Friday, February 5, 2010

Day 11 frame is finished (almost)

With the ribs lashed and the forms removed, it was time for the finishing touches on the frame. Basically I needed to add floor boards. The floor boards are 1.5x1/4 inch. Basically I ripped a 2x4 into strips. Its actually the same strips the gunwales were made of, just thinner. The length of floor boards was quite arbitrarily chosen. Its longer than me when I'm sitting down like an "L" and I have no clue how long that it. I ended up lashing 6 floor boards in. It still cold in Vermont and my shed is still not heated so I had limited time of work before my toes froze. It ended up taking me two work sessions to cut, sand the edges smooth and lash all the floor boards in. I also finally got to sit in my boat. It feels small, but then again... it is. I can't wait to get it on the water.
Now is almost a sad moment. I'm done with the frame. I can only come up with a couple of things that need to be done before skinning (sanding down the sharp edges of the ribs at the gunwales, drill lots of little holes in gunwales for attaching the skin and prepare the rub strips). So now I have to wait for things to warm up (the temps need to be warm enough for the polyurethane to cure). I could skin it now, but that would risk something happening to the skin before coating it. When the night time temps are consistently 45-50 degrees I can finish the Wee Lassie.
Thanks for reading so far.

Day 10?

So Day 10 did in fact happen. It happened a while ago. I remember I was quite happy that day, I just don't remember much about that day because it was so long ago. I did finish the rib lashing, screwed the ribs to the gunwales, cut off the excess ribs above the gunwales and took out the forms. My greatest fear in taking out the forms was that the gunwales would somehow squish back together in a horrific rib cracking, boat twisting event and suddenly all my work would be a long, skinny pile of lumber. Fortunately that did not happen and the canoe stayed the exact shape it was while the forms where in. It officially looks like a canoe.
And a few photo's including one that proves the ribs hold their shape after bending...