In September 2018, six Kooch-i-ching staff men met in the garage of Camping & Education Foundation President Hugh Haller for an intensive five-day canoe building workshop with master craftsman Phil Winger of the Minneapolis-based Urban Boatbuilders.
DAY 1
The course begins with a lesson on woodworking tools — and keeping them keen.
BELOW, PHIL USES A BLOCK PLANE to check the flatness of a joint.
AND demonstrates how to assemble and adjust a block plane.
HERE, HE shows Stefin what a well-honed blade looks like.
Joe tests the blade with HIS FINGER (not as dangerous as it looks).
STEAM-BENDING
Very few parts of a canoe are straight. The more pronounced curves in the frame require STEAM-BEnding.
Wood behaves in many ways like a plastic. When it's heated, it becomes pliable. when it cools, it hardens again. This is because the lignin in the wood — essentially an organic plastic — softens with the application of heat and solidifies at room temperature.
before the bending begins in earnest, Austin and Andrew cleat together a steam-bending jig for the rails. this jig will be used later.
meanwhile, a pair of wallpaper steamers are filled with water and plugged in. the Steam produced travels through plastic hoses into a PVC pipe filled with ash stems and stuffed with rags.
Forty-five minutes later, the stems are ready to bend.
Below, a stem and compression strap are bent over a mold and held in place by a c-clamp. In extreme bends, a steel 'compression strap' is used to constrain the tension face of the wood. When clamped prior to the bend, the steel lends its tensile strength to the wood to prevent a tension failure.
Now that the stems are bent, it's time to steam the master ribs. Phil walks the men through the process.
HERE, Stefin uses a C-clamp to pull a rib and compression strap from a PVC pipe.
Austin holds the (very hot) rib and compression strap in preparation for clamping and bending.
Stefin and Andrew bend a rib and compression strap over a mold.
Stefin inspects their work.
below, C-clamps are used to repair a slight tension failure in the extreme bend.
As the pace picks up, Hugh and Austin screw more molds into a workbench.
And spring clamps are positioned to facilitate multiple quick bends.
below, Stefin clamps a compression strap onto a rib in preparation for more bending.
interestingly, when Two molds are superimposed on one another, the shape of the hull is revealed. Joe is not impressed.
Bending the rails
Before the rail bending begins, Hugh rummages through Phil's truck for an additional wallpaper steamer.
Once the steamer is located, a pair of cherry inwales are slid into a plastic tube, which is then filled with steam and stuffed with rags.
Andrew uses a zip tie to seal the other end.
NOT PICTURED: While still inside the plastic tube, the inwales are gently bent between wooden pegs embedded in the jig. After steaming for 35 minutes, Stefin uses a utility knife to cut away the plastic.
Even as the plastic is pulled away, the inwales remain clamped to the pegs.
As the inwales cool, Trace and Joe transfer reference lines from the jig onto the keelson.
With a little time to kill, the men share stories.
Shaping the stems
prior to carving, The ash stems are marked with copious reference and witness lines.
BElow, Phil demonstrates how to lay out reference lines for beveling one of the stems to a trapezoidal cross-section.
Clamping the stem so that it projects away from the workbench, Joe uses a spokeshave to bevel the wood.
A shaving of ash is carefully removed during the beveling process.
lacing the Seats
In preparation for lacing, Hugh sands a cherry seat frame.
Austin, meanwhile, uses a fabric cutter to trim a piece of lacing and prevent it from fraying.
The fabric cutter is also used to create a 'needle' in the end of another piece.
In lacing, as in life, teamwork makes the proverbial dream work.
Andrew and Austin race Hugh and Stefin to finish the first diagonal course.
scarfing the stems
After observing some reckless and inefficient use of the Japanese saw, Phil shows Trace and Joe how to cut a scarf joint on the end of a stem.
Phil's vitamin deficiency is unmistakable; doctors are amazed that he is still alive.
