- Joined
- Dec 11, 2016
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- 31
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This summer I completed my first canoe build from scratch. As a recent member to the forum and a proud boat-papa I have to share my build process. This will be a bit of a dump as I have already completed the build.
I’m no one's idea of a precise or finicky wood worker so I quickly latched onto Gil Gilpatrick’s book of practical and simple canoe construction, “Building a Strip Canoe”. Anyone who can teach high school students to build canoes for years and years has to have something figured out. His book served me well throughout the build.
I have a preference for shallow vee hulls, ala Mad River, and have lusted after their no longer produced Independence. What I wanted, however, was an Independence with more freeboard and rocker. I’m not a small paddler, and I like to paddle large, open and often rough water, like the Columbia river when the wind is up. 2-3 foot wind chop? Yes please!
There are no plans that I could find for Mad River copy wood strip hulls, so I had to get creative. I picked up an 80’s fiberglass Malecite a year ago, and found a reference on a kayak forum for copying hull designs using strips of bending plywood. This worked quite well for getting the basic hull shapes. I cut 1inch strips of ¼” bending plywood and glued them together and taped them to the hull in 18” intervals. Viola, stations. Okay, actually, as I needed to narrow the hull by 4” and wanted more flared sides with tucked in gunnels ala David Yost designs, I had to modify the forms. In the end it worked out.
I’m no one's idea of a precise or finicky wood worker so I quickly latched onto Gil Gilpatrick’s book of practical and simple canoe construction, “Building a Strip Canoe”. Anyone who can teach high school students to build canoes for years and years has to have something figured out. His book served me well throughout the build.
I have a preference for shallow vee hulls, ala Mad River, and have lusted after their no longer produced Independence. What I wanted, however, was an Independence with more freeboard and rocker. I’m not a small paddler, and I like to paddle large, open and often rough water, like the Columbia river when the wind is up. 2-3 foot wind chop? Yes please!
There are no plans that I could find for Mad River copy wood strip hulls, so I had to get creative. I picked up an 80’s fiberglass Malecite a year ago, and found a reference on a kayak forum for copying hull designs using strips of bending plywood. This worked quite well for getting the basic hull shapes. I cut 1inch strips of ¼” bending plywood and glued them together and taped them to the hull in 18” intervals. Viola, stations. Okay, actually, as I needed to narrow the hull by 4” and wanted more flared sides with tucked in gunnels ala David Yost designs, I had to modify the forms. In the end it worked out.
