Hiawatha Wood Canvas Canoe Construction
I use traditional wood and canvas construction in making my canoes. Cedar ribs are steamed and bent over the canoe form, cedar planking is attached using brass canoe tacks. Once the hull is completed, the inside is finished with high quality spar varnish. Canvas is stretched over the hull, and a silica based filler is rubbed into the canvas to make it water proof. The outside of the hull is given three to four coats of marine enamel paint.
Canvas is filled with a silica based filler. I use #10 cotton duck canvas.
Canoe being canvassed
Planking completed
Hull is treated with preservative and oil before canvassing
View of interior of canoe after being pulled from the form, notice the full size half ribs and stringers covering the ends of the half ribs, to which they are attached.
View of the canoe and the form together
Hull off the form and continuing planking.
Goring pattern, planking runs parallel to the keel line in this pattern.
Planking the canoe while on the form. Planking is attached using brass canoe tacks. These tacks go through the planking, through the rib underneath and hit the metal bands on the form, which clinches the tack.
Half ribs are installed before planking. The half ribs are steamed, attached to a stringer that sits in a slot in the form and are trimmed to the edge of the stringer. All the ribs are faired with a sanding block before planking.
Stems are placed on the form and ribs are bent on the form after being steamed for about 45 minutes. The ribs are nailed to the inwales sitting in the slot along the bottom of the form. The last two ribs will be cant ribs, and will be put in after the canoe is partially planked.
Inwales sit in a slot along the bottom of the form
Steam bent ash stems
I always use a metal compression strap when steam bending the canoe stems. It is convenient to tape the straps to the stem before steaming, so that one does not have to deal with it during the rush to get the stems bent.
