A tale of two Selway-Fisher Prospectors

A Wagnerian boat-builder...

More years ago than I am prepared to remember my Mother said of me that I should be a WB-B.  Well, it's Bach or Rachmaninoff from choice but the Boat-building bit came true!
A year ago, after they had come to stay with us at the cottage in the Laurentians (Quebec province, Canada; about 2.5 hours NW of Montreal), Great-niece said that for her “to do list”, she wanted to build her own canoe – as we had done, some years before.

For the preceding Christmas present, her parents had asked me to put together a Tool-kit list, suitable for building canoes.  Apparently, Christmas morning was a series of mystified “what’s that for?” as each, individually wrapped item was revealed!

Their Mum and I then conspired with a computer-cutting firm in Toronto to receive marine ply direct from Noah’s – an excellent chandlery in Toronto – and to bundle it as sets of planks, ready for SWMBO and myself to collect in the January of 2015 on one of our visits to son-and-heir and his family.

As a general point, having “done it the other way”, computer cutting is THE way to go for this job!

So, there we were, July 2015.  Ready for the off.  None of the four – Mum, Dad, Grand-niece or Grand-nephew had ever really handled wood-working tools before.  Real “on-the-job-learning was about to begin.

Tuesday, 17th August 2015

There is still heavy rain about. 
The Vermonters are quick learners, starting Monday evening, first job on their new canoes is joining the planks together lengthwise.  These were ready by late afternoon and, by bed-time, a new hull was at "first fix".  I managed time to steam the replacement rib for Burlesque - I have given up after three attempts to splice a new foot to it - and to fix it later.

Wednesday the 19th of August, inserting the temporary bulkheads, cutting and fastening the permanent bulkheads and now, at 6.47, niece is priming the resin joints in the hull and great-niece has begun the next build.
Phew!
But I haven't been disturbed once in the last hour, although I hear that the heat of the resin has just melted the pot. 

Never mind; it's out of the basement ........

Thursday, 20th August, a long morning levelling and tightening the ligatures on boat one, followed by resin.  Boat two begins!

Friday, 21st August, filleting the outside of boat one, and levelling, tightening, inner filleting, flipping, outer filleting boat two.
We seem to have been buried in the basement for two whole days now - in fact, apart from meals and trips to the village for more supplies (food and canoe-building) we have been!

I went fishing at dusk.  We have an evening off!  Nobody seems to know what to do with it.

Saturday, 22nd August.  A lovely, chatty email from a friend; here is some of my reply to him.

“I wish I could capture sound-scapes; I surfaced from the basement at about 4 pm and sat for a glorious hour, sipping a local beer (or two - it'd been a long day, working still on the boats....), making acquaintance with a chipmunk.
 

(It's very one-sided, I am fully aware that I am only appreciated for my peanuts!), listening to a near-wood full of blue jays, a further wood with a woodpecker and a furtive sap-sucker, a quad bike somewhere behind the hill and a loon on the lake.”

In the morning, we had transported the boats out into the sun-shine (honest!) to sand them down.  They once again returned to their dungeon for cloaking and epoxy application!

Later, after a leisurely supper, I sat in the screen room, sipping Vermont 'Tomcat'; a gifted gin, seemingly richly flavoured with resin and aromatics, listening to cicadas in the trees around and Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 forming an improbable accompaniment to my typing!  

And then I was again called to the basement to help out - NOT the best recipe for success, but success we had!

The Vermonters left today, Sunday the 23rd.  It's been a great week.  We had hoped to steam gunwales this morning, but we won't finish.  In fact, the second and third, filling coats of epoxy went on today.  Pity, but pretty impressive progress nonetheless.

Emotional involvement (and my own chores and pass-times) will mean that I won't go ahead finish the job in their absence, although I shall have to fillet and epoxy the insides.  Fixing gunwales and seats will have to wait.

2016

Tuesday, 26th July, was a bit manic.  Having discovered my steamer (hooray) in the dark recesses of the shelves in the basement (!) I just had to get on and steam-bend one end of each of the gunwales for the Vermont boats. 
It worked quite well (1" oak it is!) but - and I've forgotten this from before although I warn everyone about it - I've now run out of clamps.

Fortunately, Canadian Tire were having a sale on C Clamps.  I bought 20 plus.

I decided to steam the other ends of the gunwales on Vermont boat 2 - using the "boil in the bag" system and my multiple new clamps.
 

Clifford Pope, of Pembrokeshire, on 22-11-08,  wrote: "Steam in a bag. Clamp the wood at one end, slide on a piece of polythene tube, or sections cut from old fertiliser sacks folded and stapled, stuff rags in the end, connect up to DIY wallpaper steamer.
Bend the wood gradually, waiting just long enough for it to be soft enough, clamping and sliding the polythene along as you go."
Here's a more recent video clip.  "Published on 11 Mar 2014.    Shipwright Louis Sauzedde shows us his trick for steam-bending frames using plastic bags rather than a traditional steam box. The frames are steamed right in position on the side of the boat so that no heat is lost and the frames can continue to steam even after being clamped into position."
 

