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18 September 2012

Unleashing The Little Boy Inside With Wooden Canoe Plans

By Rebekah Alford


A wood canoe is beautiful as it glides through the water. But, there is a special feeling of joy when you are paddling a boat that you built yourself. Manufacturers provide this by packaging knowledge and expertise into their wooden canoe plans to help the amateur boat builder to achieve his dream.

A canoe is a narrow boat meant for one to several persons and is usually manually powered though sails or small motors can also be fitted. It is pointed at both ends and propelled by the use of paddles. Paddlers sit or kneel facing the direction of travel while in a rowboat the rowers face away.

Canoes have been used since time immemorial when they were just hollowed out tree trunks. Today's ones are built using narrow strips of wood glued together. They can also be made of stretched canvas over a wood framework. There are different versions of these around the world. Men treated canoes as personal statements and created ones with colorful designs.

It is not an easy task to build a water vehicle. Furniture can be easily built from kits by bolting pieces together using screws or nails but the sleek shape of the canoe has to be created meticulously by hand. It is designed differently for different uses. If it is to be used in calm water like lakes the boat tends to be flatter. If used to navigate fast flowing rivers, the boat is narrow with a keel to allow it to change directions quickly.

Anyone wanting to build a water vessel can order suitable Wood Canoe Plans from a manufacturer. These plans are a collection of drawings and photos to create both the framework needed to build the vessel as well as the vessel itself. The user can also order the kit along with the plan and all the materials are sent. One needs to first build a frame called the 'form' which is the inside contour of the boat. There are drawings of various cross-sections of it at fixed intervals called 'stations'. Each station is a wood piece that needs to be carved accurately. Maximum care is taken in creating and fixing each of these stations as the final contour is determined by this.

The next step is 'strip building'. Wooden strips, usually a quarter inch thick are placed around these stations and fixed with glue. For better waterproofing, the edges will have a bead and cove to fit snugly. This is slow and time consuming work demanding great care. Once all the strips are in place, the wood will have to be sanded to create a smooth contour. All the glue used to stick the strips will need to be sanded carefully. In this stage, careful arrangement of strips of differing colors can create beautiful effects.

The outer surface needs to be protected against wear and tear. This is done by bonding fiberglass cloth to the outer surface with epoxy resin. The boat is detached from the form and the inside sanded and coated with fiberglass as well. A keel is added as well as seats.

Obviously, one does not have to go through all this trouble. One can buy a fully finished kayak. But, that will never give the sense of achievement that one gets when one selects one of the wooden canoe plans and builds the vessel by hand.




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