Tracing the frames from the plans to the Plywood

We procured plywood and boards today to get started. The sheet of plywood was 3/8 in. good one side four-ply sheet 4 feet by 8 feet. Cost was $24.25. Marine plywood was special order and was priced at over $100.00. Based on the experience on the first boat that I built, I never felt the need to buy better quality wood since the plywood part never failed due to deterioration or rot.

Schuyler has begun tracing out the frames on the plywood, using some old carbon paper salvaged from discarded office supply forms of several decades ago.

After just Under 40 Years of Use

After 40 years of use and many miles or kilometres of paddling. Note the use of duct tape. That is the best in an emergency to patch up a boat, even when wet.


The mat black paint was used in an emergency repair when no other paint was available.

One of My most favourite Canoeing Spots

I have taken my PBK 18 Kayak many times down the Baron Canyon in Algonquin Park. It is truly impressive paddle.



This is a panorama created by stitching together a series of adjacent photos.

Fabric

The plans have the following requirement for Fabric and I quote:

Hull - one piece 15 oz. proofed canvas or plastic covered fabric 18ft. 0 in. long x 48 in.

Deck - one piece 10 or 12 oz. proofed canvas 18ft.0in. long x 36in.

This corresponds to One 1.22 m. by 5.5 m. 15 oz and the other 1 m. by 5.5 m. of 10 or 12 oz.

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House Of Canvas Products, 3 Cleopatra Drive, (Nepean) Ottawa, ON K2G 3M9 carries 15oz. on a regular basis at $15 a yard for a total of $90.00 (all currency in these posts is Canadian dollars). The roll is 60 inches wide which leaves for a lot of waste. In building and recovering the first kayak, I recall that the 48 in wide piece left a lot of waste already let alone 60". I might be able to make better use of the canvas by adding one seam through the middle.

For the decking I can probably rip the piece once down the middle although it may be a little tight. Good thing I have an old already-built Kayak that I can take good measurements from.

For the decking the same company does have a substantial roll of 10 oz. in stock and it should be available for some time. It is again a roll 60" wide at $10.00 a yard.

Brass Screws After all

I was at the TSC Store (Tractor Supply Co. in USA but just TSC in Canada for some reason) in Kemptville ON and found an ample supply of brass screws and found that the price was very competitive with other types. So we will use brass after all. Another plus is that the heads are of the Robertson type.

What will improve the time of building this boat will be the use of my Dewalt 14.4V cordless drill or driver with a Robertson tip, without a doubt.

Some boring stuff:

The screws were Robertson heads - as we call them here in Canada for square tipped screwdrivers. My original kayak was built with all slotted screws and was done by hand. It took time and skill to not strip the heads on the soft metal brass screws especially when the slots were shallow as they often were - poorly made really. The Philips or star nosed was a considerable improvement and the Robertson is even better. Today we have even more sophisticated screw heads such as the Torx which was first introduced to me by the American automobile industry on headlight setting bolts. I find its performance not much better than the Robertsons though.

I no longer keep or reuse slotted screws in my assortment of jars, but rather send them to the metal recyclers or give them to someone I don't like and want to frustrate. If a slotted screw comes out its gone and a Robertson replaces it. Actually there is one exception and that is on antique furniture where I may want to retain the original integrity of the period.

Some of the latest Robertson screws are so well designed that they fit tightly onto the screwdriver tip and won't fall off in any orientation and don't even have to be magnetized, which is particularly useful in a one-handed or limited space operation.

I imagine that half a century ago the slot headed screw were probably much cheaper to manufacture by machine since it only required a simple groove. A screw head with a square -- or to be more precise, cubed -- recess must be much more complicated to machine or made in a mould.

About the Adhesive

In the original plans that dated back to the late 60's the marine adhesive of choice was a resorcinol waterproof glue which I used to build my original kayak. It consisted of an organic liquid and a urea-formaldehyde powder hardener that had to be mixed together and was quite toxic and cumbersome to apply. In the following picture it is the very dark brown glue.

Since we will need to build this craft quite quickly I have opted for Lepage^® PL^® Premium Construction Adhesive which is quite durable and much more easily applied with a tube. Also it is effective for any material so I can also use this for the wood as well as the canvas. Being of a polyurethane base - like Gorilla^® Glue it will be very durable. The only possible risk from my experience with other polyurethane products is breakdown due to sunlight. Construction adhesive is shown in the following picture where I rather clumsily glued in the floor boards permanently onto the frames. (the movement of the loose floorboards was always very frustrating when tipping over the canoe for portaging hence I fastened them permanently). That repair was done at least a decade ago and this glue is still as solid as can be and still very well adhered.

FEATURES of the LEPAGE GLUE.

• Waterproof&Weatherproof: Ideal for interior or exterior projects • Cold weather gunnable: Can be extruded in sub-zero temperatures • Increases efficiency: Reduces nailing/fastener requirements • Gap Filling: Can be used on irregular surfaces.

Trade offs - Time versus cost/availability of materials - 10 year design life

For this craft I have chosen an design life of 10 years. The original craft that I built in 1972 required a new canvas covering in about 10 year cycles. Even with regular application of preservative, the canvas over time became weak and ripped easily on rocks. It has by now been recovered twice. Also the wood, which is mostly white pine has become quite brittle and the craft is at this point pretty much at the end if its truly useful life, other than possibly for some lily dipping.

Since I hadn't the space when I was younger and more nomadic, I often had to store the boat outdoors usually on work horses with bottom up and exposed to the elements. For the last years though it has been stored indoors and the last 10 in my basement in a controlled environment with a relative humidity consistently lower than 60%.

I also chose this design life of 10 years since the appropriate materials are very readily available at any local hardware store. The only exception is the canvas which less common and never readily available.

Also this craft is not that expensive or difficult to build that one could not readily build another one in ten years. If it lasts longer that is a bonus.