Building New Decks

[dave0]

I picked up a kevlar Mad River Malecite and am at the point where I'm building new decks. Not a big project but I am using the last of my coveted Butternut wood. It's a nice wood to work with and MR use to make a lot of their decks with it. I started with an eleven foot board by six inches wide by just over an inch deep. By the time I had allowed for knots, a little rot here an there I got four boards out of it that fit the bill. Now Butternut has an interesting grain and texture so when I put it through the planner I keep rotating the board to get the smoothest surface possible.

After that I measured out to twenty inches and cut them, I happen to like long decks. My next task was to glue them together using G-Flex. I did buy a one quarter inch dowel to marry the two boards together but after some chin scratching and remembering my last attempt at that I decided to just use straight resin. My plan is to lay down another thin bonding board on the underside to keep the seam tight.

So all I really did was cut the boards, smeared a lot of G-Flex on them and clamped them tight for step one. A day or so of drying time and then I will plan them down to somewhere about a half inch or so. They are nothing more then blanks right now but I think they will look pretty nice when it's all done and said.

Thought I'd mention this as I haven't seen much about making decks out of wood. Carbon fiber is way out of my league but I sure admire that! I do need more clamps though. Fun job but pretty mindless and of course more time spent on gathering everything I needed then the actual task! Gotta love it!

 

[clemency]

Why is it that there are never enough clamps? I notice that when making panels for my wife's art.

 

[ppine]

My old Sawyer Charger had a crunched bow stem that was inherited from the previous owner. I finally took it all apart. I used spray foam to fashion the lines of the boat, improving them slightly from the stock configuration by making it a little more streamlined. It was an early Kevlar boat, so I used cloth and epoxy. I ordered a new factory deck from Sawyer. After the boat was painted it looked like it came from the factory only slightly faster.

 

[dave0]

Clamps are like socks in the laundry, seems you have enough and then there aren't cause they seem to disappear! Or the shop fairy is hiding them on me!

ppine, had to look up the Charger, not very familiar with the Sawyer's. Looks like a fast boat! Nice.

 

[yellowcanoe]

DougD if you ever want to get fancy, Rockler sells small hunks of purty wood like tiger stripe maple. IIRC two decks could come out of one piece. Two solo decks that is ( I think in solo terms). So one tandem deck. Still at $12 a hunk it looked like a reasonable way to get fancy wood..
I haven't had to shop for decks yet.. In some ways I prefer wood though Marc O makes carbon fiber replacement decks.

Good my husband isn't reading this. it would remind him of his ( to him) clamp shortage.

 

[dave0]

No Title

Kim, I can go to Goosebay Lumber a few towns from here and get a large variety of woods but good to know about Rockler. I like to stick with wooden decks for these older hulls...probably cause I'm an old fart who likes that kind of traditional look ;-) Ah, clamps! I need more, always more, never enough! The curse of working on canoes. Of course I always say I'm going to go buy more but never do!

Today I finally got the last of the gunwales installed. Now how in the heck does one miscount the amount of holes to drill in the inwale? I don't know but I did it and had to put two more screws in free hand which I hate doing. Done with that I decided to work on the decks. The blanks held up just fine from the resin work and I ran them through the planner down to 3/4 inch. Then is was nothing more then cutting them out. I did trace the underside of each so I can lay down either another piece of wood to add support or some dynel to reinforce them. I now kick myself in the arse for not adding the wooden dowels to tie them together.

Next step is to start sanding and Oh Lord how I do love sanding (said with a lot of sarcasm!) I think another week will have them done. A few pictures are added.

Mr. McCrea was also kind enough to send me some hangers for the seats. I need to treat them as well and drill. Should be a sweet looking boat when done.

 

[Guest]

Mr. McCrea was also kind enough to send me some hangers for the seats. I need to treat them as well and drill. Should be a sweet looking boat when done.

Dougela, did your maillady enjoy the package? My postmistress did, as usual.

I really like that one-cut no-wastage seat drop style. Easier to install than a full truss, much sturdier than a peg or dowel drop.

 

[dave0]

Mr. McCrea, the package was a hit at the Post Office. Instead of having a red face now when it's delivered we laugh! I recently spent a few hours routing over the edges and sanding the decks. When I was fairly happy with those results I laid a couple of coats of spar varnish on the tops only. Since I didn't use dowels to join the two boards I am going to use Dynel and resin on the bottom to help reinforce them and then will coat them with three coats of spar. I weighed them on the better half's postal scale and they come in at just over a pound per deck.

While I was at it I sanded down the old carry handles and slathered them with spar as well and the hangers. It was almost 100 degrees in the workshop yesterday so everything dried quickly except for me! Haven't sweated that hard in a long time. I know the cuts I made on the decks are a tad off but I'm living with it as previous experiences has taught me to try fix them usually ends up in scrap wood!

I really like how butternut wood has a rich dark appearance when spar is laid on. I'm going to pick up some brass screws to attache it to the gunwales as I think that will look pretty good. I'm hoping to have it all put together by mid week.

 

[dave0]

Up early and decided to do the resin work before the heat, 90's today, hit. I cut out some Dynel and laid it down on the bottom of the decks. It may be overkill but I do want these strong. Simple work. One of the carry handles had one end where it was drilled through too close to end and had split a part of it. Since the rest was in good shape I used a hunk of wax paper and tape to make a border and the filled the damage with G-Flex. I've done this before so am confident it will hold well. So now some drying time and then tomorrow I'll be mounted everything although I still have to cut the seats to length.

 

[dave0]

I'm heck bent on getting this canoe done. This morning I laid down a coat of spar on the underside of the decks and a second coat on the carry handles. Now it was time to install the seat hangers and seats. Ok, using the McCrea hangers my bolts were too short. Of course I needed six inch bolts instead of four inch. Off to the hardware store but...but...but no six inch. This is the second time that has happened to me. I need to find a store that sells them and stock up with twenty or so just to have them! Back to the drawing board! I ended up using a left over thwart and cut them to two and a quarter inches long and then drilled them out. Now I suck at math and of course my measurements were off so I had to cut a quarter inch off so they would finally fit.

When I find longer bolts I'll put the other hangers on but for now this will work. I have three steps left, install the decks after another coat of spar and then the carry handles. The last step will be to add some skid plates but that can wait for a bit. Just want to get this hull in water.

 

[Alan Gage]

Those decks have a nice look to them and should be good and solid.

I ran into the same lack of long bolts you did a few weeks ago so I ordered a bunch of 4, 5, and 6 inch stainless bolts from Mcmaster Carr so the next time I need some I can spend 2 hours tearing my shop apart trying to figure out where I put them.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#machine-screws/=y5h0ri

The oval heads, which I prefer for aesthetics, are only available up to 4". The flat heads come in 6"

Alan

 

[Guest]

Ok, using the McCrea hangers my bolts were too short. Of course I needed six inch bolts instead of four inch. Off to the hardware store but...but...but no six inch.

Dang, I should have sent you 6” machine screws with the drops. I can send you another package. Hee, hee, hee.

As a frugal and lazy Scot’s I really like the shape of those drops. On the whole I prefer a full truss seat drop, but those can be a bit of a finicky fit.

Those “half truss” drops are much easier to shape for the underside inwale, less exacting to drill for machine screws and wayyyyyyy sturdier than the dowel-style drops used on some canoes.

The frugal/lazy part is that, since each S cut begins the opposite side I get twice the drops for half the cuts, with little wastage.



Those are 2 ½” and 3 ½” drops cut from dimensional lumber.