This week due to other pressing matters we were unable to meet. Despite this I took care of a few small items to prepare for the sanding operation. I worked on foaming a few of the gaps on the bow/stern where the ends of the foam over extended. I filled in conjunction with trimming the foam to form the tips of the bow/stern. As I was trimming and filling the final shape of the canoe was really becoming clear. It was exciting and encouraging. Once the bow/stern’s gaps were filled and the tips formed I went to work increaing the height the mold was off the ground. I had previously set the hight about 20″ off the ground, but with sanding coming up we needed it higher off the ground. So I cut some new legs for supporting the strongback adding about a foot of length. For additional stability, and per Moran’s recommendation, I added a cross brace across the legs. This added a lot of additional strength and stability to the entire mold.

Taking the Canoe to New Heights

Getting the mold off the ground another foot put it at a much better working height which ended up exposed a potential flaw. From my preliminary level and straightedge investigation it appears as though the stern of the canoe may be crooked one way by about 3″. This will take some further diagnostics to confirm, but could result in a good amount of lost time as we may need to cut off all of the foam from the last station to the stern, straighten the stern, and re-foam the stern. Easily another day of work. But as I mentioned before it is essential that the mold is flawless as the canoe will be an exact replica of the mold. There is no ability to work out any imperfections as you layup the fiberglass

KEY LEARNINGS

• When building the strongback setup your legs to be a good 2 feet long.
• Double check the square and alignment of your bow and stern multiple times.
• I will be mindful of and keep the corny headings to a minimum.

Kevin and I’s approach on the this project has been a 2-part strategy. Part one is that we meet weekly on Wednesdays to work on our canoe, and between our weekly meetings we each pick up relevant supplies and tools for our next meeting. Last week we had to cancel due to scheduling issue so this past week we doubled up. Day 3 and 4 were Monday and Wednesday. With foaming taking longer than the single day we thought it would we figured Wednesday would be our big day of completing the foaming. As Wednesday wrapped up and I realized this was not the case a feeling of incompleteness started shadowing the week. Not to mention with just 24-hours until church there was a definite deficiency in spiritual carbs [See Is There An App for That - Grow]. This set me up for day five of the canoe build being Friday night. I was compelled to complete the foaming by the end of the week

Day 5

Foaming complete after 3 days of work

Late in the evening Amy and I decided to team up and finish the foaming. As I mentioned before the foaming is a two person operation so her help was essential. Plus she had prior experience as on day 4 she did help Kevin and I by holding pieces for us. In a short 2 hours Amy and I filled in the final top section of the stations/strongback with foam. It was awesome to see the entire frame covered in foam. Plus Amy is now officially apart of the canoe build with two nights of service under her belt.

Next Steps

The next step in the canoe building process is to sand the foam. As we sand the foam to an even and consistent surface we will be determining the final shape and countours of the canoe. This will definately be a time consuming endeavor as this is where we need perfection in our work. Once the foam is sanded a few thin coats of drywall mud will be applied and then it will be time for the fiberglass.

KEY LEARNINGS

• Amy is an amazing wife (okay maybe I knew this already).
• Friday night foaming with the woman you love is awesome.
• I need to be more patient with the canoe building process.

Days 3 and 4 of canoe building have resulted in most of the mold being complete, or should I say we can at least “see” the canoe. All in all I would say that the foaming of the mold is taking much longer than I though. Kevin, Amy (yes she joined in too), and I have almost 30 hours into the foaming of the strongback and stations. Based off the book it seemed like in 4 hours Kevin and I would be able to square away the foaming, but I was wrong. We encountered many challenges along the way.

Bow/Stern Installation and Truing

Strongback alignment

We left on on day 2 with the stations attached to the strongback and the bow and stern built but not attached to the strongback. Attaching the bow and stern is straightforward as they both have vertical and horizontal square marks which you line up with the T shape of the strongback. The bow and stern attach to the front and end of the strongback, they do not go on the top of the strongback like the stations. Attaching the bow and stern is as simple as aligning the marks and attaching with a few screws.

Next we stepped into the alignment of the stations and bow/stern. The goal here is to ensure that all of the stations and the bow/stern are aligned to help create a straight uniform canoe mold. Failure to do so can result in a crooked canoe, which is not going to make a very good sea going vessel. To ensure alignement we attache a string from the stern to the bow. Next we look at the square marks that are on top of the stations (we put these marks there when we transfered the drafting templates to the plywood) and ensure they line up with our string. If they do not align, then we unscrew the station from the strongback and shim it until it lines up. We go up and down the strongback doing this as needed to each station. We also want to ensure that the bow and stern are both vertically plumb. In all honesty I am not sure that Kevin and I did and I have reason to believe our bow may be “off”. More to come on that later as Kevin and I uncover the issue.

