• Happy Weed Appreciation Day! 🌱🌿🌻

Ain't been out yet, but...

Beautiful contrast with planking & ribs. This one's going to be a real stunner!
 
Got the Canadian into canvas and filler last October, now we are just waiting until it warms up to finish it. In the meantime I've been building the seat frames. The boat came with plywood but I'm doing oak to match the rest of the boat with hand woven cane. I'm looking forward to caning soon as I put the first coat of varnish on the frames today.

It will likely still be a couple months before it is warm enough to start the finishing process on the canvas and I still need to find wood for the outwales, most likely oak to match since we aren't caring too much about weight on this one. We know it is going to be heavy regardless.





 
That canoe has a nice profile in it's new canvas, I really like that bow and stern curve, the second picture is really nice, looking forward to seeing the canoe on the water.
Nice seat frames. hope you share some caning pictures, great winter project!
 
I got my caning supplies from Lee Valley Tools. I bought cane, the tapered dowels and a book. The book covers chairs but canoe seats are actually easier since they are flat. I believe I bought 2.5mm cane and I have enough left over to likely do the smaller new frame, hopefully both, although it isn't expensive at all.

I should be able to begin caning the new frames next weekend, I will continue varnishing through the week.

The hole pattern was based on spacing. I pulled an old Chestnut seat out of the shop and measured the spacing, which went like... 1", 3/4", 7/8", 1 1/16", 3/4" etc. I managed to get away with 1" spacing on both seats so the pattern should be even. I marked it out and drilled small holes then enlarged them, finally using a countersink to take off the sharp edge. It would be nice to have a drill press, but I don't have one so did the best I could with keeping the holes straight.

It is pretty straight forward once the actual caning starts, seven simple steps. The first one took me about 8 hours to do, but I now know what not to do. The second photo shows it prior to doing the 7th step, which is the binder along the edges.

So, we will be taking it from this...



To this...

 
With a little bit of money to spend lately and being able to get the shop space temperature into the low 50's, we've managed to get some more work done. We started on the electrical two weeks ago, hanging the new lighting, and last weekend we started running the conduit and got the side lights fired up, so at least we know they work. I will likely replace the ballasts in them at some point this Summer. We only have 100-200 dollars a month to put into the shop, so it is taking time to finish.

Christine took off Friday since the roads were horrendous and we set about hanging the cabinets you can see on the right side. She got them from work last summer, they were being thrown out and she snagged 3 of the 50 or so that went to salvage. They are steel and press board and quite heavy but will give us much needed storage space. Next was beginning conduit runs for the receptacles, which will be on both long walls. The lighting will be split, the side lights and the center and front on separate circuits, the double bulb 4 footer will go under the loft space to take out shadows back there. We see no issues in the future with lack of lighting.

Considering the temperature we are supposed to get, we shifted the Tremblay out to storage and brought the Canadian in to get it finished. I started it in August 2012 and now we are down to gunwales, hang the seats and paint. I trimmed the canvas back to the planking and cut the seats down to fit. They are just clamped in place at the moment, I need to figure out drops for them, but I am leaning towards using 3/4" copper pipe sleeved with hardwood dowel as spacers. I still need to find a good supplier, preferably in Canada, for silicon bronze hardware. The brass hardware I can get is really poor quality from China and keeps breaking on me.

Considering the thwarts, decks and seats are oak, that is likely what we will do for gunwales as well since weight isn't an issue on this canoe.

Shop additions




Canoe
 
Those cabinets look good, up high so they don't waste floor space, and the lighting really looks impressive. Good lighting is really important, I'm planning to have my shop all wired this year, right now my lighting is pretty much sunlight, just doesn't come close to yours.

So was that the storage area in the earlier pictures with the 4 canoes on racks? You have a nice set up there. Your shop looks pretty weather tight, is the plastic covering a garage door? Will you open it during the warmer months...haha, what warmer months..it's nice to work outside or even with a door open when the weather turns.


I like that Canadian, very nice looking restoration.
 
Robin

It was a single car garage, but an older style with a really low ceiling. We raised the front portion by moving the collar ties further up but the loft portion at the back shows where the original ceiling was. It had a sliding door on it which would not seal so I removed all that and built those two doors, they swing out and have R20 insulation, same as the rest of the shop. Where the canoe racks are is the other building, it is 20x30 with a 10 foot ceiling and may someday become the shop, but for now it is unheated storage. We have enough rack space in there for 7 canoes presently. It also has the garden tractor and other summer things in there. I'm looking forward to the days I can throw open the doors and work outside. That is better for dust control and the thickness planer produces an awful lot of shavings so outside is best and there is really insufficient room in either building for the table saw.

Further plans for the shop space will be removable posts so we can canvas indoors regardless of season. We still need to figure out how we are going to heat it next winter. It is on the plus side of zero today and looks to stay pretty mild the next week or so, hopefully some of the horde of snow we have will start to disappear. There is snow inside the storage building too.
 
Last edited:
Mihun said:
" We still need to figure out how we are going to heat it next winter."

I met a guy a while back who used a heat system from a trailer home to heat his shop. I don't remember if he said it was oil fired or propane, but he swore by it. I know we are talking different temps but he had a decent shop and kept it about 50F for $25 a week in fuel. he might have been a little off on his estimate of cost, but it might be worth a look if they ever come available.
My wood stove isn't air tight and burns out quick at night, the shop gets ice cold and it's just too hard to regain any warmth if the temps are below 20f in the day. By next winter the stove will be replaced with a good overnighter and I'll keep it going 24/7 when I have a project going.
 
