Thanks to Phil Gartlands generosity, I am the proud owner of a 12x4 x2 steel building form for the CS17.  It is now waiting for the load of plywood.  Going with bs 1088 okoume throughout. 

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August 28, 2014

Being tired of sanding, I switched gears to the keel.  The idea is to start with a lot of wood and wind up with a little less.  The keel on this boat is designed to take the weight of the boat on and off the trailer, proved something to hit a beach with, and add a little more stiffness to the hull.  (additionally, it will help track the boat with the centerboard retracted).

The plans have some conflicting information.  On the instruction sheets, the keel is described as being 3/4" and on the plans it measure 1"x1".  I went with this as I can always make it smaller, but not bigger if needed.
It took a few times of reading through the description of how to scribe the keel until I saw it clearly as to what should happen.  Basically, take a 1X2 plank (in my case, mahogany), and scribe a line down the middle.  Then place the 14 foot plank edgewise on the hull, with a helper holding it down against a block the same thickness as the keel.  Now, take another block of similar dimension and scribe a line along the board from the stern until it meets the other lines that mark the forward part of the plank.  I wish I took a photo, but the plans describe it well enough.  You are left with a plank that is 2" wide at the stern and tapers to 1" about 4-6 forward of that.  When it is all cut out, the plank will lie relatively flat against the hull, while the last 6 of the keel are straight.  The forward part will need to be shaped for better hydrodynamics as a blunt block is not too terribly efficient as shape.

Then, you need to cut a groove into the entire thing so that it fits flush against the hull.  All this will be held in place with screws and goop.  A final step is to fair it into the hull with fairing compound and then add a stainless rub strip to the bottom and chine edges.  These are to be sacrificial in nature.  Cutting the groove is a chore and I am sure there are power tools that could do it.  My method was to cut a 1/4" X 1/4" deep groove from stem to stern along the keel bottom with a chisel,  This is followed up with a 3/8" chisel to enlarge it.  Next, I knock down the sides of the V with a sharpened block plane.  Everything is then shaped up with the 3/4" chisel to make the V consistent.  This took two hours.  One hour was spent figuring out this method.  The other hour of actual consistent work.

V groove from stern to stem.

Tools used to cut the V groove 

Keel set temporarily in place to see how it fits.  Like a glove is the answer!

The sad news is tomorrow it is back to more sanding and filling until the boat is paint ready.  

Update - 9-4-14

We finally have the keel in place.  After working upside down from the inside while my daughter aligned the keel on the outside, we got all the temporary screws in place to prep for the application of the epoxy filler and glue.  It was at this time, my daughter asked a poignant question, "Why dont we put the boat on its side for this, it would be way easier, yes?"  So we rolled it off the cradle on onto its side.  And yes, it is way easier.  photos below. 

Boat is rolled out the garage yet one more time.  Keel is temporarily held in place with drywall screws.  

Keel has been shaped to final profile and aligned with a sharpie marker marking both sides.  

Screws are sticking pround of the forward part where the keel tapers,  holes and front get blended into hull so this will not be an issue.  No one will see it when the paint drys. 

We move the boat off the cradle by moving the bow off the cradle so that one side is still in contact with the cradle, and then the stern. An easy tip to vertical from there.  The boat is supported by two stout sawhorses.  

These sawhorses do the trick!  

Katie applies epoxy grout to the V groove.  I am the mixer in the garage, making more batches of grout.  

After the grout has been applied, I work the electric drill from this side, while Katie ensures the keel is aligned with our sharpie marks.  

This is the finished product, We will let it set overnight and then i will remove the drywall screws.  

Sept 5, 2014

We tilted the boat back on its side (son helped on his way to work), and I removed the screws.  Then, replaced the boat on the form and did some clean up and final shaping of ends.  It came out nice.  Paint is ordered.  Next, is the CB gasket (not on the plans).  

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For the premise of this post, go back one post.  This post is about yet another instance of a paint job gone wrong.  Not functionally wrong, just esthetically wrong, though not entirely, not in my estimation anyway.

 I took these pictures just before repainting the hull of my favorite Unangan kayak, (baidarka).  The reason I was repainting was not that the finish looked spotty. I actually liked the look, sort of organic, but rather that there was wear in the base coat that was letting water leak in.

The original sealer on this boat was varnish which gives the boat a vaguely rawhide colored look.  But I wanted something darker like rawhide thats sat in a museum for 200 years.  I was able to achieve that look, or so I thought until I questioned other people what it looked like and they said it looked like tree bark.  What I had done was mix oil color with varnish and I painted that over the original varnish coat. 
If I had read the label on the varnish I would have found out that once the varnish is fully cured, you need to sand it before you try to paint over it.  As you might guess, I just painted without sanding and so after about a year or so the new paint turned brittle and on exposure to sun started flaking off a little at a time.  As I said, I liked the look - kind of like lichen on a rock or a seal with the mange, but I finally had to throw in the towel on this paint job and scraped and sanded and then covered it over with a coat of gray latex paint.

