Eureka Canoe - Page 22

bitingmidge · #**316** 12th Dec 2007, 12:33 PM

Fantastic Walesy!

I'm hoping to get a few weeks off over Christmas, so why spend that boating when I can be sanding and varnishing the Eureka eh?

I just love a challenge!

P

Boatmik · #**317** 12th Dec 2007, 08:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Walesey

Last day of work today folks! Yipeeeeee!!!!!

If the Eureka is not in the water tomorrow it will be early on Friday!

(Don't worry Midge. I hope to FINISH it next year!!)
regards
Walesey

PICS PLEASE!!!!

Share the moment! And a commendment for trying to take care of Midge's wilting psyche!

Best wishes
Michael

Walesey · #**318** 21st Dec 2007, 12:16 AM

Hi all!
We have just returned from our week at Jervis Bay. Friday and Saturday were spectacular weather wise! The rest of the week was a bit "iffy". The sun poked his nose out a couple of times, for short periods. It was good for the kids to be above the water rather than in it! The Launch of the Eureka on Friday was a highlight of the holiday. The canoe performed admirably. The boys even let all 130kg of me into it. I must admit it was the FIRST time that I have been in a canoe that has NOT bucked me out! It was very stable. In fact when the boys wanted to practice capsizing and then re-boarding the canoe, they had a lot of trouble getting it to "roll over"

I have added some photos for all to see.

The first photo shows the canoe before launch with temporary foam seats. At launch, a rare wave caught the canoe broadside, rolling the canoe and breaking the foam seats, so the boys sat on the floor thereafter!

Second canoe shows canoe at first wetting! Boys about to board for the FIRST time!!

Third photo shows first expidition. The boys had a "wow" of a time.

forth photo, similar

Fifth photo shows canoe atop the "old bus". It usually rides a bit further forward than this. Don't know why it is so far back here!

The Eureka weighed in at 32.5 kg (without seats), (that must be where all my Epoxy went!) so, it was manageable, but still took three of us to comfortably get it on and off the roof of our high top van.

My only gripe, Mik, was that we had planned to leave the canoe on the beach to save man handling it on and off the car each day. However there were so many people that wanted to pour over the canoe and tell us what a fine craft it is and run their hands over the gunwales and decks, etc that we were not game to leave it alone on the beach for too long for fear of somebody deciding that they needed it more than us. Next time you design an easy canoe for beginners like us to build, can you please make it a bit uglier!!! (only kidding, of course

)

We hope to get the seats made after Christmas (Be warned, Midge!)

Happy Christmas to you all, and happy boating!

Walesey

robhosailor · #**319** 21st Dec 2007, 12:59 AM

Great light canoe indeed! Congratulations!!!

Merry Christmas to you!

Walesey · #**320** 21st Dec 2007, 12:45 PM

Thanks Rob.
It is a nice looking boat, but Mik gets the credit for the looks. We only followed his comprehensive instructions.

I have added a video clip to YouTube of the launch and subsequent activity over the week if anybody is interested. It can be found at

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=lbC5d4K9lsA

Sorry about the quality of the Youtube clip. It looked fine on the camcorder, and on the computer. There must be a trick to YouTube that I have yet to learn!

Merry Christmas

Walesey

bitingmidge · #**321** 21st Dec 2007, 02:07 PM

Fantastic!

Great clips, great report, great boat!

Now about those seats...... I know... but I'm building a rowboat now too you know!

Wow, wow, wow!

P

robhosailor · #**322** 21st Dec 2007, 07:36 PM

Yes, It's fantastic!

I think: Eureka with small sail and leeboard would be a great sailing canoe too

Boatmik · #**323** 24th Dec 2007, 08:52 AM

Congratulations Walesey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You can tell the boys and Grandpa too!

Good Job by everyone!!!!

Best wishes!!!

Michael

bitingmidge · #**324** 2nd Jan 2008, 06:09 PM

Enough! He cried, finally slotted some finish the Eureka time and the weather's, well ...

So looking back at my last construction post in February;

Errr,

February 2006, it sort of shows exactly how little I've done since then! Well there have been a few other projects, a couple of weddings, a few holidays and a grandson since then, not to mention the PDRacers, but none the less, there has been an absence of finishing photos as well as an absence of action.

