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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Devonport
    Posts
    6

    Default Percy Blandford timber & canvas canoes

    Hi,

    just thought I'd drop by and say that if anyone is interested in seeing photos or instructions for some Percy Blandford style 1950s timber and canvas canoes, let me know.

    There are three of four within a few kilometres of me here in Devonport, and I have three myself.

    Guy Burns

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  3. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Louth, Lincolnshire , england
    Posts
    3

    Default Percy Blandford

    Would be very interested especially plans/instructions of his timber and canvas canoes.
    Built one of his fishing punts 20 years ago, still going strong!

  4. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    'Delaide, Australia
    Age
    65
    Posts
    8,138

    Default

    A few have been built in Adelaide too - but it would be great to have some pics and information up here.

    Best wishes
    Michael

  5. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Poland
    Age
    67
    Posts
    805

    Default

    Hello,
    This is a very interesting topic
    I have plans of canvas canoe "P50" (Tilikum) designed on 1955 by famous Polish boat designer Mieczyslaw Plucinski. This one was designed in two versions - strip planking and canvas.

    For canvas version - bulkheads was designed from pine (Pinus silvestris) lumber 15 mm or plywood 10 mm, for curved frames was designed ash (Fraxinus excelsior) or oak (Quercus sp.) or beech (Fagus silvatica) timbers 10x15 mm and for endwise carcas was designed timbers of pine 10x12 mm, stems was from pine 25 mm. All materials are typical available in Poland. Estimated weight was circa 35 kg (strip planked version 60-70 kg!)

    Technical data:
    LOA 4.7 m
    LWL 4.6 m
    BOA 0.9 m
    BWL 0.86 m
    H midship 0.34 m
    Draft 0.13 m
    S (latin) 3.0 sqm

    As an attachement is a part of 5th sheet of plans - canvas version
    Aloha!
    Robert Hoffman
    http://robhosailor.blogspot.com/


  6. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Devonport
    Posts
    6

    Default Percy Blandford Canoe

    Hi,

    I will see what I can do about generating a pdf file and sending it to you, along with some photos. Do you have an email address? Mine is [email protected].

    Guy

  7. #6
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Devonport
    Posts
    6

    Default Photo of canoe before canvassing

    This is a photo of our mid-sized canoe, 4.2 m, made as small as possible but still able to carry two adults. Made from radiata pine in February 2000. 1000 km down Cooper Creek in the 2000 flood (Muttaburra to Innamincka); out to sea lots of times with three sails – and still going strong.

  8. #7

    Default

    I built a canvas-on-wood PBK27 (13'-0" single cruising kayak) in 1960 (yes, that's 1960,) and she's still going strong. All the accessories as well., including full sailing gear with pedal-operated rudder. A very clever design, simple to build. I still have the plans for her too, along with those for a 17'-0" double-seater version.

    Wooden Boat Fittings
    ... helping people complete classic boats authentically.

  9. #8
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Devonport
    Posts
    6

    Default

    Hi Mike,

    yes, that's a Percy Blandford. I'd recognise it anywhere. Tasmania's most famour photographer, Olegas Truchanas, used one of those (I think) to go down the Gordon River years ago before they tamed it. Olegas lost his life in one when he drowned.

    They do last for years if looked after. Ours are only eight years old but in very good nick. A mate doesn't look after his, it gets left out in the weather, and has been recovered in that plastic blue stuff, but it is still going strong after 20 years.

    Guy

  10. #9

    Default

    I'd say just the same of your picture, Guy -- she's absolutely identifiable.

    I bought the plans for Kareela for 18/6d at the Melbourne Scout Shop, and built her over about three months after school and at weekends. She has 3/8" marine ply frames and endposts, with the rest of the framework being parana pine. The hull is eighteen-ounce cloth, with 15 oz for the decks. (I can still remember the blisters in the palms of my hands from driving all those damn' screws by hand....)

    Here's a cockpit photo from about two years ago.



    She's reaching the end of her life now though -- the brass screws are dezincifying and the Bostik filler recommended over the screw-heads is swelling and stretching the canvas.

