The Quick Canoe Thread: Boats, advice, tips. Add your own!

[Matt457]

Ooh! I love the planter! That's cool! )

You're going to like this canoe. Way to go, Matt!

'Going to'?? I already like it! I almost have to go for a test paddle before I paint it!

[Matt457]

I got a tiny bit sidetracked on a detail. I'll blame my dad for this, as he suggested it originally and I just had to try it.

DSC_7919.JPG DSC_7921.JPG

Sadly, I was a bit fast and loose with the, err, countersinking (roughly with a chisel) of the ply so it'll need some tidying up with filler. The plan was always to paint the outside, so I either have to go ahead and do that or do some very neat filling work with wood powder. The reason I was rough with it was I actually didn't think it would work a well as it has. I thought the copper would tear before it stretched this far. I guess I haven't worked with soft wall copper water pipe before.

I did it as follows:

Make a wood block to fit very closely inside the stem. This piece is about 50mm tall. Glue it in with thickened epoxy and use plenty so any gaps are full and it's really strong. Drill a 12mm hole across the boat going through the middle of the reinforcing block. Reach inside boat under the deck and drill a small hole through the block meeting the 12mm hole. This is to inject epoxy later. Actually, the main hole needs to be a little bigger. Just allow a tiny bit of wriggle room for the copper pipe, so epoxy can squeeze through there.

Countersink the outside of the boat so there's room to flare the copper. Cut a piece of soft wall 1/2" (12mm) water pipe to fit the hole. It's cut at an angle to match the outside face of the ply, and projects about 2mm outside the ply face on both sides. Rough the outside wall of the copper pipe a little where it'll be glued in, fix it in place then inject epoxy through the inside hole in the block till it comes out around the copper pipe on both sides of the boat. Keep mopping this up until it gels, because you want the 'tube' of timber and end grain sealed but no epoxy filling up the countersink where you're going to to flare the copper pipe.

Once that's cured. Flare the copper pipe out into the countersink. I used 8mm round steel bar ground to a hemispherical end (so it doesn't beat up the inside of the copper pipe too much), stuck inside the pipe a little way and just rolled around by hand at various angles to the pipe. You can only get so far with this method, so I finished off the edges with some careful ball-peen hammer work.



Edit: it could probably be done a lot more neatly by making a better tool for the flaring. I think a rod which fits the inside dia. of the copper closely and is bent to the radius I want the flare. Then the tool could be pulled from the far side, turned on the same axis as the copper tube and the tool's radius worked against the end you are flaring. I was too impatient to make this. Maybe next time.

So anyway... diversion completed. There's some varnishing to be done!

[Matt457]

​Launched yesterday morning in Round Hill Creek. Yay!

First impressions: So light!
It's directionally incredibly stable. It really grips the water and takes some force to turn it. This is good here at the moment because of the wind, and the windage of the canoe. It slapped a bit under the front in the little chop, but as you can see in the photo we need more weight in the front. With the kids right up front and me forward a bit to get the trim right it was fine.

I think my seats are a little high (they are very near the drawn position). I always kneeled on the floor of the other canoe with my legs hooked under the seat, but the other one is a much shallower boat than this. I ended up sort of high-kneeling yesterday and resting my bum against the front edge of the seat. With something grippy on the seat I might settle on it a bit more. The seat feels a little too high but with so much freeboard I think a much lower seat would make it hard to reach over the side to paddle, especially for the kids.

We didn't go out for long yesterday. It's a bit windy. I'll write again when I've had more paddle time.

canoe-launch-sm.jpg

Very happy!

[Boatmik]

Congratulations!

Nice to have a family photo!

MIK

[Matt457]

That's only half of us!

All six of us went out in it this morning. It wasn't all that happy about the added draft when trying to cross oyster beds (ouch), but handled itself okay. The kids are 11, 8, 5 and 3, so they don't add up to all that much weight.

With all of us in, it *really* doesn't want to turn.

[engblom]

You are in a lucky situation as it is easy to remove from the keel, but much more difficult to add. Just take away a bit with a plane, especially at each end of the canoe as there most of the turbulence is happening while you turn.

[Matt457]

Yep. I'll give that a go.

I'm away camping with it for the next three weeks, so it will get plenty of time on the water for me to decide whether/how much to modify things. I just wish this blasted wind would die down!

[Cliff Rogers]

I started with the short keel, it is a problem trying to go cross wind with just one person in the boat, bloody hard work, you end up zig zagging all over the lake.

[ratbagradio]

Having recently finished my Quick Canoe I'm learning how to use and rig it.

Here is my build log.



I paddle/sail/pole/drag it on the shallow waters of Deception Bay Queensland, with the Pumicestone Passage to look forward too.

dave riley

[Boatmik]

Having recently finished my Quick Canoe I'm learning how to use and rig it.

Here is my build log.

I paddle/sail/pole/drag it on the shallow waters of Deception Bay Queensland, with the Pumicestone Passage to look forward too.

dave riley

That's super use of the Quick CAnoe!

The ideas is that it has relatively little cost (the value might be great though!) so that it is the perfect boat to play with mods, make sail or motor or dive platform or fishing machine or a second boat for an existing hobie pedal drive or lend to the neighbours for a week up the Noosa River or take camping.

Lots of different potential uses - and if it gets a few bolt holes or fibreglass or plywood patches along the way ... who cares!

Nice blog about playing with the boat!

MIK

[Matt457]

Ratbag, I love the colour scheme!


Well, we spent three weeks using both canoes in Round Hill Creek (Seventeen Seventy, QLD) in May. I am very impressed with the stability of the QC. It took six of us (reluctantly) fishing in the river, and one of me paddling furiously sometimes too. I didn't take the QC out much on my own. There's just too much windage and too little control of steering when it's that high. Two adults trim it just right. Four kids in addition (six of us. youngest is 3) make it wallow but still alright. That's probably near 250kg!

*Everyone* commented on the QC. It did finish up looking nice and woodie.

My other 16' canoe, heavy GRP (36kg vs QC 25kg) but more traditional V shape, has much less freeboard (windage), is much more easily driven, much more tippy and changes direction more readily. When we (two adults) stop paddling the QC it keeps going straight, when I stop paddling the older canoe it keeps going quite a bit further, but not straight. So when there was just me I prefer the traditional shape. Me and small child I prefer the older shape. Two adults or more and the QC is better by dint of feeling much safer and gripping the water much better so its windage doesn't bother it.

Several times I looked at them both sitting on the sand flat at low tide and thought "I really should get a photo because seeing them side by side the strengths and weaknesses of each shape are obvious." But that would have meant setting aside a cold beer and going looking for the camera... Sorry folks.

My QC has an oregon keel. it's not particularly good oregon, with widely spaced grain. Three weeks in the river anchored below the high tide line, or being dragged to and from camp on the sand (absolute waterfront camping sites! 1770 is a great place!) and being paddled across oyster beds took its toll. The keel is pretty ragged and has about 5mm deep grooves ground into the soft grain by sand for about the first flat 100mm each end. It's definitely getting some glass tape added to the first foot or two of the keel each end. There are some serious oyster gouges in the ply bottom too. All easy stuff to repair though. For now I'm giving it a course sand and a couple more coats of epoxy to keep it waterproof, taking it to Magnetic Island for a week and then adding the fibreglass tape when I get back.