DAY 2
Sated by strong coffee, Phil sketches a schematic of the rib spacing as it appears on the rail-bending jig.
Transferring reference lines
The men get to work transferring reference lines from the molds onto the ribs.
Transferring reference lines accurately is an important step when building a canoe without a strongback.
Below, Hugh transfers reference lines indicating rib spacing from the jig onto the gunwales.
Hugh and Stefin prefer boatbuilding to hot yoga.
Stefin determines the location of an auxiliary rib by dividing the master rib spacing in half.
During a pause in the action, Trace shows off his new tattoo.
JOINING THE DECKS & GUNWALES
Fastening pieces in a small wooden canoe must be done with care. Pilot holes and countersinks must be sized properly. If they are not, small pieces of hardwood will split. the positioning of the deck will also have a substantial effect on the alignment of the canoe. below, Stefin marks the fastener locations for the joint between a gunwale and a deck.
And lays out the miter at the end of the gunwale.
Austin sizes a drill bit for the screws that will be used.
Joes uses a screwdriver to fasten a gunwale to a deck.
And matt drills pilot holes for more screws.
Shaping the yoke
In this canoe, the yoke is shaped from a cherry 'blank' that has been prepared on a bandsaw and faired to the line with a spokeshave. Below, Andrew uses a spokeshave to bevel the yoke.
Witness lines provide immediate visual feedback.
Later, Andrew uses a chisel-point marker to scribe waste-removal guide lines that will help him make the Now-octagonal yoke 16-sided.
This process of geometric progression increases the likelihood that the yoke will be shaped correctly. Once the yoke is 16-sided, Andrew uses a cabinet scraper to smooth it out.
When he's finished, Austin marvels at his work.
Carving a paddle
For this canoe, the men decided to carve two beavertail paddles out of poplar. Poplar is light in color, straight grained and easily worked — a decent choice for paddle making if you can get past the greenish hue. Below, Trace scribes reference lines on the edge of a paddle blank.
Next, he uses 'The Hog' — a bench plane with an convex blade — to establish the spine thickness of the blade.
Phil wonders how Trace could have missed that spot.
Inside the garage, Joe varnishes a seat.
LASHING
A 15-foot canoe relies on over 200 square lashings to hold the structural components together. made methodically and with care, the lashings contribute substantially to the strength and appearance of a boat. Modern skin-on-frame construction calls for artificial sinew, a waxed synthetic cordage with high tensile strength and a natural appearance, but without the vulnerabilities of organic sinew. BELOW, a 'midship spreader' is attached at the eventual position of the yoke.
below, Austin aligns a master rib at the sheer — the upper outside edge of a canoe — and clamps it.
Phil teaches the team how to make a square lashing.
A Quick-Grip clamp makes an effective spool for the artificial sinew.
As Austin and Matt complete square lashings on the keelson, Andrew continues to carve the yoke.
In preparation for steaming, Matt soaks the auxiliary ribs in a PVC pipe.
Hugh then uses a rag to wedge the auxiliary ribs into the pipe and prevent them from floating.
Cutting the gooseneckS & StemS
At this stage, the location of the stemS ARE scribed onto the side of the gooseneckS — in this case, pieceS of cherry mortised and glued to the bottom of a deck — in preparation for an accurate cut with the Japanese saw. The StemS ARE also marked and cut to fit under the gunwales.
After cutting A gooseneck, Stefin uses the saw to smooth out the cut.
HE then uses a chisel to trim the curved cut.
Finally, Austin and Stefin scribe the location of a gunwale on the stem in preparation for cutting it to length.
Fairing & final lashing
Once the stems are screwed to the keelson and goosenecks, the stringers are positioned and clamped onto the master ribs. below, Hugh and Austin make final adjustments to a rib before 'fairing out' the stringers.
Fairness, or the smoothness of curves on a boat, is a critical aesthetic detail.
