Alan's Bloodvein II

[Gamma1214]

I've come to enjoy building canoes during the winter and experimenting with different wood combinations. The decision of what to build is normally tough but was made easy this time as the plans for my 2026 build are courtesy of @Alan Gage. Although this hull has been called other things, I'll steer clear of any possible profanity filter edits and simply dub it the Bloodvein II.

This is the revised version of the hull that Alan built for his trip down (and back up) the Bloodvein River. Upon returning, he decided that more rocker was needed so he revised a few of the fore & aft stations before building his composite version. I'll trust his judgment and skip version #1.

The issue of what wood to use was not as simple. I've still got lots of Aspen, Tamarac & White Pine but didn't want to repeat a wood choice yet. I've recently acquired nice supplies of Catalpa, Yellow (Tulip) Poplar and Sassafras but none of them were dry yet.

While helping my daughter find some Walnut for another project, however, I ran across a good deal on some kiln-dried Yellow Poplar, bought 100 board feet (at $1.50/brd ft) and also bought some Walnut that had far too much sap wood to be worth much. I'll have a little more in this build than when I kill the trees myself but I consider that better than waiting for another year.

I took advantage of nice weather today and decided to cut strips in the yard and, at this point, I'm thinking that I may have over-bought on the Poplar. For whatever reason, I've been thinking that I use 60-70 board feet per hull while I know that can't be right (60 feet of White Cedar would weigh 110lbs so, even if 1/2 of the board winds up as sawdust, that would be 50+ lbs of wood before glassing).

The Poplar that I bought is 4/4 (1 inch thick) rough cut, 10 feet long and 14 inches wide on average. I sliced 1 1/2 of these before dark tonight and it's looking like 2 boards might be enough Poplar for the build even though that's only about 20 feet of lumber.



I may count strips on the Raven (which is a similar hull) and I'll need to see if I can get enough clear(ish) heart from the Walnut out boards when I get back to it later this week.

I'm also hoping my architect friend can get the plans printed but, with Christmas mid-week, I might be cutting forms after the first. Nonetheless, it feels good to have the next hull figured out and started.

 

[tketcham]

Building a wood strip canoe was a goal of mine back in the day but I now accept that if I haven't built one by now, it's never going to happen. So, I'm impressed when I see someone build one, let alone two or more. A stupid naive question, but without a table saw, how do you keep the strips fairly consistent in thickness, some sort of guide?

DOH! I see the guide now.

 

[Cruiser]

It's a rule Gamma, most boats end up taking about 72 standard strips .... 1/4" x 7/8"

Now if you do use 1/4" strips at 16', that is .33 brdFt per strip and times 72 is about 24 brdFt that you will require, so theoretically you have to build 4 boats now.

Waste not, Want not

Brian

 

[Gamma1214]

DOH! I see the guide now.

Not my idea. At least for me, it came from this forum. It's a piece of aluminum angle that I've bolted under the shoe of the circular saw so that it's 3/16 inch (7.62 cm) from the blade. I leave it there as that's all I'll use that saw for now. (a slight bend on the infeed side allows it to slide easily on the rough edge)

One word of caution: That guide completely disables the blade guard and the saw must be placed on its side, on a 5 gallon bucket or held until the blade stops on its own. If you forget and set it down on the board you're cutting, you'll gouge some future strips. Get careless and allow it to contact something else and you'll gouge something else.

...theoretically you have to build 4 boats now.

Thanks, Brian. I'm (again) using 3/16 inch strips but the extra Poplar won't go to waste. I've got 250 board feet of Catalpa (Toby tree) drying right now and, as it turns dark like Sassafras does in UV light, I'll probably use some of the extra Poplar for gunwales, seats, etc on my next build (most likely a tandem as I have a granddaughter that loves the outdoors)

It would also look great paired with Bald Cypress as soon as I can figure out the logistics of transporting it.

Even at 3/16, the Poplar has me a little concerned. Alan used 3/16 inch Cedar above waterline and 1/4 below and still wound up at 48 lbs. Using your calculation of 24 brd ft (2 cubic feet) and my estimation that roughly 1/2 of that will lay in the yard as sawdust, I'm still working with a 6 lb weight disadvantage. We'll see if minimal outfitting can still bring 'er in close to 50 lbs.

That will certainly be more likely once I get the plans at the correct scale. When my friend printed the first set, I told him that the line where the forms attach to the strongback will be 8 inches if the scale is correct.

Having never built a canoe himself, he printed them out without checking the line length (probably didn't understand which line).

That reference line is 11 1/2 inches long instead of 8 so, if I compensate for the extra width by stretching the forms until proportionate, I'll be renaming this build Noah's Arc.

 

[Cruiser]

I predict that the bare hull weight after sanding should be in the ball park of 18.5 pounds, standard 6 oz glass if you are careful, should be around 11.2 pounds, 4 oz glass will save a bit at 10 pounds.

So ready for trim weight should be close to 28.5 pounds, the wood choice weight cost is ~4 pounds .... if you are careful, you can do a lot better than you are thinking, but those trim decisions can be tough.

Brian

 

[Gamma1214]

Brian, remind me to weigh it after glassing the inside & we can check to see how close you are.

Planned lay-up is 4 oz e-glass in & out w/ an additional 4 oz e-glass layer on the inside football to increase impact resistance (gonna happen). I've considered some s-glass on the exterior football to increase abrasion resistance but I remain undecided.

I can't find 4 oz s-glass in 24-30 inch widths but I can always add it after the exterior gets torn up a little. (I'm tempted to try 2.5 oz s-glass on both footballs just to see how it holds up with a minimalist lay-up)

I'll try to get some clear heartwood out of the Walnut outboards before the weekend is over. If I can't salvage nice color, I'm debating using Sassafras (again) for trim or doubling down on the Poplar and doing the whole build with just the one species. (would that be too boring?)

I guess, if it is I can always shpit on it (I've got lots left )

 

[dogbrain]

Here's 30" 4oz s-glass.

 

[Gamma1214]

Here's 30" 4oz s-glass.

Thanks! Not terribly priced either.

 

[Cruiser]

Gamma, one thing to note about walnut ... it fades with exposure. Not a deal breaker, but it is something to keep in mind.

I did up my Kipawa with cherry/walnut gunnels and stems ... the cherry darkens a lot on exposure, walnut lightens and all the contrast I had initially gets more muddy with time, walnut is one of those woods that doesn't get better with exposure.

Brian

 

[Gamma1214]

True. Darker woods (IME) get lighter with time while lighter woods get darker. Cherry turns a beautiful dark red and the Catalpa seems to age dark like Sassafras into a warm chocolate brown. I'll get a moisture meter on some of it tomorrow... I think the Poplar will stay much lighter so the contrast might endure better with one of those.

 

[Alan Gage]

Can't wait to see it come together. It will be nice to have another one of them out there in the world.
It's still my favorite all around hull. I didn't think anything would ever replace my Magic until I built this. If I ever get the itch to build again it would be interesting to build an UL version geared more towards day paddles rather than serious tripping.

Alan