"Knotty Girl"

This page is dedicated to my first cedar stripping boat. I was inspired to take on this project by a friend that has made severl boats. While we were visiting him and his wife at their cabin in Wyoming, we took a short float trip on one of the streams and I used a very heavy metal canoe and he pulled out his "Rob Roy" design cedar strip canoe. It was much lighter and very beutiful. I asked him how it was made and the rest is history.

She is named "Knotty Girl" because I made my own strips and did not do a good job of avoiding the knots in the wood. For this project I purchased cove and bead router bits and a router. I cut the strips from 2x4 fencing cedar you can get at the hardware store. I did not plane the strips and they were very rough from the kerf of the saw blade.

I glued the strips with epoxy. This made the project a royal mess but the hull is bullet-proof and the end product is a little heavier than it should be. Fairing the hull was also made much more dificult by the epoxy. I finished the project on New Year's Eve of 2000.

Now for the photos:

This photo is where the stripping is complete and I am starting to shave the ends to receive the outer stem bands. My shop is an old chicken coop and there is barely any head room where the post and lights are.

This photo shows the how much the glass and epoxy brightens up the wood. This is just after the process was finished. The finish at this state is not shiny an bright because all of the exess resin has been squeegeed out.

This photo shows the other side and what she looks like after being removed from the forms. The jagged edges will be trimmed to match the rail. I used marks where the rail was from the forms and a long strip to mark the rails.

After the rails have been trimmed, she looks more like this. At this stage the hull is very flexible and awkward to handle. I have changed over to a sling to support the hull. The carpet was much easier on the glass than the saw horses.

This is a closeup of the inwale. I went to a local specialty wood supplier and bought some ash as long as I could get. I still had to scarf on a little more length. I used a router to rough cut the scuppers.

I decided to get a littl cute with the decks. This shows the detail of the insets. I first laminated some cedar 1x1/2 strips I cut and then cut the diagonal and put the triangles together to form the pattern and match the 'V' of the stem. If you match the angles well, there is little fitting that needs to be done.

The kids were happy to see their new canoe was getting ready to hit the water. This is durring the last phase where I was doing some final sanding.

The finished product just before leaving the shop.

Greeting the New Year!

On the water! My daughter and her friend are paddling the canoe and my son is in a stitch and glue kayak my father made. This is in the back bay at the Great Salt Lake marina.