Toward the end of the canoe, a Quick-GRIP clamp is used to pull twists into the stringers so that their outer faces are flat where they will touch the skin.
Austin measures the appropriate length of sinew using his body. For this canoe: shoulder to opposite fingertip.
As the afternoon wears on, Matt and Stefin peer out from their wooden prison (of endless lashing).
DAY 3
It's a new day, but the lashing continues — for Joe at least.
Maybe lashing is a meditative thing for him.
But it is repetitive.
Hugh, meanwhile, trims the keelson where it departs from the stem.
The stringers are mitered to fit against the inside face of the stem. A 'bow tie' lashing holds them together.
Mitering and lashing the ends of the stringers must be done with an eye toward fairness.
shaping a paddle grip
Trace shapes the grip on his paddle using the Japanese saw.
Phil demonstrates how to remove waste from the grip using a chisel: bevel edge down and working with the grain.
A refined grip has camber, a thickness in the middle and tapered edges — just like the blade.
A sharp and finely set spokeshave is indispensable for paddle work.
A Nicholson convex rasp is also useful when removing bulk from the grip.
Working on the second paddle, Hugh uses the hog to establish the appropriate thickness of the blade.
Hugh and Phil draw witness lines on the paddle edge before Hugh carves some camber in the blade with a spokeshave.
DRILLING & OILING THE RUB RAILS
The cherry rub rails and keel strip ARE fastened to the boat with small stainless steel screws. They need clearance holes and countersinks that are carefully centered to prevent the formation of a weak point. Properly installed, these pieces protect the skin from abrasion and, in the case of the rub rails, hide the staples that hold the skin to the gunwales. Below, Matt drills holes every six inches along the rub rails — boldly putting his fingertips at risk in the process.
He also countersinks the holes to allow the screws to lay flush.
Once they are drilled and radiused, Matt applies tung oil to the rub rails and keel (after an epic struggle to open the jar). He is careful not to oil the inside surface of the keel, which will be glued to the skin on the bottom of the canoe.
Tung oil is an attractive, low maintenance finish for wood in a canoe. It can easily be applied with a clean rag.
Boatbuilding can engage a fairly large crew; Six to Eight is an ideal number for a canoe of this size.
MITERING & RIVETING
Stefin prepares to miter the uppermost stringers against the gooseneck.
Andrew and Austin button up the stringers at one end of the canoe.
Austin clamps the boat to the sawhorse to stabilize it before riveting the rails.
Austin and Stefin rivet together the inwale, ribS and gunwale, taking care to fair out the ribs in the process.
WhEN THE RIVETING IS COMPLETE, the RIBS are cut flush with the Japanese saw.
Stefin and Matt remove the gunwales from the deck to gain access to the inwale-deck joint.
Austin and Stefin drill, countersink and fasten an inwale to the deck. They also put thickened epoxy in the joint for redundancy.
Day 4
USING THE HOG, HUGH fairs out the keelson-stem joinT. the screws holding the joint together were temporarily removed to prevent contact with the blade.
To get a preview of skinning the canoe, PHIL stretches HIS T-SHIRT OVER THE FRAME — while making unbroken eye contact with Hugh.
THIS PROCESS SHOULD reveal aNY protrusionS that WOULD require correction.
later, Hugh tapers the last foot of the gunwale to reduce bulk at the deck. This is a purely aesthetic consideration.
The Screws are then replaced for redundancy in the glued joint.
Stefin and Phil take a few minutes to sharpen a chisel.
A coarse diamond stone and Japanese water stone make short work of the honing process.
INSTALLING THE SEATS
The seats sit on top of small pieces of cherry called 'risers,' which are carefully positioned to be level and then riveted and lashed to the ribs. The details of this process are important — a seat failure could be a headache on a wilderness trip.
Before installing the seats, the canoe needs to be leveled fore and aft. This can be achieved with a bullet level placed on scrap rib stock.