I made the tube out of polythene folded on itself and fastened longitudinally with duct tape. And it works!
Thanks, Mr Pope, Mr Sauzedde!
The plan is to steam the other ends "in situ" - but not without some more clamps!

1^st August 2016. 

So - back to the basement.
Of interest - the left hand image is of the outwale steamed by the traditional - box (or pipe) - method.  The right hand image was steamed "boil in the bag"!
Can you tell the difference?

 

Wednesday, 3rd August. 

Some more progress on the Vermont boats; filleting the stems.

Thursday, 4th August.  Off early to the village - well, to a friend’s wonderfully equipped workshop actually - to make the first cuts on the inwales for the Vermont boats.
The plan is to taper the ends of the inwales so as to make the steam-bending easier and to give a more aesthetically pleasing line to the wood!

 

The blue rectangle is the initial, 16ft long by 7/8 inch (this is Canada - none of your metric stuff here, Eh!?) square oak.
The cuts at each end take off a 1/4 of an inch - 2/8ths.  I then plane a smooth line from about 6 inches (Hush at the back!) central to the ends of the cuts on to the flats - by bending the ends downwards and effectively planing the outside of a curve!
Then I steamed and bent the first inwale in to the curve.  Easy!  Er, not actually, but straightforward anyway and a GREAT deal easier than when we steamed the gunwales for MarRon all those years ago!

Monday, 8th August. 

And I moved V 2 onto the rack in order to begin V 1!
Wire-holes filled, stems filleted.

Thursday, 11th of August.

Grabbed some supper and then back to the boatyard / basement to steam and bend the last outwale for V1.
As I mailed the Vermonters earlier.  "About 3 hours behind where I wanted to be in a perfect world, but ostensibly "There".      Looking forward to seeing you all."

Saturday, 13th August.  Out fairly early to buy timber for Nephew and Great-nephew to make a pair of canoe-stands (they had brought used seat-belts from the scrap yard back home as suggested!); and to reinforce mine, too.  It has tended to lean in towards the middle when weighted! 

Making the stands (of which the lads were justifiably proud!) took  until about lunch-time; at which point we returned from a generous but light collection of humus and pitta and all things middle-Eastern to start on the fiddly, messy and generally horrible job of glassing the bow and stern tanks on both boats.  I hate fibre-glassing!
Which left us with the main inner hulls to do either side of a rather late supper.
 

However; setting up for this we found ourselves very tight for fibre-glass and, finishing which (a centre section on each boat only), we decided that we were too short for resin to continue and very tight for fabric anyway.
A message left on web-sites overnight confirmed that ordering more of our particular resin, next-day delivery, was the way to go.  We shall add some more cloth to the order......

Sunday, 14th August.


Back home, gunwales dry fitted and beginning the process of making the decks.  We're having to recess the inwales to accept the decks lower than the outwales.





 

Great-niece is learning to use a spokeshave and a chisel; Great-nephew is deeply useful measuring and clamping and cutting out!

Monday, 15th August; we contacted Noah's in Toronto and ordered resin and glass cloth.  They said we would have delivery by tomorrow to Ottawa / Aylmer or three days later to here.  So we asked for it to be sent to friends there - and then asked them whether it was OK for that to happen.  Phew!  It was!
We kept going with this and that on the two boats until the evening when we bit the bullet and glued in the inwales, countersinking screws every 6"; a VERY sticky and successful job which ended at about 12.30pm.

Tuesday, 16th August - and news of the latest Tracking!

 The two parcels got split up!  One has arrived in Aylmer and one went to Vaughan - wherever that is - before returning to Toronto Central sorting.

Still.  Silver linings......
The Vermont 4 have cut and more-or-less fitted the deck panels, as well as making fillets for the tips of the inwales!

Wednesday, 17th August.






During the day, N, G-N, G-Nw and I sized and fitted the seats and thwarts to the inwales.

The shipping company's tracker was still not playing ball.  In the end, we arranged for SWMBO and N to go via friends’ (the glass fibre had been delivered there but the resin, seemingly, had not), just in case the resin had in fact arrived, but heading to a chandlery in Kingston as a back-up purchase if needed.

And by the time that they got to Aylmer, the resin had arrived - to the complete mystification of the shipping company.  So, duly refreshed and conversation caught up with, they returned in time for supper.  After which we got to grips with more fibre-glassing and fitting outwales.  A messy job!
Thursday, 18th August.  The day of the big push!

Second boat outwales; decks; final inner fibreglass.....














My right shoulder gave up!  I couldn't do any more after a delicious supper and took to my bed.

Friday, 19th August.  Very uncomfortable and SWMBO had to dress me for breakfast, complete with sling - like some ancient, Japanese warrior donning clothes for battle!

And then there it was - better!  Bizarre.  A blessedly short attack this time.

The workshop crew were up early to sand down the gunwales and re-fit the seats and then - they were gone!


It's a long way back to the Vermont camp, and so the launch will be deferred until they arrive "home".
I think that we can be rightly proud of the finished products.

And so - away.

 Good trip - much learning; many laughs, lovely veggie food.  Fun!