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Skin on Frame canoe for my fishing and camping needs. This is a sister boat to the Curlew kayak I made my wife for Christmas last year. Design by Kudzu Boats.

Frames are 1/2" Baltic Birch plywood stained dark walnut, stringers, keel and gunwales are western red cedar. Floor is also the Baltic birch plywood, which makes it heavier than it could have been; figured this floor weighs ~16lbs where if I had made it from WRC and used boards half the size, would have save 10lbs. The breasthooks and thwarts are black walnut. The skin is 11.9 ounce polyester painted with Rustoleum Pro Enamel. Everything is lashed together using artificial sinew, no glue or screws in the boat except for the gunwales, the spacer blocks and where the breasthooks mate to the gunwales. Over-all length is just under 15', weight is 45lbs and the floor is 10' over-all length.

The boat isn't quite finished, while cutting the tapers on the floor boards I had a table saw kick-back incident and it threw my aluminum angle gauge back into my wrist. I thought it was broken at the time but x-rays showed nothing broken and nothing in there (there was a puncture wound and lots of blood). Just a really bad bruise, it's been 2 weeks and I just getting full range of motion back on my wrist. The blade was damaged so it is off getting 2 teeth replaced so cannot make the rub-rails that will hide the top edge of the fabric and staples yet.

Picked up a couple new toys for the shop to do this one, an pneumatic stapler and canvas pliers to help pull the skin tight while stapling it. The bow and stern are protected with a 1/2" wide aluminum strips that are screwed into place and then painted to match the boat.

Gallery

Comments

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Nice work on canoe. You did good. I wish I would have built a longer and lighter canoe. Maybe Iʻll sell my old 12 foot canoe and try and build a longer and lighter one. My boats are usually white.

Your wifeʻs kayak is good looking too.

Where do you get your artificial sinew?
 

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I got the first two rolls of sinew from Kudzu Craft, I found it on Amazon in longer rolls but about the same price so I have no reason to switch suppliers since the only supplier for the 12 ounce poly so far is Kudzu and easier to one big order from there.
 

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That is really cool. Great job
 

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Pretty neat project.
I have a friend who made a Currach. It's a traditional Irish fishing boat covered with hides. His is covered with canvas and coated with rustoleum. I never realized how waterproof rustoleum can be.

BJ
 

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BJ, pretty much any paint can be used, even latex, just be sure to get glossy. The idea is that the paint should be kept to a minimum thickness since the skin still needs to flex, so the enamel provides better protection/water-proofing while staying semi-flexible. I have heard with the latex paints they need to be thicker to achieve the same water-proofing, but never experimented.

My cousin is asking me to make him one of these but in camo, we have already found the camo poly fabric so that boat will have to be treated with a transparent/semi-transparent coating like varnish or poly. There are also two-part systems out there for the same thing.
 

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Nice looking inside and out. Your work area looks a bit small I hope you have a way to get that beauty outside. (-:
 

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NW, it's bigger than it looks, just a lot crammed into that space. Yes, when we built this house I had a 6' set of french doors put into the walk-out part of the basement. It is laid out in the back-yard so that I can drive my truck right up to the french doors, there are no steps or anything, straight out into the yard. With the retaining walls on either side I can also roll stuff off the truck onto the retention area and then down a gentle slope of lawn.
 
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