Once the boat is leveled, the risers are positioned four inches down from the sheer and clamped in preparation for installation of the middle rivet.
Andrew prepares to rivet in the seat risers. first, he drills a test hole in a piece of scrap wood to size the hole to the rivet.
Riveting pieces at this scale requires careful aim with the drill and attention to technique.
Each riser must be leveled after the canoe is level. Either a bullet level or combination square can be used for this job.
The aft seat is trimmed with the Japanese saw to fit inside the boat. Minimum clearance from the skin should be 1/8 of an inch.
Stefin and Andrew trim the bow seat.
Who needs a clamp when your buddy weighs over 200 pounds?
Stefin carefully cuts to the scribed reference lines on the bottom of the seat to create a dado groove that will fit around the seat riser.
A 1/4 inch chisel is used to pare the waste out of the dado.
Austin prepares to mark the seat for cutting to length and cutting the dado. austin always seems to be under the canoe.
Seat risers should be both riveted and lashed, for redundancy. The seats themselves are square-lashed to the risers.
Sewing & stretching the skin
The Inuit, from whom this construction style has evolved, favored seal skins for their kayaks. Today, even traditional builders use ballistic nylon, a tough fabric with noteworthy abrasion and impact resistance. It is tensioned around the frame, and fastened to the gunwales with stainless steel staples. Below, Andrew makes sure the skin is aligned properly.
At the other end of the canoe, Stefin and Austin sew a running stitch down the stern of the canoe.
Austin is a bit nervous about this stitch, but Stefin keeps it together.
It can be handy to have two pairs of eyes and hands during this step.
After the running stitch is complete, a hot knife is used to trim a 'mohawk' one inch outboard of the stitch.
Holding the fabric under tension is helpful.
Next, the team 'cigarette rolls' the mohawk and uses a diagonal stitch to constrain it. The spacing of the diagonal stitch is determined by the spacing of the running stitch.
At the end of the diagonal stitch, a 'whip stitch,' or closely spaced set of loops, is completed before returning up the diagonal stitch to create a series of 'X's.
Sewing the skin can be a bottleneck because only one end of the boat can be worked on at a time. BUT the men don't seem to mind.
After both ends are sewn, the bow is marked 'BOW' and the skin is removed and folded, accordion style, to fit inside a plastic tub.
The tub is filled with cold, clean water and the skin left to soak for 15 minutes.
Fifteen minutes later, Stefin and Phil wrestle the wet fabric over the stem. In this case, one knot needed to be cut and re-tied to get the whipping all the way to the sheer.
This step is key to achieving the appropriate longitudinal tension in the fabric.
below, Phil and Stefin re-tie a temporary knot to hold the whip stitch at the sheer.
Tensioning the skin
After the canoe is placed upright, the skin is tensioned with a 'corset stitch' using two 60-Foot lengths of mason's twine — starting in the middle.
The stitch spacing is about four finger-widths; this evenly distributes tension over the skin. A blunt darning needle with a large eye is ideal for the job. below, Trace worries what everyone will think when they learn he likes to sew.
confident in his own masculinity, Stefin tensions the lacing, starting in the middle of the canoe and working toward the ends.
It's helpful to work in two teams of two.
the fabric has been trimmed near the ends of the canoe so that it does not overlap. Keeping one edge of the fabric away from the other allows for proper tensioning.
After an initial tensioning, the team rewets the skin with cold, clean water. This relaxes the fibers and distributes tension across the skin more evenly. It also allows for a final tensioning of the corset stitch, if desired.
below, Phil discusses the quirks of tensioning nylon skin on a lightly framed canoe. the men are mildly interested.
A sunny, breezy day can dry out the skin quickly.
This is a good time to make any final adjustments to the keelson. Stefin uses a wooden block and hammer while receiving consultation from extra pairs of eyes on the outside.
It can be a little awkward to get up in there. But it's even more awkward to have a canoe with a crooked keel.