Fear not, or be very afraid, whichever suits your own demeanour, because before the sun rises another time, I'll have some progress pics!

Yep, I'm catching up with everybody!

Cheers,

P

bitingmidge · #**325** 2nd Jan 2008, 11:32 PM

A lot can happen in two years!

When last I posted progress, the boat had actually been in the water, although the decks hadn't been epoxy encapsulated, and the seats had been made and positioned temporarily.

It seems to me that the finishing process, which is a tad boring, and difficult to document, always gets skipped. So I thought I'd see what I could do to liven it up.

Pics:

Back in July 06 I shaped the gunwhales, tapering them for about the length of the deck. This was done by eye and simple hand plane. In the pic, the left hand one is untouched, the right hand (from above) is tapered.
We had a perfectly good epoxy coating on the outside of the boat, but of course it's a bit rough, and needs a lot of work to get it to the pretty stage. Firstly, the glass tape has high ridges at the edges. These are taken off with a spokeshave, and I have also had a lot of success with a simple cabinet scraper. (that's the rectangular chunk of metal sitting on the boat).

A bit of care is needed to prevent cutting into the hull rather than the glass tape, but it's more about having patience than enormous skill.
The hull is then sanded to within an inch of it's life, a further coat of epoxy is necessary to fill the edges of the tape and a couple of other places where it's a bit light on, but it's a "touch-up" coat. (and can wait 18 months! )
When it's done, it's smooth as a baby's bum. Don't worry that it doesn't look clear anymore, as soon as it's wet with paint, epoxy (or spit!) it'll go clear as crystal.
All that's necessary is a bit of detail work up top. I've added a few small details, as documented earlier; The decks fit flush with the gunwhales and I've fitted a small curved deck beam to finish the cantilever of the decks.

I've curved the inwhale spacers as well, which I know isn't Mik's favourite detail, but it feels right to me so I do it my way!
This picture of the deck/gunwhale intersection is included to illustrate what happens once the coating goes on. In it's raw state, it looks dull to say the least, and one wonders why one went to all that bother with the flush deck and the different timber species.
With one coat of epoxy on, it all seems worth it! Now to sand it all again, and see what difference half a dozen coats of clear spar varnish make!

I'll be back tomorrow with more on my seat dilemma.

cheers,

P

PhilW · #**326** 4th Jan 2008, 10:48 PM

Have been posting on the other thread but this on is more in keeping to the Eureka. Managed to get one gunnwhale on today (did I spell that right?) Will do the other side tomorrow and then start on the inwhales which I cut out today. After seeing Midge's canoe the other day, (thanks P) and totally impressed with his workmanship, am keen to try to emulate some of his work. But realise that hope will be won out by ability. Oh well. but the race is on to finish.

Have made some silly mistakes which as a novice I had expected but had hoped to minimise by moving forward very slowly. The beauty of this design is that it allows errors that are not critical in terms of stuffing up the project. Plus if it travels in circles then at least we can't get lost. Bought my wife two paddles for christmas in preparation which she obviously was impressed with. I know that for a fact cause she was so overcome that she couldn't speak to me for a couple of days. Happened when I bought her a lawnmower some years ago as well.

Will make some later but they were cheap and will allow us to get underway as soon as the canoe is ready.

Happy new year all.
Phil

bitingmidge · #**327** 5th Jan 2008, 01:35 AM

Thanks Phil, it's nice to see another Eureka almost done, we're looking forward to some paddling company I have to say!

Not much progress today, (thanks to a very pleasant visit from Silent and MrsC, and Gerry and Nicola who are building a Goat Island Skiff and doing a lovely job too I might add), but I've nutted out what to do with the seats at least.

If we go back 20 pages or so on this thread, we'll see reference to a construction glitch that cast some doubt on the stability of the boat. Now that was all resolved happily, but at the time I got a bit spooked and set the seats up on the low side of normal, thinking that I'd add a bit of stability on the way.

This turned out to be unnecessary, and in the time it's taken me to get round to finishing the boat, there is more than enough evidence to suggest that the seat height will work fine as designed or even higher.

