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First stripper build: Prospector-16 Help & comments appreciated

It took me a minute to see the problem. I agree it would bug me forever too. Looks like cleats would be a stylish solution!
 
It will be much less noticeable when the seat is suspended below the gunnels and all you see is the bolt heads. You missed the scuppers with room to spare. Looks like a planned result to me!

Very nice glue line between in and out wales!

Rick
 
Holes drilled @ 1” spacing, 13/64. Used metal cutting bit, virtually no tear-out. I did use a backer block, and moved it every few holes.

Put seat frames on gunwales, and UH OH!. I figured scupper spacing & layout for width of seat not depth. CRAP! This is going to be the kind of oops I’ll look at every time I paddle it.

Change to cleats, or get creative with spacer blocks and angle bolts slightly?
View attachment 132770
At least the frames are consistent and square. Bending without steam worked great. Not sure if it would with open grained woods. pretty hard to see the seams.
View attachment 132771
Seat frames look Great ! As well as the gunnels !

Nice work !
 
Holes drilled @ 1” spacing, 13/64. Used metal cutting bit, virtually no tear-out. I did use a backer block, and moved it every few holes.

Put seat frames on gunwales, and UH OH!. I figured scupper spacing & layout for width of seat not depth. CRAP! This is going to be the kind of oops I’ll look at every time I paddle it.

Change to cleats, or get creative with spacer blocks and angle bolts slightly?
View attachment 132770
At least the frames are consistent and square. Bending without steam worked great. Not sure if it would with open grained woods. pretty hard to see the seams.
View attachment 132771
Yeah ! I'd go with cleats ! Since it's a tandem, no real tumblehome to deal with ? Cleats will be fine.
Another advantage to cleats, scuppers on the gunnels don't need to be calculated for the hanger brackets .
 
Either way, it’ll be noticeable, at least by me. Space between scuppers is 1” bigger at intended hanger locations.

Going to take day off of canoe to think about it, work on honey do list.

I’ll slip in a couple hours for final sanding & clean up. Then I’m ready for varnish (unless I’m making & installing cleats).
 
Either way, it’ll be noticeable, at least by me. Space between scuppers is 1” bigger at intended hanger locations.

This may not make sense for other reasons, but could you just re-make your seats deeper with new and longer side bars so the hangers fit in the middle of the planned scupper spaces? A deeper seat can even be more comfortable for certain body sizes.
 
Correction. Seats are currently 18” wide, 12 deep outside-outside. Add 2” to depth would make it much better. Yet another reason I need a “thinking day”
 
When you plan your drop, remember that you need to consider that the seat middles also have that "built in" drop, don't just consider the edges.

Brian
 
As far as drop ? I shoot a little on the low side.
If I need to correct, it's easy to shorten the drops. Not as easy to make them longer.
 
Jim: You're confusing me, which is pretty easy to do. First, you suggest go with cleats. Then, you give me advice on drops. Still haven't decided which way to go. I'll decide by morning. The way I see it, my options are:

1. Go with cleats. Shouldn't be too hard to form to the hull. I cut a block of 2 by 4 to approximate size, just to see how it lays. It's pretty close to flat in the approximate area, so shouldn't be a problem. Down side, I gotta get the height right. No real vertical adjustment later.

2. Make new side rails for my seat frames. Adding 2" would mean final seats 18" wide, 14" deep. Not a big deal.

3. Hang them as is. I can get bolts in a suitable location, just won't be close to centered between scuppers. Both seats would also be moved aft approximately 2" from original plan.

4. Start over.
 
Kliff, what IF…

You could make an upside-down trapezoidal truss wide enough to locate the through-gunwale bolts where you want them. Then drill the seat hanger holes where you want them, countersink those bolt heads into the top of the truss. Assemble trusses to seats, then trusses to gunwales.
 