Stapling the skin
Once the skin is dry, it needs to be stapled to the gunwales. Phil scribes a line about 5/16 of an inch down from the sheer.
He then staples on that line about every two finger-widths. Note how his thumb holds the stapler in position.
DAY 5
Never, ever have these men seen such a beautiful impact driver.
Actually, they're watching a video of the 'gooping' process. In the video, Phil and Hugh are applying the two-part polyurethane to the skin with foam rollers.
Clamping the Rub Rails
The cherry rub rails are positioned and clamped about 1/32 of an inch below the sheer — to account for the thickness of the skin that will be trimmed.
The fabric is sliced in between the rails to allow clamping about every foot. Care must be taken not to cut any lashings.
At this stage, The canoe is occluded by a cocoon of lacing, extra skin and clamps. But that is about to change.
Attaching the Keel & rub rails
This final step is worth Doing with care. the cherry trim pieces are visible and also serve an important function. The keel in particular requires some attention to detail because it is below the waterline and, if attached improperly, could result in a leaky canoe. Below, Phil inspects the keel to make sure no oil got on the inside face.
Hugh fastens The rub rails with small stainless steel screws. If a power driver is used, care must be taken not to strip the screws or the holes.
NEXT, Stefin cuts the rail parallel to the curvature of the stem, and just behind the seam at the stem. Stefin is a brave man — many builders would place a piece of scrap wood behind this kind of cut to protect their skin from the saw.
The last few screws are added at the ends of the rub rails.
Now, the canoe is inverted and the keel strip is ready to be installed.
One of the men draws a taper to thin out the width of the keel to match the width of the stem below.
Andrew and Austin also taper the keel at the last few inches so that its depth doesn't create a large 'step' for weeds and rocks to catch on.
Below the waterline, the keel will be screwed and glued to the boat. The glue is simply the two-part polyurethane thickened with colloidal silica to a mayonnaise consistency.
Silica is a respiratory hazard, so use protection, or stir while walking backward.
ONCE stirred sufficiently, The goop is spooned into a plastic bag, which is then used like a pastry bag for accurate dispensation onto the bottom of the keel.
TRIMMING THE SKIN
After the keel is screwed and glued, the fabric is trimmed at the sheer. This requires a sharp knife and steady hand.
Cutting against the gunwale at a 45 degree angle, using the rubrail as a guide, is an effective technique. This requires patience and stamina.
There is a substantial risk of a deep cut to the non-dominant hand, or to the canoe.
INSTALLING THE YOKE
THe yoke MUST be installed at the balance point of the canoe. Usually, this step is completed before skinning, but it can be done afterward if the boat has a temporary brace during the skinning process. Below, Trace determineS the balance point.
Trace eyes the ultralight canoe with suspicion.
But he knows the importance of a well-balanced boat during a portage.
The temporary brace is used to ensure that the canoe will be held to the designed beam, or width.
The men decide to clamp it in position before marking the yoke. Good choice.
Stefin makes a final check of the beam, then transfers the location of the outside face of the gunwales to the fore and aft edge of the yoke.
HE then connects these marks and cuts about 1/8 inch inside the resulting lines to ensure that the yoke won't protrude into the skin.
Hugh makes the cut while Stefin secures the yoke.
Stefin then cuts notches in the yoke for clearance around the mid-ship rib.
Andrew, meanwhile, applies a final coat of varnish to the seats.
Andrew is surprised by the fruity notes in the varnish.
'A rare vintage,' he says.
But responsibly, he saves most of it for the seats.
Stefin and Hugh drill a few carefully placed holes in the yoke to lash it into place with four triangular lashings.
Note how the recess is chiseled and filed into the top of the inwale. This prevents chafing on the lashing during use and transport of the canoe.
After taking bets on the canoe's weight, Andrew weighs it. The final weight: 31 pounds, 6 ounces.
The builders rest. After four and a half days, their canoe is finally ready for the water.
