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It was the best of ideas, it was the worst of ideas. It was an act of excess in an era of economy, a bold and confident move that belied the uncertainty of the outcome. A plan so crazy that it seemed logical and so sacrilegious that it was divinely inspired.
Hmm… Seems like a bit too much hype…
Alternative intro: I’m building a boat (or two or three or four).
Shortly after joining this forum, I became interested in building a stripper (no, not the “wanna lap dance?” kind but the kind that causes you to fuel up BEFORE loading the boat so you don't get held up answering questions at the gas station on your way to the water).
I did all of the things that seem typical of an aspiring builder; I pored through build threads, researched different wood options on wood database and even started a thread here to see what others had experienced using something other than the traditional Cedar (it’s not common in my area and, therefore, very expensive). What I found was that there are many reports of using poplar, sassafras, aspen, pine, etc. but I could find very few pictures anywhere so it was kind of a roll of the dice whether or not the finished boat would be aesthetically pleasing.
To make matters worse, while searching for nicely colored woods, I had an older woodworker introduce me to Sumac and I immediately fell in love. Lightweight (I'm still unsure where wood database got their posted info but it seems to weigh nothing!), absolutely stunning in the sunlight and certainly not available through any sawmills or lumber yards, acquisition of boards can typically be achieved only by searching out “large” trees (max growth seems to be about 8-10 inches in diameter and rarely over 5 feet of trunk length), and cutting them up yourself. That debacle is currently in the works and I hope to post it after a sufficient quantity of lumber has been stickered, stacked & air dried.
Now... due to the amount of effort involved in producing Sumac boards, I want to be certain that the canoe I build will be one I like to paddle and different hull shapes have different handling characteristics. Furthermore, I've found that the more one does something, the better the results tend to be so I figure...
I'll acquire plans for 2-3 canoes, build them with readily available lumber, paddle each to see which I prefer and then build the preferred hull a second time using the dreamy Sumac.
Finally… So many people wonder how long it actually takes, so I’ll be the guinea pig. I’ve never built a canoe and I am not a woodworker. Follow along if you like… I’ll try to work on it as often as possible (trip report style except that you can see me screw up practically in real time.)
Add all of that up and what you wind up with is this...
The first victim is a 15’ 3” Freedom Solo from Bear Mountain. It will be built from Aspen strips with Cherry accents. Hopefully, it will be followed closely by a Raven from Martin Step that will be built with Eastern Larch (aka Tamarac) and Sassafras. I’m hoping to have both done for early summer but we shall see…
The woods I have chosen are all heavier per cubic foot than the traditional Cedar so, to keep weight reasonable, all strips will be 3/16 instead of the standard ¼ inch and I’m still toying with the glass layup. It may be experimentally lightweight (these are not IMO “forever” boats but merely trial runs. If they hold up, that's great but it won't break my heart if the layup proves to be too light... I'll simply beef it up a little for the real boat)
I hope that, in addition to educating myself, I can help others to see what the color combos/different woods look like and I have plans to also build a poplar/butternut combo, and both a pine hull and a catalpa hull accented with something... hemlock?... ash or elm?... perhaps even white oak?
I will also attempt to keep future posts long on pictures and much shorter on prose.
Lumber:
I have a friend that owns a band saw mill and several customers who had trees that needed to be removed. I’ve worked as a sawyer so it seemed reasonable to gather the trees and have my friend saw them up.
A few aspens…
…some white oak, black willow and some cherry…
…An afternoon at the sawmill…
… and the boards were stickered and stacked in the overhead of my Dad’s barn while I sought out (and built) a heated space in which to work during the winter.
The whole process took a couple of years which was helpful as, by the time I was ready to machine the lumber, the moisture content was down to 8-9 % and there was no need (in my mind) to pay for kiln drying.
I also found a few hundred board feet of 1 inch rough cut Larch that I was able to acquire for 75 cents per board foot and I grabbed that as well as a few Hemlock boards and a couple of Sassafras that were laying around.
Strips:
There’s not a ton of room in the upstairs of my buddy’s garage so I didn’t have room to set up an entire wood shop there. I made do with what was available and cut Aspen and some Cherry strips at the barn this past summer. I understand that Cherry darkens when exposed to UV light but the polyurethane I’ll be using contains UV blockers. My thinking was that, by cutting it early, it would darken sufficiently by the time I sealed it up.
