Make a Lamoille lighter

[ErAh]

Hi, I am new in this forum, but I like to ask some advices to my next project. But first something about me (as I think that this site administarator like to know who we are), I am around 50 years old man from southern Finland and I begin canoeing in 1989. Today I have three canoes in my shed, Mad River Lamoille GF, Northstar Northwind 17 in Blacklite with E6 trim and Wenonah Minnesota II kevlar ultralight. I paddle with my wife and we dont like that Northwind at all, Minnesota II is very good until average wind is more than 8metres/second (15m/s in gusts). Mad River is our favourite, but its heavy. I think it weights around 85 pounds. But the glide of Lamoille is so good and its so stable that its best canoe what we have paddled. Some years ago I have Jensen 18, which is my alltime favourite, but my wife didnt like at all.

My plan is make lighter copy of our Lamoille. I will make only one copy, so using male mold is way to go. I like to make it full carbon, usually canoe manufacturers don't use carbon fiber only, but I am going to make it using carbon only. Is there some problems to use only carbon fibers??

My plan is put 2x245 (9oz) gram twill over existing hull, and use epoxy resin. I don't remove trim, I like to get two corner to the edge to get copy little bit stiffer, from that first phase. Later I will make L-shape gunwales, which increase height around half inch, so copy wont be lower than original Lamoille. After first phase my plan is put 10mm (4/10 inch) insert of foam to diamond and ribs and put third layer on 9 ounce carbon twill as a inner layer. Should I put reinforcements to keel line or near gunwales? I can get 11 inch wide 200g/m2 carbon fabric in good price, so I am thinking that is it good idea to put one layer to keel line and in both sides?? At least in the edges, it makes first phase copy much stiffer and it might be easier to get copy straight, before I add corematerial to it. These reinforcements with epoxy increase weight around 5-6 pounds.

In Finland we may have different foams avalaible than you have in USA, put my plan is use this as a core : https://kevytrakentajanverkkokauppa...80-10-mm-flat-10x1005x610-mm-4969?category=59 Is this stiff enouht to make canoe strong??

I have already a made 0,5 square meter partial test copy of first phase, and I put 2x245g fabric and around 280 grams of resing. I use peel ply, so I can squeeze some resin out of laminate.

I have some backround to make carbon infusion skisleds, but I dont dare to make canoe by infusion, and I dont want make a split mold of Lamoille. Its really too much work for one canoe. Of course, using infusion, canoe would be very light, maybe around 30 pounds, but my guess is that third copy would be the first without problems. And it every copy cost around 1200 euros for me.

Sorry for my quite bad english, this forum seems to be best place to get advices, so I make this post, even its possible that my english is too terrible ...

 

[Alan Gage]

Your English is very good. It's easy to understand what you're saying.

This sounds like a fun project. It's good you already have experience working with composites.

I've made a couple composite canoes, one of them with a foam core, and while they've all turned out OK I've been a little disappointed in the weight of all of them. My personal experience is that without infusion or vacuum bagging that carbon and Kevlar suck up a lot of resin and that tends to offset the supposed weight savings.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't go forward with your project but if I was doing another one with a foam core I'd be inclined to use more fiberglass and less carbon and Kevlar.

Good luck and welcome to the forum.

Alan

 

[ErAh]

Thanks Alan, for me you message means that I should make a female mold . Actually I have 10 kg vinylester tooling gelcoat and 20 kg vinylester tooling resin in my man cave. My first plan to make Lamoille copy was make a female mold, but as I know these infusion problems with skisleds (170cm long, 38 cm wide), I thought that with much bigger infusion, there will be much bigger problems. It was not an easy task to get skisled infusion to be perfect, and canoe will be much harder.

But maybe I must bite the bullet and make a female mold for Lamoille. If all will goes like I like to, it saves much work (after mold is ready), but if there is a problem, result will be crap. If I compare canoes and skisleds shapes, canoe would be easier to get fibers to their places, but canoes size is so big that there can be problem to get enoght epoxy go thru feeding pipes.

The voice insíde me says get it light as possible, but both of my Northstar and Wenonah are wet bagged, weights are 40 and 43 pounds, and these are light enough for our short portages. Single portages are impossible for us, because we make stories for outdoor journals, and we have too much camera gear etc, and its the same if canoe weight 30 or 40 pounds, if we cant carry all stuff in same time.

 

[Alan Gage]

I have had the same dilemma. A female mold would be ideal but there is a huge amount of cost and time involved with that and then what do you do with it when you have built the canoe you want? I still think a male mold is the best alternative for those of us making a single canoe but there are definitely compromises.

Alan

 

[Pseudonym]

we make stories for outdoor journals,

Welcome to the forum, @ErAh

Please share your stories! Especially canoe stories!