Jim: You're confusing me, which is pretty easy to do. First, you suggest go with cleats. Then, you give me advice on drops. Still haven't decided which way to go. I'll decide by morning. The way I see it, my options are:

1. Go with cleats. Shouldn't be too hard to form to the hull. I cut a block of 2 by 4 to approximate size, just to see how it lays. It's pretty close to flat in the approximate area, so shouldn't be a problem. Down side, I gotta get the height right. No real vertical adjustment later.

2. Make new side rails for my seat frames. Adding 2" would mean final seats 18" wide, 14" deep. Not a big deal.

3. Hang them as is. I can get bolts in a suitable location, just won't be close to centered between scuppers. Both seats would also be moved aft approximately 2" from original plan.

4. Start over.
Ha ! Sorry ! I was responding to Cruiser's post. I should have replied with a quote ! By Bad !

I would go with cleats !
Your inwhales are set, don't do anything that will detract from their uniformity.
Remaking the seat, is not the way I'd go either. Making it bigger, would not make it look good, and smaller you would lose comfort.

Go with cleats. Make them big enough to support the weight of at least a 200# man.
 
I wouldn't worry too much about cleat strength. stripperGuy posted some shear tests on small cleats and it took a couple hundred pounds to shear just one cleat.

SG, if you are reading this thread, maybe you could weigh in on the cleat strength stuff ... you did the testing.


Brian
 
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Ok, cleats it is. Time to revisit Brian's "Lightweight Solo Tripper" thread. I'm more than a little nervous that where I put the seats is where they stay.

Epoxy coated the gunwales, decks, and yoke (not installed yet) yesterday. How long do I have to wait before varnishing? Looked on the Raka site, couldn't find anything in the technical data. I know 2 weeks to full cure. Hull is long past that, but not the trim work. I'd like to start varnishing the outside while I'm making the cleats.
 
If you step back and consider the flexibility of cleats, there are just about as much flexibility for moving the seats around as long as you plan for it.
If you follow the plans, I don't imagine you would really want or need to move them forward or back ... maybe up or down a bit.

Having said this, if you want to build in some flexibility you could think about 1) make the rails a bit longer 2) use saddles to mount the the seats to the cleats. By saddles I mean a block that can hold the seat and then be fastened to the cleat. If you want to go up, use a thicker saddle, down, take the saddle out. Forward and back, just unfasten and move the saddle.

But like I said, I doubt you will likely want to move the seats later ... but there is still room if you decide you want/need to


brian
 
I'm more than a little nervous that where I put the seats is where they stay.

The vast majority of people who buy or build fixed seat canoes, which are the vast majority of canoes, never move the seats. They adjust trim with gear or just ignore trim. Those who want to trim by seat movement almost always do it by making the bow seat a sliding seat. You could do that. Almost no one but racers ever moves a stern seat or uses a sliding stern seat.

One complication of fixed seat positions in tandems is that if you want to use a fixed bow seat also as a solo seat (backwards), you may want to position the bow seat closer to the center than it would normally be for optimal tandem bow seating. Again, a slider could address this, but sliders do add weight and complexity. Other ways to implement solo paddling are to add a third seat or a kneeling thwart.

You could even go for pedestal seats with bucket seat pans, instead of flat hung seats, and those pedestal seats can be made to be movable.

There are many options.
 
Yes I did some load deflection tests on a representative sample cleat
IIRC, the cleat failed at a little over 300 lbs load in shear
And even then, the wood failed, not the Cabosil thickened epoxy joint, pretty sure I didn’t even have any glass reinforcements in place.
A search for that data should net the posts easily.

Beyond any cleat/hanger or other seat attachment, I would recommend getting the boat wet with the expected paddlers and loads, to more accurately determine where to locate the seats. Either kneel or sit on a 5 gal bucket, paint can, whatever, to properly trim the hull.
 
I'm not saying I'll want to move the seats once I get them installed where they should be. I'm saying I don't have a lot of confidence I'll hit that on the first try :)

SG: I kind of like that idea. Perhaps a trip to the pond would be a good idea.
 
Kliff,

Here's the link to those load deflections tests, details are in the post...


BTW, you're seat placement is not as critical in your tandem as it would be in a solo, but it's still worth a trip to the pond to verify.
 
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