We had NG installed in the house last fall and can heat the entire house for about $100 a month even at the evil temperatures we have had this winter. We are considering a NG Radiant Garage heater, possibly infrared, which would eliminate an exposed flame. About 90 pounds and hung from the ceiling, the smallest is good for 700 sq ft and the shop is only 350 sq ft so it should keep it toasty. The downside would be $600-$1000 for the heater/venting then paying someone to run the new gas line from the meter. However, if we are going to pay someone to run a gas line, we could also have them run one out back in case we ever get a BBQ. ;)

As usual, everything comes down to money we don't have.
 
Finally some further progress.

Sanding... I'm not a huge fan but it is important enough. If you want to know what sanding canvas filler is like, take a sheet of 220 sandpaper, and a sheet of 120 then sand the 220 With the 120. The filler has silica sand in it, so I am sanding sand, basically, which is why it is important to get the filler as smooth as possible when putting it on in the first place. This one came out about the smoothest yet, so it took little to knock the bumpiness down. The next step is to use 3M spot putty to take out the worst areas. If you watch the Adam's Rib video, when you see him sanding the canvas, the red areas are most likely the spot putty, it is used to get rid of irregularities and provide the nicest finish possible. When the canvas is stretched around the boat, every little variance in the planking shows up. High edges can be filled, the stripe around the bow of this canoe is from a high thread in the canvas.

On this one, when we replaced the 5 ribs in the middle, we somehow lost the boat shape in the process, a first for me and no matter what we tried, fiddling with the ribs last summer, we couldn't get it back. So now, I will fill the offending shallows with filler and get it back that way. I could leave it without affecting paddle-ability, but I want it to look half decent. This is where SG will cringe since this will add weight to the boat, but, considering we expect this to be around 80 pounds when done, a couple extra pounds for filler won't bother me.

Now I just need to wait and continue to add filler until it is fair. Then it will be a high fill primer, sand, primer, sand then paint. Any proper boat enamel, such as Kirby's, Pettit, Epifanes or Interlux would be super high gloss, like the one in the canoe therapy thread. We did that on the first boat but it shows every last little no-no in the hull, so now we go semi-gloss. With the high end boat paints going for about $50 a litre, we opt for Tremclad Rust Paint at less than half the cost. I mix my own colours so I add a flat paint to the gloss to get the sheen I want. Our plan for this one is a dark burgundy with gold striping. It may need to warm up a bit before we get to that.



 
Nice, we used alot of spot putty on the Old Town in "Canoe Therapy", worked well at smoothing out the dings
 
It is going to be quite nice to see this project through, we had gone to see the boat and passed the first time, partly due to the fact it had been fibreglassed, but the seller contacted us a couple months later saying if we didn't buy it he was going to take it to the dump, so we took it for $200. I stripped the stained interior in August 2012 and it will finally see water again this year. Other projects, lack of money and life gets in the way at times, but in the end, patience pays huge dividends. We still are uncertain which model it is and exactly when it was built, but it is a Canadian Canoe Company craft from the 1930's and it will live again.
 
"...and it will live again." I like that. It's also nice to see that you're not feeling constrained by colour choice etc. I can't wait to see the burgundy and gold striping.
 
Let there be Light!

And there is...

Took a few weeks to pull it all together but finally have most of the electrical in and running, albeit still on a single circuit, but that will do for now. At some point this summer we need a second 100amp panel installed in the basement, (we presently have a spare 100amp line) then we can run a 60 amp service out to the new panel in the garage. Instead of using a pony panel with limited circuits, we have a full panel with 60 amp breaker and 16 slots, plenty of room for further expansion if need be.

So, we have all the receptacles on one circuit, 7 in all, one receptacle on it's own circuit for the future A/C unit and the lights on their own as well. It is plenty bright in there. Plans will call for likely a 220V compressor and another outlet for a welder. Outside block heater plugs will run off the panel in the basement eventually.

This set up is all conduit since local hydro said they would prefer that. The center and front light is on a 3 way circuit to the back door, although it isn't an entry door it may be in the future and I know Hydro would want it so I put it in preemptively.

Now, I can get back to the canoe.

Since I know you all enjoy messy shop photo's, this is about as bad as it gets...





 
I'm bringing hubby over to study your pics.. Your messy is his neat. And his shop is never neat unless I've recently got on his case! To be fair I think he needs more room now that he has graduated from furniture to canoes..:)
 
Still pecking away at it despite the late arrival of Spring. This shows the third primer coat, I have it pretty much as good as it is going to get surface wise and I hope to put the first finish coat on next weekend. 2 or 3 finish coats and then the gunwales, which I don't have material for yet. Finish the gunwales and install them then do the last coat overlapping the bottom of the gunwale to help seal it against water intrusion. Maybe have her done for ice out in June.

Did a bit more work in the shop, organizing, putting in new bench tops. Much more solid and pretty than the 7/8's plywood that was there. YC, this is getting cleaner, perhaps the hubby can learn more from this.

 
I see Robin having all the fun so I had to get some of my own. Friday I put the first finish coat of paint on the hull. Saturday morning I took a drive into the city and got a 16 foot red oak plank. Sunday was an all day cutting and shaping day, rip it into size then cut the rabbet, round off the edges and sand out the saw marks. It took most of the day to pull it off without messing it all up. Having Monday off gave me more time to work on them so I finished up the jig for bending the ends. The Canadian has a quick upturn near the decks so we decided to steam and pre-bend them instead of trying to make the bend on the boat, which we usually do. We had been out all morning and it wasn't the most pleasant day, only about +9C but still not Winter!

Dug the steamer out of the ice in the warehouse, fired her up and cooked the last 4 feet of the outwales for about a half hour. I got good heat considering one end was only closed with a towel and the bend went easily. I'll leave this on for the week then do the other end next weekend, then I can varnish like mad and perhaps in two weeks get them on the boat. Might have it done before ice out.







 
Back
Top