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I am about to launch into another wood and canvas canoe restoration, assuming the owner is willing to spend the money.  A new one of these kinds of canoes is about $4000, so anything less than $2000 for a restoration is probably a good deal.  Perhaps you would pay more if the boat was an heirloom and you have some emotional connection with it.
This boat looks like a good candidate.  The hull is in fairly good shape. It needs some varnish stripping, some new planking, new skin, paint, interior varnish, outwales, gunwale caps, thwarts and seat restoration and seat hardware. And after all that was replaced or fixed, the boat would once again look spiffy. And of course it would have that old-timey wood, paint and brass, handmade look.

The canoe minus its canvas skin.  Planking is white cedar over white cedar ribs.

A view of the top of the canoe, partially decked in mahogany.

Interior view showing ribs and assortment of rotted wood trim. 

Closeup on the rotted trim.  The curved piece at the top left is one of the exterior stems.

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The geese are starting to hatch out back of the shop. A few days ago while riding my bicyle home, I ran into this family of geese, mother, father and eight goslings on the other side of a cyclone fence that keeps people away from the water.  I stopped, intending to take a picture of the happy family but realized that I had forgotten my camera. I had to settle for just looking at them.  As I got closer to them, the father got into his protective role, lowered his head and hissed at me.  And then I noticed, off to the left, at a safe distance from the protective father, a crow, watching for straggler goslings and the chance of a meal. 
Coincidentally, three crows had showed up at the shop just a few weeks earlier, no doubt just in time to take advantage of the impending gosling season.
A few more days went by and a visiting friend told me of a crow with a broken wing that he had seen on the way in to the shop.  Ah, crow with a broken wing.  No doubt some unfortunate accident, but then it occurred to me that the crow might have gotten a little too bold and run afoul (afowl) of the father goose who had possibly broken his wing.  We cant know for sure, but for sure I got some pictures two days ago of all eight goslings still waddling and swimming about with their protective parents flanking them.

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Im making slow but steady progress fairing the boat frame. Ill have a more detailed post on that topic before long.

In the meantime, Ive been reading quite a lot. I just finished reading two other boatbuilding blogs and a forum thread start-to-finish, as well as a new book by Daniel James Brown titled The Boys In The Boat.

For the new boat builder, I highly recommend reading boatbuilding blogs, as they give fantastic firsthand insights from other amateur builders. I hope that my own blog here will be of some help to other builders, just as other blogs have been very helpful to me. Here are links to the blogs & thread that I recently finished reading:

1. Bobs Boat Build. (Building a 16 Glen-L Malahini Runabout)
http://bobsboatbuild.blogspot.com/

2. Chris Glen-L Zip Build. (Building a 144" Glen-L Zip Runabout)
http://www.vupilot.blogspot.com/

3. Robertas ZIP. (Forum thread on building a 144" Glen-L Zip Runabout). Outstanding craftsmanship, resulting in one of the finest Zips ever put in the water. Truly inspiring.
https://glen-l.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=10702

4. The book I just finished is The Boys In The Boat — Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Its a superbly-written true story, and probably the best book Ive read since that summer in college when I read Margaret Mitchells Gone With The Wind. Many thanks to Wooden Boat Magazine for the e-mail notification on this one!
http://www.woodenboatstore.com/product/books_The_Boys_in_the_Boat/rowing_crew

Finally, heres a link to a must-read blog, (particularly if youre going to build a Glen-L Squirt):

Arts Boat Build http://artatkinson.blogspot.com/

Art built the most beautiful Squirt Ive seen. Im proud to say that I had the privilege of riding in this boat at the 2012 Glen-L Gathering. If you are considering a Squirt, but are concerned about the small size of it, I can say that the design is FAR more stable than I would have thought in such a small craft. The very first thing I thought to myself when I sat in his boat, "Work of Art," was: "Why didnt I finish building one of these?" The Squirt is a fantastic design, limited only by its two-person capacity.

Taking a ride in Arts Squirt, "Work of Art." September 2012.

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Ill just let the pictures tell the story...

Here you can see the flattened area & secondary indentations on the bow to accommodate the bow eye. The hull has also been lightly sanded with 220 grit in preparation for the 3rd coat of paint.

Hull lightly sanded in preparation for the 3rd coat of paint.

Hull lightly sanded in preparation for the 3rd coat of paint.

After two more coats of Whidbey White, I pulled off the tape and newspaper.

I had to do a little touch-up painting along the edges of the transom. There are several more spots that need some touch-up paint.

Sea Foam Green, Whidbey White, and bright-finished Meranti.

Ink from the newspaper left ugly stains on the paint. So far, I havent been able to clean them off. I may simply paint another coat over it. Obviously, I wouldnt recommend using newspaper for this sort of thing.

Fitting the bow eye.

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