Playing With Boats

The new spruce gunwale was stark white. The original 1937 gunwale, even stripped of its varnish, has mellowed to a rich, almost pinkish color, so I need to blend the two of them together before varnishing. The repair will still be visible because of the scarph joint, but I don’t want to have it stand out too much. With the help of an artist, in the form of my wife Wendy, we selected several stains that were ready to hand and tried some colors.

The nearest match was a Minwax Cherry stain with lots of pigment from the bottom of the can. Interesting that the cherry was the closest–I guess it picked up the pinkish tone from the spruce. Then it was time to re-fasten the gunwales. I had saved the original slot-head brass screws for re-use. Slot-heads can be hard to drive when you have to apply force, and the last thing you want is to have the bit walk out of the slot and dig into the spruce. I used a brace and bit so that I could apply some pressure and go nice and slow. The gunwales lined up well and I was able to find all of the old holes in the ribs and inwales after drilling a clearance hole through the epoxied canvas.

Now it was time for the keel, so I flipped the boat over (did I mention that my dear old canoe weighs about 85 lbs? I don’t believe the epoxy/canvas method has made it any lighter!). I had previously sawn a long piece of white oak to a bevel matching the original keel, and I had also been smart enough to save one of the ends of the original so I could pick up the taper.

I bandsawed the taper to the rough shape, both in plan and profile, and finished it with a low-angle block plane. The taper is all cut from the top side, leaving the bottom straight. This makes the oak flexible enough to conform to the rocker at the bow and stern. It will be held down by the last three screws in the stemband, which go through the rib and plank into the heel of the stem.

With the tapers cut on the ends of the keel, it was time to butter the whole underside with bedding compound and fasten it. The screws are driven from the inside. After the bedding compound was applied, I lined up the keel with marks I had previously made on the bottom and fastened it a few screws at a time, weighting it down above where I was working to ensure that it was drawn down tight to the bottom and I achieved good squeeze-out of the bedding compound.

With the keel securely fastened, the next step was to re-install the original bronze stembands and then we’re ready for paint and varnish.

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So, back in July 2013, I told you about putting new canvas on “Clementine,” my 1937 Old Town canoe. As you know if you’ve read previous posts, later that year I left Peterborough and took on a new job just west of Toronto. The canoe moved with me, but didn’t get any further because I had to finish the basement first.

In April 2016, I completed the new shop space. By July, I had moved my 1880s Ontario Canoe Company decked sailing canoe “Pip” into the shop. Then, there were a couple of writing projects for WoodenBoat magazine. Then, there was a historical plaque writing project for the Ontario Heritage Trust (more in a future post).

Then, there was a book. I’ve wanted for years to write a book, but I didn’t know where or how to start. I didn’t want to write a manuscript first and then try to find a publisher (worked for J.K. Rowling, but she’s out of my league). In the middle of 2016, I came across a call for book proposals put out by the American Association for State and Local History. I sent in two ideas: one for a book about maritime museums, and the second for a book about developing museum exhibits. The first one turned into a chapter for a book by another of their authors (more in a future post) and the second one turned into a book of my own. 19 months and 65,000 words later, Creating Exhibits that Engage: A Manual for Museums and Historical Organizations is done and it will be out next month. 

So, how long is my canoe (project)? 17′ or 5 years, depending on how you count. I’m determined to get “Clementine” in the water this summer, so I’ve picked up where I left off with the re-canvassing. The new canvas needed to be trimmed down to the top of the planking. 

Normally this is quick work, but I used epoxy so it required a sharper blade and a bit more force.

After sanding the epoxied canvas with 150 grit, I dry-fitted the old gunwales to check the trimming of the canvas.

The starboard gunwale was fine, but the port one had broken when I took it off in 2013. In the intervening years, the broken piece had disappeared so I needed to replace it. Here’s the starboard bow:

And here’s the port:

The gunwales are spruce, and rabeted on the back to fit over the top of the planking, which is cut down from the ends of the ribs. The tricky part about making a new end is that it curves both in plan and in profile, and it’s too short to steam, so the whole thing, including the rabbet, has to be carved out. The first step was to make a pattern from the starboard gunwale:

I traced it onto some scrap white cedar and sawed it to shape.

I cut a long scarph in the port gunwale, being careful to miss the existing screw holes:

The port gunwale was then clamped back on. I fitted pattern in place, marked the scarph I had just cut and trimmed the template to match. Then, I resawed a piece of clear spruce to about 1/4″ wider than the finished width and bandsawed it to the pattern shape, including the scarph at the end:

To make the rabbet, I rough-cut it with a Fein multi-tool and followed up with a chisel and a rabbet plane:

The new gunwale is still a little too large, so the next step is to shape and taper the inside, adjusting the rabbet to match as I go.

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