design for canoe gunwals - need suggestions please

Laminating strip should work good. Gorrilla Glue, or Resorsinol glue would be good to use.

With the amount of bend in a canoe, you should be able to get by with 1/4” strips. make your joints with a 45 degree cut, & use long overlaps were the joints are.

I made my Windsor chairs with laminations of 1/10” strips.

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I do alot of laminating, and I have switched to epoxy for anything that will be exposed to water. I use fibergalss hawaii or west system. I would use the WS 105/205 it has a fairly long open time 1 hour +, even more this time of the year. I will wet all the pieces first and then apply another coat that has been thickened, just in case I have a gap go unnoticed. I run all my pieces thru my drum sander and then scratch them with a toothing plane beforehand to expose as many long fibers as possible, I actually just use the toothing plane iron itself, basically I am scratching the surface. This also creates a small tooth that helps keep the pieces from sliding to much. Another plus is that you don’t need as much clamping pressure, I would be comfortable with spring clamps side by side. Since you wouldn’t be stressing the hull you could use the canoe as a your form. Once the epoxy has cured you could remove the strips and shape and reinstall. Your bound to have some squeeze out/drips so I would cover the the canoe surface with butcher or masking paper before you clamped the laminations on. It wouldn’t take very much epoxy, i can’t imadgine more than a pint. You would also use the same 105 but with a 207 hardner as the first three coats of your finish and a spar varnish to protect it. sounds like a neat project.

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Thanks for the input. I’m only off on Mondays and Tuesdays so last Tue I got the Ash and got it ready to laminate. I got lucky and found a great little lumber supplier not far from where I live. They just started very small a few years ago and now have about 20 different hardwoods generally generally in roughcut 12’ slabe about 8-16” wide, and some planks 3-6” thick and up to 10’-12’ long. Reasonable prices and the guy in charge seems pretty nice.

-- The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. Albert Einstein

Harold’s advice is great. I would NOT use Gorilla glue as it tends to creep after it is dry. I made our kitchen counter top out of teak by edge glueing using Gorilla glue. The seams bled glue for 6 months. Just enough to bring up a slight glue ridge at the glue line. In addition to it being unslightly (to the touch) it gives me some slight fear that some day the joint will fail.
I also used Gorilla glue to laminate two redwood 2×6 for the top rails of my gates several years ago and the 2×6’s are separating. Prehaps I have been expecting too much.

-- Abe Low, Fine furniture, Sacramento, CA