use it - and appreciate the unobstructed hold when carrying decoys and other gunning gear.

The Luaun takes paint well. The Yellow Pine is a bit more challenging - it should be primed with a thinned primer coat before a second coat of straight primer - then 2 topcoats.

Jeff ~ I take your point about the maintenance of wood. I stay away from varnish and keep my wood-trimmed canoes either inside or outside on a rack (which is the same height as the roof rack on my car). I do have 2 tin canoes that I keep "in the field" year-round.

All the best,

SJS
 
Steve:

With the proximity of the Old Town factory (probably similar to Mohawk for you?) the standard "in the field" canoe here is now heavily weighted to plastic rather than aluminum. Among other things, they are available used at much lower prices.

My understanding of traditional canoe design is that virtually everything about the wood/canvas canoes was adapted from the construction techniques that native Americans developed for birch bark--with the exception that nails and screws replaced lashing for fastening. I've seen some modern bark canoes. The Penobscot Nation has revived bark canoe building on their tribal lands on Indian Island, and they've constructed some beautiful boats. I'm still hoping to get the chance to paddle one some day.

On the bark canoes, the top edge of the bark, along with the top of the planking and ribs, are held between the inwales and outwales. I hadn't considered that a single layer could work on glass, but it makes sense to me.

Plywood sure would be easier to find than milled ash in 18 foot lengths!
 
wow thats a lot of informationthanks to the both of you for sharing i love this site for all the knowledge that is at hand it really make me comfortable to takle new projects knowing i have a place to turn to.
 
Just take advice from the real experts like Steve and ignore my babbling!

Folks on this site pretty much walked me through restoration of my sculler--and I was a total idiot.

For more on bark canoe construction and some great photos, check here: http://www.penobscotriver.org/content/4060/birch-bark-canoe?ext=
 
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