To cut the strips, I used a circular saw with a guide bolted to the shoe in such a way that it sliced the 1 inch thick boards into 3/16 inch strips. The guide is just a piece of aluminum angle and it worked well as long as I remembered that the guide interferes with the blade guard and the saw needs to be set down on a 5 gallon bucket. Uniformity of strips seemed very good with this method as long as I was careful to pull it toward me in a way that kept the guide tight against the board.
Today, I took advantage of the unseasonably warm February weather to gather up the Aspen & Cherry strips from the barn and move them to the upstairs of the garage. I needed to haul them about 8 miles so I tied the strips to an intact board and tied them to the roof of the Ranger.
I didn’t pay much attention to how long it took to rip the Aspen but, as I was in the groove, I stopped by my yard & cut up some Larch & made a dozen or so strips of Sassafras. It took about 4 hours to cut up 25 or so board feet of lumber. I’m not sure that will be enough but it’s a pretty good start and the Larch is for the second boat anyway. I was impressed with the color and grain of the Larch and I’m thinking it will rival Cedar for aesthetics and maybe the weight penalty won’t be unbearable.
One aspect of Larch is the abundance of small knots and I’ll try to leave as many in as can be easily worked around. There were 3 times when the knot was loose in the strip but the strip did not break so I popped out the knot, applied a little glue, clamped it with a spring clamp and let it set up. Might not work but we’ll see…
I cut strips until the light started to fade then tied the strips to boards & threw them on the Ranger with the Aspen / Cherry. You have to use your imagination a little but there should be 2 canoes on the roof racks.
I hauled all of this to by buddy’s place & carried it upstairs. This week, I need to paint the back half of the area (front drywall isn’t finished yet and it won’t be for awhile) and move everything already up there to the rear (painted) area. I’ll grab some plywood this week and, hopefully, have the strongback & forms completed this Saturday.
To date: Time estimate is 12 hrs (not including acquisition of lumber), cost estimate is $52.50 (60 brd ft of Aspen & Cherry at 50 cents/ brd ft & 30 brd ft of Larch & Sassafras at 75 cents a foot)
Hmm… Seems like a bit too much hype…
Alternative intro: I’m building a boat (or two or three or four).
Shortly after joining this forum, I became interested in building a stripper (no, not the “wanna lap dance?” kind but the kind that causes you to fuel up BEFORE loading the boat so you don't get held up answering questions at the gas station on your way to the water).
I did all of the things that seem typical of an aspiring builder; I pored through build threads, researched different wood options on wood database and even started a thread here to see what others had experienced using something other than the traditional Cedar (it’s not common in my area and, therefore, very expensive). What I found was that there are many reports of using poplar, sassafras, aspen, pine, etc. but I could find very few pictures anywhere so it was kind of a roll of the dice whether or not the finished boat would be aesthetically pleasing.
To make matters worse, while searching for nicely colored woods, I had an older woodworker introduce me to Sumac and I immediately fell in love. Lightweight (I'm still unsure where wood database got their posted info but it seems to weigh nothing!), absolutely stunning in the sunlight and certainly not available through any sawmills or lumber yards, acquisition of boards can typically be achieved only by searching out “large” trees (max growth seems to be about 8-10 inches in diameter and rarely over 5 feet of trunk length), and cutting them up yourself. That debacle is currently in the works and I hope to post it after a sufficient quantity of lumber has been stickered, stacked & air dried.
Now... due to the amount of effort involved in producing Sumac boards, I want to be certain that the canoe I build will be one I like to paddle and different hull shapes have different handling characteristics. Furthermore, I've found that the more one does something, the better the results tend to be so I figure...
I'll acquire plans for 2-3 canoes, build them with readily available lumber, paddle each to see which I prefer and then build the preferred hull a second time using the dreamy Sumac.
Finally… So many people wonder how long it actually takes, so I’ll be the guinea pig. I’ve never built a canoe and I am not a woodworker. Follow along if you like… I’ll try to work on it as often as possible (trip report style except that you can see me screw up practically in real time.)
Add all of that up and what you wind up with is this...
