Thread: Balsa canoe build

What a great looking boat! Building a canoe is also on my building bucket list.


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Weather is good this week but I need a paddling partner who can cope with a capsize. I don't expect that to happen but I'm playing it safe to start. May have to go alone and stick some ballast in the front.

Bob

Your canoe has brought back fond memories of going on canoeing holidays with my cousin back in the UK. We called it canoeing, but when I think back it was actually a collapsible canvas kayak which broke down into sections that would fit inside a car. It was seventeen feet long and could be either two man or three man. It had a rudder controlled by the rear man.

They were good times. We used to go for a week and camp as we went. I would still like to build a canoe or a kayak, but I see time running out.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Cklett

What a great looking boat! Building a canoe is also on my building bucket list.


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Is it appropriate to use the word Bucket in a Canoe build[emoji6].

Cheers Matt

Here ya go Matt, I fixed it for him:

"Building a canoe is also on my building BAILER list."

Paul, building a canoe shouldn't take as long as the plane challenge, although I must confess that I spend more time bulding these things than paddling them .

Originally Posted by labr@

Paul, building a canoe shouldn't take as long as the plane challenge, although I must confess that I spend more time bulding these things than paddling them .

Thanks Bob

I hope nothing takes quite as long as the plane build!!

Regards
Paul

Well it's only been 9 months since the previous update but it finally got wet a couple of weeks ago, sadly with no pics. We were a bit wobbly to start with but fairly steady by the end of a short paddling session (about 40 minutes). Despite no major dramas I decided to lower the seats with the intention of improving the stability a bit.

Putting the seat rails under the cleats instead of on top made the seats 65mm lower. I still wanted the rails to rest on top of something solid so installed new cedar cleats and removed the old oregon ones. The new cleats are tapered and have lugs protruding from them to take lashings. I was never happy with the screws in the original seat mounting and I consider the lashings as an improvement. I could not be certain but I think the bow was down just a little bit during the test run so the seats were also moved back about 50mm.

Just have to line up another test day, this time with a photographer.

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