Strip planking?

Michael R Braun

Michael R Braun

Well-known member
I am looking to build my first boat soon. Its not going to get done for this season but I might get it started. the boat I am going to build is a double ended layout that can be towed with my sneek box and rowed around.

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I wont to strip plank the boat and would like to know the basics on how to. and so I have a good idea of what I am getting involved in. can anyone give me a hand?

Thanks Mike
 
Mike,
The hardest part of the strip planking is building your "molds" or "forms" for the strips to be fit over. I have a book on strip building you can use if you want. I read up on it for a canoe but never got around to doing it.......Jode
 
I had a book on building strip canoes years ago. I think I traded it for a book of Robert Service poems.Jode is on the money about making the moulds...do you have a boat that you saw, or one in your mind? If you want to make a copy, you can loft the dimensions off an existing boat. My best bud did that on our kayaks and made up the stiffback with all the stations and moulds but never made the stipper.....hey, he is the one I traded books with!
 
strip planking. My brother has a couple of excelent books on the subject. I asked him about this and he said that no matter how you come up with the strips, whether you make them or buy them, that you need to get a good book and do a good tutortial on the subject so that you are not spending a lot of money and going nowhere. Good luck.

Mark F. Cheney
 
It definately seemed worth it to use a router to bead and cove the strips. They helped to keep them lined up. Also 1" wide strips are too wide in some areas of the boat.
 
Thanks for the heads up guys. Jode I am going to take you up on that offer. that boat in the photos up top is the boat I wont to copy. its not my boat I seen it posted on another site. Going threw many old waterfowl book I seen this style layout in many of the old market photos and always wonted to build one. After seeing the post of this boat, it just made me more inclined to build one.
 
Cool boat. I wonder if Mystic Seaport has it in their files? Mike Trudel has a similar boat that he has lofting plans for(I think) it has a bit of a squareish stern though. He used it on Green Bay as a layout when I was up their last year. I should have taken some pics of it.
 
Lee,

Here is a pic of Mike's boat from a couple of years ago. I know it looks like he's napping but in reality he is trying to fake the ducks into a false sense of security. Though by that time of the day I think we were almost done shooting.

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I have made two strip built boats. The scull boat I showed pics of two years ago and a canoe a few years before.

Hardest part of building them is laying out the form, call lofting. You start with a table of offsets, which after a few years of geometry one would think it would make sense, but it didn't for me. Each time I had to plot the points in Excel to understand how the tables work. Once the forms are made, the rest goes easy.

For the canoe, I bought good cedar (waste of money), for the scull boat, I used 5/4 cedar decking. Had to work around some knots, but for the price it worked great. Spent alot of time ripping and routering, then once they were all glue together around the forms, took some time to plane everything smooth. Notice I sand plane, goes much faster, and cleaner than sanding. Oh, I should point out, you can only glue up a few pieces each day, bunge cords seemed to make the best clamps and you have to do some tweaking around the compound curves.

Then glass the outside, fill the weave, sand smooth and flip over remove the forms and repeat.

I sold the scull last year, while I wasn't crazy about the size (two man and a little too big), I will definitely build a another scull boat and it will be strip planked.

Oh, the book I used for the canoe was called Canoe Craft. Great book with alot of pics, have it laying around here somewhere, if you want to borrow it, let me know.
 
Oh, the book I used for the canoe was called Canoe Craft. Great book with alot of pics,
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I'll second the recomendation of Ted Moore's Canoecraft, although the detailed craftsmanship demonstrated in that book would be hidden under drab paint. On the other end, I also read Gil Gilpatrick's book, I think it was titled somthing like 'Building a wood strip canoe', it was a far more utilitarian build, but still a nice usable canoe. I think I still have a VHS by yet a third person who's name escapes me if you would like to see that, assuming it is still playable, it has been collecting dust for ten years since I finished my canoe, which I would say fell somewhere inbetween the two books mentioned for details versus utility. Chuck
 
Mike, where did that design originate? My boat, although a modified square end (made to utilize a small outboard), is a variation of a true double end layout. My friend has the plans for the double end has built a number of them.

I could only see a little of the hull, but it looks very similar to our boats, as do the way the gas pipes are attached for the oars.
 
Mike the photo above is a glass double ended layout as you can see the bow and Stern have a slight lift and a round bottom so it can be rowed or towed. this original design was built just after the banding of sink boxes. this boat is a Midwest boat design and s one of the first layouts designed along with the Lake Erie style witch is the the style of the MLB boys and UFO boats. I have photos of this boat being hunted way back when. It an awesome layout. I like to build one so I can use it in conjunction with my sneak box. I also have a few places on the bay that I can just row out to and set up a few decoys.

check your PM

Mike
 
From the photos, I believe that boat is a Poygan Layout. A central Wisconsin variation of the original Koshkokong Moliter. The Koshy boat had a drop down box, which is the variation that was and is used in the Lake Erie versions and on the MLB Layouts. The central Wisconsin (Poygan) style rows or tows, and has a slight displacement in the hull, making it fairly sea worthy.

Do you have a pic of the bottom?
 
Ye Old Mike, tell me this, why are you not facing the other direction in that boat. Lookin over the bow? you would think your profile would be lower then.

Second, do you have any more pictures of your boat out of the water?

That is a pretty neat boat, I would not mind a better look at it.

Mike Braun, please keep us up to date on your build. I like the looks of your boat. To bad you don't have more pictures or a willing buddy to let you have a better look.

Eric
 
Ye Old Mike, tell me this, why are you not facing the other direction in that boat. Looking over the bow? you would think your profile would be lower then.

Second, do you have any more pictures of your boat out of the water?

That is a pretty neat boat, I would not mind a better look at it.

Mike Braun, please keep us up to date on your build. I like the looks of your boat. To bad you don't have more pictures or a willing buddy to let you have a better look.

Eric
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Erik, the bow ring is on the front for anchoring and the waves roll up and down on the nose of the boat. If I had the stern in the waves, they would tend to splash all over the hunter. That is why the original double end layout is sleeker, as both ends taper in the water.

From the distance, that boat next to other commercial layouts, allows the hunter to be better hidden. The boat is a bit higher, but the hunter can get lower. Pete's pic is when I had given up on the ducks, sat up, and went to sleep. Normally I am well concealed in the bottom of the boat, and like most waterfowlers, all my clothes are marsh camo...a hideous color for open water shooting!
 
I thought you were floating inside the boat? I gotta say, it's profile on the water isn't much more than an MLB.
 
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