The first victim is a 15’ 3” Freedom Solo from Bear Mountain. It will be built from Aspen strips with Cherry accents. Hopefully, it will be followed closely by a Raven from Martin Step that will be built with Eastern Larch (aka Tamarac) and Sassafras. I’m hoping to have both done for early summer but we shall see…
The woods I have chosen are all heavier per cubic foot than the traditional Cedar so, to keep weight reasonable, all strips will be 3/16 instead of the standard ¼ inch and I’m still toying with the glass layup. It may be experimentally lightweight (these are not IMO “forever” boats but merely trial runs. If they hold up, that's great but it won't break my heart if the layup proves to be too light... I'll simply beef it up a little for the real boat)
I hope that, in addition to educating myself, I can help others to see what the color combos/different woods look like and I have plans to also build a poplar/butternut combo, and both a pine hull and a catalpa hull accented with something... hemlock?... ash or elm?... perhaps even white oak?
I will also attempt to keep future posts long on pictures and much shorter on prose.
Lumber:
I have a friend that owns a band saw mill and several customers who had trees that needed to be removed. I’ve worked as a sawyer so it seemed reasonable to gather the trees and have my friend saw them up.
A few aspens…
…some white oak, black willow and some cherry…
…An afternoon at the sawmill…
… and the boards were stickered and stacked in the overhead of my Dad’s barn while I sought out (and built) a heated space in which to work during the winter.
The whole process took a couple of years which was helpful as, by the time I was ready to machine the lumber, the moisture content was down to 8-9 % and there was no need (in my mind) to pay for kiln drying.
I also found a few hundred board feet of 1 inch rough cut Larch that I was able to acquire for 75 cents per board foot and I grabbed that as well as a few Hemlock boards and a couple of Sassafras that were laying around.
Strips:
There’s not a ton of room in the upstairs of my buddy’s garage so I didn’t have room to set up an entire wood shop there. I made do with what was available and cut Aspen and some Cherry strips at the barn this past summer. I understand that Cherry darkens when exposed to UV light but the polyurethane I’ll be using contains UV blockers. My thinking was that, by cutting it early, it would darken sufficiently by the time I sealed it up.
To cut the strips, I used a circular saw with a guide bolted to the shoe in such a way that it sliced the 1 inch thick boards into 3/16 inch strips. The guide is just a piece of aluminum angle and it worked well as long as I remembered that the guide interferes with the blade guard and the saw needs to be set down on a 5 gallon bucket. Uniformity of strips seemed very good with this method as long as I was careful to pull it toward me in a way that kept the guide tight against the board.
Today, I took advantage of the unseasonably warm February weather to gather up the Aspen & Cherry strips from the barn and move them to the upstairs of the garage. I needed to haul them about 8 miles so I tied the strips to an intact board and tied them to the roof of the Ranger.
I didn’t pay much attention to how long it took to rip the Aspen but, as I was in the groove, I stopped by my yard & cut up some Larch & made a dozen or so strips of Sassafras. It took about 4 hours to cut up 25 or so board feet of lumber. I’m not sure that will be enough but it’s a pretty good start and the Larch is for the second boat anyway. I was impressed with the color and grain of the Larch and I’m thinking it will rival Cedar for aesthetics and maybe the weight penalty won’t be unbearable.
One aspect of Larch is the abundance of small knots and I’ll try to leave as many in as can be easily worked around. There were 3 times when the knot was loose in the strip but the strip did not break so I popped out the knot, applied a little glue, clamped it with a spring clamp and let it set up. Might not work but we’ll see…
I cut strips until the light started to fade then tied the strips to boards & threw them on the Ranger with the Aspen / Cherry. You have to use your imagination a little but there should be 2 canoes on the roof racks.
I hauled all of this to by buddy’s place & carried it upstairs. This week, I need to paint the back half of the area (front drywall isn’t finished yet and it won’t be for awhile) and move everything already up there to the rear (painted) area. I’ll grab some plywood this week and, hopefully, have the strongback & forms completed this Saturday.
To date: Time estimate is 12 hrs (not including acquisition of lumber), cost estimate is $52.50 (60 brd ft of Aspen & Cherry at 50 cents/ brd ft & 30 brd ft of Larch & Sassafras at 75 cents a foot)
