Friday May 20, 2011 at 3:32p.m. my first nephew Ezra Anand Hein was born! He is 5lbs 8oz and 18.05″. He was born pre-term by 24 days but is currently alive and kicking. Amy and I had the chance to meet him and see the excited new parents through video chat that evening. It was awesome to be able to meet our nephew in real time via video, second only to actually being there.
Congratulations Timothy and Manju! (their blog)
Thursday night Kevin and I brought together our separate work assignments to cut the stations and assemble the strongback. Kevin mentioned that when it came time to start connecting all of the points laid out by the book (James Moran’s Building Your Kevlar Canoe) on the drafting paper that a fishing pole was more useful than a French Curve as was recommended by the book. Beyond that he mentioned that drafting out the templates for the stations took a lot longer than he thought. He spent about 3 hours drafting the two sheets that each represented one half of two separate sets of stations. Keeping in mind Kevin has experience and college training in drafting, it would likely take an inexperienced guy like myself a few hours more. Food for thought.
Kevin cutting station template
We spent the evening transfering the paper templates to the 1/5″ plywood and then cutting out what became the stations. The templates are pretty cool in that they only represent one half of the piece you are cutting. First thing you do with the plywood is mark a centerline. You align the paper template to the center line, and trace the shape onto the wood. The you flip the template to the other side of the centerline and draw the other half. Wala, you now have a fully traced station on your plywood. Some quick work with the jigsaw, and you are ready to make the next station.
Nathan cutting station template
To get the template for the next station you cut a section off the template for the previous station. So the first station you cut is the largest and each subsequent station gets smaller. In the image below you can see Kevin and I cutting out the templates for our next stations.
Since Kevin and I were tag teaming this operation he took one station template and I took the other, and we went to work knocking them out. We found that tracing the templates and then cutting the plywood was quite efficient as opposed to tracing and then cutting back-and-forth. In a couple hours we had all 14 stations cut out and were ready to setup the strongback.
Kevin cutting out a station
Assembling the strongback was straightforward. Since our canoe is going to have a finished length of about 16′, we needed to subtract about 31″ from the strongback as the bow and stern are attached to the ends of the strongback. The strongback is built from two 2″x6″ pieces of lumber screwed together to form a “T”. The horizontal 2″x6″ is used to straighten out the vertical 2″x6″. Achieving a perfectly straight strongback is essential to ensuring your canoe is straight. Our horizontal 2″x6″ was warped on the face edge, but fairly straight on it’s sides. This meant that as we screwed it to the vertical piece we would straighten out the face warp. Our vertical 2″x6″ was the opposite; it was warped more on the edge. In essence we performed basic wood grading for building a structure where square is important. Kevin used a tape measure to center the vertical 2″x6″ as I screwed the horizontal 2″x6″ down. We went about every 16″ down the length of the strongback to achieve a strong and straight strongback. A hand full of 3″ screws later and we had our strongback. I had built the legs myself on day one of building so all we had to do is attach them to the “T”.
Strongback built with a station sitting on top
Strongback assembled I went to work attaching the stations. While you would normally attach the bow and stern at this point, due to the late hour and the desire to hit certain checkpoint of completion I decided to attach the stations. Simply put we did not have the time to finish the bow and stern before Kevin had to take off and I wanted the night’s construction to end with a visual of the final shape of the canoe. Kevin and I started by marking out the spacining between the stations on the strongback. Since we shortened the Tripper canoe from 18′ to 16′ it was neccessary to change the spacing of the stations.
Chalk line snapped and squaring 2inch by 2 inch block
Once we laid out where the stations were to be placed we snapped a chalk like across the top of the strongback. This line allowed us to help ensure the stations were centered on the strongback (or at least with the other stations) which is key to a straight canoe. Once we had the chalkline I went to work screwing 2″x2″ blocks onto the strongback which the stations would screw into. As I screwed the 2″x2″ blocks down I used a straight edge to position them to ensure they were perpendicular to the strongback. The chalk line ensured the stations were placed in alignment with each other, and the squared blocks ensured that the stations where aligned with the strongback.
Next I went along the strongback attaching each station accordingly using 1″ screws. From here out next steps will be to attach the bow & stern, and run a string across the top of the canoe mold to ensure that all of the stations are properly aligned.
Strongback with stations attached
Canoe taking shape
Today I am attending Minnebar to hear about what cool things other marketers, developers and designers are doing along with hearing about things I should be doing. So far today I listend to Mike Bollinger on Responsive Web Design and Garrick Van Buren on pairing fonts.
Mike Bollinger put on a solid presentation going over the why and how of Responsive Web Design. Mike was clear in what his presentation was about, provided valuable information, and could speak clearly to the audience on the topic. He did a good job of stepping through the how. While I did not find any of his information that ground breaking or new, I did find it useful for implementing these techniques in my own work. Thanks Mike!
Garrick Van Buren presented on how to pair fonts by looking at stroke contrast, serif type, shape, and terminal endings. The presentation focused on Garrick showing us a font then calling out these four features about it, and then showing us some good pairing options. His primary point when pairing fonts was to find a contrasting font on the four features, and also a complimenting font. The presentation was designed well and Garrick also knew typography well. The only short coming of the presentation was it went a too fast. Although his going short gave me time to compose this post before the next session 
. It would have been great if he had dived into to a bit more of the theory as opposed to “giving us the answers” by showing us the pairs. Though he did explain the why of the pairing.
Station drafting
Sunday afternoon commenced the first day of actual canoe construction. For the past 3-weeks Kevin and I have been meeting to discuss and read about the process, tools, and materials. We have learned a ton, and have a lot more to learn. This week Kevin is focusing on drafting the stations (think of as a rib cage for the mold) to paper, and I am acquiring lumber and rough cutting the stations. I also went ahead and created the legs for the strongback (the backbone of the mold).
On Wednesday we are planning to meet at which point we are going to cut out the stations from the drafting drawings Kevin is assembling, and we will assemble the stations onto the strongback. All in all by the end of the week we should have the frame of the mold complete.
Rough cut stations and strongback legs
~Nathan
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