 

[stripperguy]

I've built strip canoes since 1978, more recently I've built a few carbon copies of existing hulls.
For a home builder, not interested in production, it will be hard to beat a male plug, your Mad River,
Be sure to liberally coat the plug with multiple layers of mold release, a bunch of us here have used Partal, a PVA compound.

A single layer of carbon will provide plenty of strength, you'll need a layer of glass on the outside. Carbon alone will wear away as fast as a pencil. Another layer of carbon fiber over the foam inside is overkill, and 9 oz cloth will soak much resin. Glass would be a better choice.
Be sure to leave the stems open, or you may never get the copy off of your plug. Seal the stems up after releasing from the plug.
If you have the means to apply vacuum to the foam stiffeners that will ensure a solid contact to the carbon. And an inner layer of glass would be plenty, assuming you have good adhesion between all layers.
I'm assuming all epoxy resin...I've had disappointing results with polyester and vinylester resins. Oops, just reread your post, OK, all epoxy resin.

A 4 layer copy of my 17'9" Sawyer Cruiser weighed 40 lbs complete with all trim and seats, it could have been much lighter.
BTW, I used 1/8" thick Divinycell foam (closed cell PVC) and it provides plenty enough stiffness. Not sure how your linked PET compares...I have trouble to think in Pascals. 10mm thick foam will create a laminate as stiff as granite!!

For ultimate weight savings, I would avoid using carbon for the trim. The compound shape of the gunwales will force you to use a bias woven cloth, and there are too few choices of carbon bias woven tapes, you will lose all you weight advantage of the carbon to the massive amount of resin needed for a full wet out. Composite (foam) gunwales and thwarts can be wrapped with glass and provide all the strength you'll need.

Please understand all of the above suggestions are my personal jaded opinions.
And your English is fine, way better than my non existent Finnish.
Oh, and thanks for dropping by, hope we can help.

 

[MrPoling]

Hey ErAh - I've got a kevlar-airex Lamoille, it weights a little under 60lbs. What strikes me about your comments is describing it as "stable". The Lamoille is barely 34" across. I love it, but It just doesn't fell like a stable boat to me, especially compared to something wider like the Northwind.

I think you might actually like the weight and stiffness of your fiberglass Lamoille.

The weight gives it inertia. To rock a 85lb hull takes more force than a 40lb hull. Plus the weight is distributed all around. So just by being heavy, it's feels more stable. Especially when empty.

The shallow v hull should help stability, but on my Lamoille the v is so shallow it is almost flat. I doubt it's doing much.

A fiberglass Lamoille would also be really stiff. My fiberglass Explorer feels stiffer than my kevlar-foam Lamoille. I think unless you get a good carbon kevlar layup you're copy will not be as stiff.

I suspect this is the same reason old wood-canvas canoes feel so special. They have enough mass to stabilize them. Like a built-in balance pole. They are also very stiff, so the don't waste your energy on wiggling the hull.

I have a carbon-kevlar solo that weighs about 30 lbs. It paddles great because it's so stiff, but the lightweight makes it twitchy. I switched to a heavy paddle for a few days and could actually feel the boat rotating as I swung my body and paddle around on the return forward. You'll never feel that in an 85lb canoe.

I understand the desired to get a lighter Lamoille, its a great hull. Good luck!

 

[ErAh]

I've built strip canoes since 1978, more recently I've built a few carbon copies of existing hulls.
For a home builder, not interested in production, it will be hard to beat a male plug, your Mad River,
Be sure to liberally coat the plug with multiple layers of mold release, a bunch of us here have used Partal, a PVA compound.

I use Miracle Gloss MG681 mold release compound. I have already one gallon can. If I use Lamoille as a male mold, I would use window film in diamond area, because its so flat in Lamoille, its possible that it would be hard to remove copy from mold.

A single layer of carbon will provide plenty of strength, you'll need a layer of glass on the outside. Carbon alone will wear away as fast as a pencil. Another layer of carbon fiber over the foam inside is overkill, and 9 oz cloth will soak much resin. Glass would be a better choice.
Be sure to leave the stems open, or you may never get the copy off of your plug. Seal the stems up after releasing from the plug.

My plan is laminate with closed stem, but I will cut ends open after one day of curing, Epoxy wont be totally cured and can be cutted with carpet knife. I think that it would be easier to get stem closed, if there is only that closing job.

If you have the means to apply vacuum to the foam stiffeners that will ensure a solid contact to the carbon. And an inner layer of glass would be plenty, assuming you have good adhesion between all layers.
I'm assuming all epoxy resin...I've had disappointing results with polyester and vinylester resins. Oops, just reread your post, OK, all epoxy resin.