Once all of the stations are aligned with the bow/stern on the stongback, and the bow/stern are plumb we tack a small strip of wood (.75″x.25″x16.5′) from bow to stern to ensure the top of the stations do not move as we start applying the foam. This strip of wood will be removed once we get towards the top of the stations with the foam. Kevin and I tacked the strip in using a brad nailer which worked great. Moran suggested using small nails which would work also, but if you have access to a brad nailer it really speeds up the process and reduce the likelihood of moving the stations out of alignment when hamming the nails in.

Foaming

The foaming process seems simple on the surface, but comes with many little gotchas that can be avoided with a little forewarning. Cutting the foam is simple work for a circular saw with an adjustable fence and a few 2″x4″s. While simple, cutting the needed 3-4′x8′ sheets of foam does take about an hour. The goal is to cut 1 5/8″ strips of foam in a trapezoid shape. This shape allows us to lay the foam over the curves of the stations and allow space for the glue to squeeze out.

Foam Cutting

To cut the foam set the blade depth to penetrate about a 1/16″ below the depth of the foam and set an angle of 8*. Lay a couple 2″x4″s on the ground. You will set the foam on the 2″x4″s to cut and give the foam strength as you gentle walk down the foam while cutting. To get the trapezoid shape you will make a cut going direction “A”, and then you will flip the sheet of foam over on the 4′ edge and make a cut in the oposite direction (B) on the opposite edge. As you repeat this operation of flipping the foam and changing the direction you are cutting from your will create strips that are a trapezoid in shape. You will need about 2.5 sheets of foam cuttup for a 16.5′ version of the James Moran’s Tripper canoe.

Foam Installation

Foaming up the strongback

The installation of the foam is where the foaming process “got out of hand” time wise. Glueing 1 5/8″x1″ strips of foam accross a frame of .5″ plywood is not as fast at one would think. As this is coming from a former custom cabinet maker who is being assisted by a fellow current custom cabinet maker and licensed contractor (Kevin). So technical skills sets with the tools and materials was not exactly the challenge. Our challenges fell into a few categories: tools, twists, not enough hands.

On day three we had a single generic Tool Shor (a Menards discount brand) glue gun. This glue gun had three forms of operation (it was a single setting unit): not hot enough to melt the glue, too hot of glue which melted the foam, and the right temperature of glue. This right temperature of glue was like a rare mythical beast like the Loc Ness monster. It was spotted so rarely that it’s existence was constantly in question. This left us playing a game of force the cold glue out and how much foam can we melt as we attach. Plus the hotter glue had us spending a lot of our time just holding the foam in place while we waited for the glue to set up. The takeaway here is to buy a two heat setting gun to give you some form of control in regards to the glue temperature.

Day 2 of foaming complete

Day four we greatly improved our foaming operation. Kevin picked up a second glue gun, and more importantly one with two heat modes. On day four we truely found our groove with foaming. Both armed with low quality glue guns we attacked the strongback/stations/bow/stern with foam and glue resulting in being about 90% complete with the foam operation. The most difficult part of the foaming process was dealing with the twisting of the foam from the first/last station to the bow/stern. Towards the top of the canoe the twist was light and not much of an issue. But as the foaming operation moved up the canoe (remember the canoe is upside down as we build it) towards the bottom of the canoe the twists became more harsh, and the hot glue was having issues hold the foam to the bow/stern. On these hard twists we ended up using large amounts of glue, held the pieces for a longer time to allow the glue to set, and at the most harsh twists we used pieces of foam that only spanned from the bow/stern to the previous station.The fact of the matter is this is very challenging and will require you to excersize patience as you learn how to make the foaming of the bow/stern happen.

All in all the canoe molding is looking pretty good. We are almost done with the foaming which will then lead us into the sanding of the foam to create the final *perfected* shape of the canoe.

Key Takeaways

• Alignment of the stations/bow & stern is CRITICAL!
• Ensure the bow/stern are plumb. This is also CRITITCAL!
• Foaming is a long process. Be patient. Plan to spend 2o hours on this process.
• Definately ask a friend, spouse, neighbor, or child to help applying the foam.
• Either ensure you have a good glue gun or ensure you have two lower quality glue guns.
• Remember to have fun, you are building your own canoe!