    She hasn't really been in white water but I've sailed her on Port Phillip and Western Port, (and Albert Park Lake...,) had her out in Bass Strait west of Wilsons Prom, and paddled her countless miles on the Murray and a few of the slower Victorian rivers -- some of the happiest hours I've ever spent.
    Wooden Boat Fittings
    ... helping people complete classic boats authentically.

  11. #10
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    Hobart, Tasmania
    Posts
    1

    Default

    Hi

    Am new to this forum. I built 3 PBK14's (i think that is correct) back in the late 1960's. I still have one that I built but sadly haven't used it in years.

    Over time I have lost the plans and would love to get my hands on a set. If anybody knows where I could locate some plans I would much appreciate their advice.

    Cheers
    Stuart

  12. #11
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    'Delaide, Australia
    Age
    65
    Posts
    8,138

    Default

    maybe on this forum
    https://www.woodworkforums.com/f269/percy-blandford-timber-canvas-canoes-51890

    There is this address on another website
    # BLANDFORD PLANS Value for money, a catalogue of easily constructed canoes, dinghies and cruisers for only 70p from W. Harrison (E), PO Box 55, Bingley, W.Yorkshire.

    Amazon has books
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...K/ref=dp_olp_2

    Some general chat
    http://people.brunel.ac.uk/~acsrrrm/kayak/pbk/pkb.html

    Best wishes
    Michael Storer

  13. #12
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Devonport
    Posts
    6

    Default Construction details for Percy Blandford canoe

    I have uploaded the construction details of how I built three Percy Blandford canoes to this site:

    http://www.mediafire.com/?jwwz19dldjm

    It is a 5.5 MB, 17 page pdf file called Percy Blandford Canoe.

  14. #13

    Default

    Guy, that's an extremely useful site you've put up there. Given that you were essentially designing your own boats along Blandford lines I can see why you needed the mathematics. But I should say, for any novices who might be put off by maths, that Blandford's own designs contained full-size drawings of all frames and end-posts, which only needed to be traced onto the ply. Also that flaring of the cockpit coaming was not as difficult as it first appeared (but that the timber needed to be steamed well first.) As a sixteen-year-old using a modicum of thought, I had little trouble reading or building to the plans.

    Plans for at least some Percy Blandford designs are apparently available from Clark Craft. Look for the ones whose catalogue numbers start with "BK" as they seem to be the Blandford designs. (Having said that though, I note that BK27, "Sea Scout," is supposed to have ply side-decks, whereas my PBK27 Sea Scout was all canvas. Perhaps there was a redesign after 1960?)

    Mike
    Wooden Boat Fittings
    ... helping people complete classic boats authentically.

  15. #14
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Yorkshire
    Posts
    2

    Default PBK canoe

    Hi I'm new to the forum, names dinghy and live in Shipley West Yorkshire UK

    Many years ago I built a Percy Blandford PBK20 canoe from scratch lofting the plans from A Foyles Handbook, Boat Building by Percy W. Blandford. The canoe was distinctive because as a young dad money was scarce so to cover the frame a friend of mine with a window blind business gave me some yellow and black canvas we promptly named the canoe "humbug". My sons had a lot of fun on the local canal in the canoe but when they left home for university the canoe became a storage liability, not finding anyone interested in the canoe it eventually got broken up, very stupid of me! Now in semi retirement with young grandchildren the bug has bitten again and I am planning to do the same build again. I still have the original book which shows how to build a PBK10 single seater, PBK20 two seater, fishing punt, rowing dinghy, sailing dinghy, and a pram dinghy.

  16. #15
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    united kingdom
    Age
    81
    Posts
    29

    Default PBK canoes

    Hi I am new boy to this site I live in the UK I built with my father in the late 50s a PBK 20 and had a great deal of fun in it two canoes trips down the Thames 120 mile a trips at sea in the Solent of the South Coast.I have now reached the ripe old age of 66 and just ordered plans for a PBK design canoe twin seater 17 foot I am not quite so light than I was in the late 50s and need the exterior carring capacity...can anyone help me regarding the stringer material in the UK, mine in the 50s was built of aircraft spruce anf 1088 marine ply if any body has any suppliers they could put me onto I would be very greatfull....when I remmember those days they some of the best days of my life kind regards to everyone..Mike

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