The guys who built this lightweight version are very experienced canoeists and suggested that the low seat would be very fatiguing on a journey, and after doing a bit more research I've decided to take their advice!

Here is their seat position:

and my original, about 100mm lower:

Of course there's a problem: I don't have enough ply to simply make the seats again, and such is my way, I've spent a good deal of time thinking about alternative designs. No matter what I came up with, Michael's original slab design combined with my routed slots just seem to me to be the perfect solution for the boat, so I've decided to use some ply offcuts and a bit of inlay to extend the original seats.

Tomorrow, I'll make the new frames, and rip the old ply apart!

That's what I say now anyway, stay tuned!

Cheers,

P

bitingmidge · #**328** 5th Jan 2008, 08:02 PM

True to my word!

Here's the blow by blow description of the seat re-build, or how to turn something simple into something simple by going about it the long way round!

I just had this debate raging on in my head! It may well have been fixed by a quick shot of rum or something, but since I don't drink, well it just kept going on....

Pics:

Shows the relationship between the old seat height and the new, and since I didn’t have enough ply to build new ones, I had to find a way use scraps to fill in the end bits and hopefully make it look like it wasn't a mistake.
After building a neat new frame, the cross pieces aren’t necessary if you have ply that goes the full width, but they do make it easier to fit the athwartship frames, I thought about using string, or webbing as has been done above. Sure it would save a few ounces, so would leaving out the little cross pieces, but I rather like Michael’s original intention, and I think the ply really suits this very simple and aesthetically pleasing boat.
The morticed frame did make it very easy to do a final fit of the seat to the hull though, the original had to be glued first, then the ply and the timber framing fitted.
I considered just finishing the seats at part width like this, but don’t like the visually weak connection to the side of the hull. I think if I was to do this it would need a cleat or two to give the impression that the whole thing will stay there, so after much umming and arrring, I’ll build some infill bits using scrap ply.
Here are the infill pieces in place, all very well, but if I was doing it from scratch I'd probably route another slot or two in them to further lighten them a little visually. I'm also still not happy with the way the seat just butts into the side of panel of the boat, I don't know why, it looks fine mostly. Maybe I've just got the new-year grumps!
Here's the lot mocked up, and showing the value of taking time to mock-up too. I've decided the infill fillet is a bit small and looks a bit accidental, so will double its width. I've also added a small timber fillet at the edge of the seat. This neatly trims the junction and makes the whole thing look much stronger, which is a nonsense, as it's 4mm square, but it's going in!

So that's it really. A pleasant day, once again interspersed with errands and visitors, so it all took my mind off the rowboat and lack of progress!

I should have the aeats glued up tonight, and with a bit of luck epoxy coated tomorrow evening, ready for a final installation before the varnish arrives later in the week.

Note, the seats are sitting about 20mm higher than their final position in the pics. The framing is built a few mm oversize to allow for accurate fitting once all the detailing is completed.

Cheers,

P

Boatmik · #**329** 7th Jan 2008, 02:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Walesey

Hi all!

My only gripe, Mik, was that we had planned to leave the canoe on the beach to save man handling it on and off the car each day. However there were so many people that wanted to pour over the canoe and tell us what a fine craft it is and run their hands over the gunwales and decks, etc that we were not game to leave it alone on the beach for too long for fear of somebody deciding that they needed it more than us.

Next time you design an easy canoe for beginners like us to build, can you please make it a bit uglier!!!

Walesey

Walesey, I think there are plenty of ugly canoe designs out there for your next project!

)

MIK

PhilW · #**330** 9th Jan 2008, 10:47 PM

The seats look pretty good Bmidge. The seat is certainly high on the wall. Expect that this will give you good pulling power and if as you say that the canoe is very stable, then it wont cause a problem in this regard.

I have the frame work on ready for the deck and tomorrow will glue the inwales in place. I hope. Time and circumstances permitting. Saw the post about how everyone is so impressed with how te canoe looks. Everyone that visits our plaace thinks that it is such a pretty canoe. And then I try to tell them that they can build one and invariably the guys say that they could never do anythink like this. A little frustrating as it is not difficult and if i can do it.........

Am now on the home straight and can see the finish line. Deck, seats and a ton of sand paper. Then marine varnish.............. Take care all.
Phil;