A 4 layer copy of my 17'9" Sawyer Cruiser weighed 40 lbs complete with all trim and seats, it could have been much lighter.
BTW, I used 1/8" thick Divinycell foam (closed cell PVC) and it provides plenty enough stiffness. Not sure how your linked PET compares...I have trouble to think in Pascals. 10mm thick foam will create a laminate as stiff as granite!!

In my Minnesota II there is 10mm foam in diamond area and ribs. If I use 10mm foam in this, canoe would be very stiff, but if we hit canoe to rock in bigger wawes, hull wont flex at all and there may be a risk for structural problem in hard hits. In real life, we use our canoes like babys, there wont be problems with hard hits.
I am thinking to get 5mm foam, it could be stiff enough. It gives little weight saving and its little cheaper too.
I made 4 rib to my Northwind 17, I use 3mm soric as a core material, and these ribs works well. Soric is actually really heavy, because it sucks epoxy very much.

For ultimate weight savings, I would avoid using carbon for the trim. The compound shape of the gunwales will force you to use a bias woven cloth, and there are too few choices of carbon bias woven tapes, you will lose all you weight advantage of the carbon to the massive amount of resin needed for a full wet out. Composite (foam) gunwales and thwarts can be wrapped with glass and provide all the strength you'll need.

Gunwales are something, which are difficult to make. Actually I dont know, how I will make them. First I plan make only inwales, but in this case canoe would be 1/2 inch lower than original (I wont remove wooden trim).

Please understand all of the above suggestions are my personal jaded opinions.
And your English is fine, way better than my non existent Finnish.
Oh, and thanks for dropping by, hope we can help.

Welcome to the forum, @ErAh

Please share your stories! Especially canoe stories!

In finnish forums, I can't wrote stories, but here it may be possible. Magazines wants stories first, and even my wife wrotes these stories (I am photographer), its not right to wrote trip report to forum before they have published it in magazine. Making story will take hours with my english, but I will try when I have enough time.

Today I look forums canoe destination and routes and find this: https://www.canoetripping.net/threads/the-happiest-country-on-earth-has-188-000-lakes.129942/ I have done around 50 trips in Finnish lakeland, mainly in Saimaa area, which is Finnish heaven for canoeing. But there is much more than Saimaa for canoeing, not as big areas, but good places for 5 to 7 days trip which is what we usually do.

 

[Gamma1214]

Welcome. You seem to be doing just fine in English & it's always good to watch another project / adventure take place.

...its not right to wrote trip report to forum before they have published it in magazine.

Best of luck getting published. If you succeed, you can always post links to the article(s). We have many here that post external links (not my preference but I'm not making money at it).

 

[ErAh]

Wife wrotes around 40 articles per year for magazines, so almost all of our trips will be published. In Finland biggest player of wilderness magazines is "Erä-lehti". In july, I get my first magazine cover image in Erä-lehti and this was big deal for me... (I make my first subscribe for "Erä-lehti" in 1989, when I was 16 years old).

I put link to some of my wifes article (these are finnish articles, maybe google can help??):

https://eralehti.fi/lehti/7-2026/melontaretkella-saaristomeren-sokkeloissa/?utm_medium=Social

https://wp.eralehti.fi/nakoislehti/...3NDM2OTgkbzEkZzEkdDE3ODk3NDQxNzQkajEzJGwwJGgw (Sarek story)

Litokaira on ollut näin upea viimeksi vuosikymmeniä sitten – Tältä näytti hiihtovaellus Suomen eteläisimmässä oikeassa erämaassa

Litokairan suoerämaa on talvella upea hiihtovaelluskohde. Kuuran koristelemat kelomännyt ja laajat suomaisemat luovat ainutlaatuisen tunnelman hengähdystauolle luonnossa.

www.pohjoisenpolut.fi

 

[Gamma1214]

Google translate seems to work well. Your pictures don't transfer but her text does. (I guess we may have to settle for switching back & forth if she does a canoeing article). I've often wondered how well such things work.

Google Kääntäjä näyttää toimivan hyvin. Kuvat eivät siirry, mutta teksti kyllä. (Taidamme joutua tyytymään kielten välillä vaihteluun, jos hän tekee artikkelin melonnasta.)

 

[ErAh]

Maybe I should put some pictures, which I take in that trip. My wife interviewed the best finnish nature photographer for this article (my opinion). It was quite difficult to make it with my photos : , my photos are cheap, Jormas are not and publisher dont want pay the bill) , because Jorma Luhta is so awesome, that there will never be the same, actually he was one of my idol of nature photography (the other was Hannu Hautala).

In the last "retki-lehti" was her article about paddling in Kukkia, which is quite small lake in soutkern Finland.

But, if you plan to make canoe trip to southern Finland, I can help with it. Maybe we want come together to Saimaa.