Wood and Canvas Form

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Curious about Wooden Canoes
Hey guys,
I'm brand new here and about as new to boat building. I am interested in building a canoe, and have narrowed it down to a stripper and a wood and canvas, mainly the latter. I am trying to gather as much info as i can before i get into this. Can anyone point me to a resource that will show me how to build whatever type of form i need to do this kind of contruction? i've seen solid form and open form methods, what do you guys think of each? between a stripper and a W&C, which costs more in materials?
Thanks for your advice.
Aaron
 
Hi Aaron

welcome to the forums. Sign up for the WCHA and enjoy all the more. Have you considered taking a class? Worth considering. Learning curve would be steep.
 
I have never done strip construction so cannot address that type of construction. For wood and canvas construction the major investment is in the form, as it is typically built as a solid plug with metal straps for clinching the canoe tacks. Building the form is as much, or more work than building a canoe, and when you are done, you have a very large and heavy object to store, it is a lot of work if you plan to build just one canoe. That said, wood and canvas construction is a lot of fun, as you get to try your hand at a lot of different things, such as steam bending, canvasing and filling, and you can be as creative as you want with designs when it comes time to paint the canoe. There are very good books on each type of construction, many libraries will have them. For wood canvas, there is a thread just below this one listing books in case you did not notice it, it is here:
http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?t=1021
 
Hello Aaron,
I am new to wood/canvas building as well but I have built a couple strippers and re-glassed others. I am in the process of restoring my first W/C canoe and getting all the materials together to build a W/C canoe.

I shouldn't say I will "never again" but if it comes to it, I would VERY reluctantly build another stripper/epoxy canoe. I found it expensive, messy, toxic ( I developed a nasty allergy to the epoxy hardener), expensive, time consuming (mostly sitting around waiting for glue or epoxy to harden), tedious (I have never done soooo much sanding in all my 20 odd years as a wood worker), and ah, did I mention expensive? I found that the cost of the fiberglass and epoxy alone cost more than all the materials together needed to complete a similar size W/C (meaning the cost of the materials for the actual canoe not including the form). With the cost of the solid form being the most costly item in W/C construction things could even out a little but if you plan on building more than one of your design then that will quickly change in favor of the wood/canvas canoes.

The major advantage that I can see to stripper style building is the ease with which one can build an endless variety of canoes. Once the strong back is made you have a base upon which to build and customize your canoes at will. For the cost of a couple sheets of plywood and a day’s work you can have another shape. Or you can lengthen or shorten your shape simply by where you place the stations. This might be something not so easy to do with wood/canvas construction. However, I have read of some who have found ways to manipulate what comes off the mold. But having limited experience I cannot speak to that.

The other way of building a W/C canoe which you mentioned is on what is called an “Open Form”. I am not very familiar with it but it seems like it might be an option to look into. I know Alex at Stewart River teaches it in his classes. http://www.stewartriver.com/classes.html
To me it looks like half way between stripper and W/C but as I said I have limited knowledge of this style so I’d contact Alex for more info.

One other thing I should mention in case you don’t already know is: I find that the stripper canoe is more akin in feel to a fiberglass canoe (which it really is, a composite fiberglass/wood core) than a wood/canvas canoe. Some find that important.

I cannot say the cedar strip/epoxy experience has been all bad because there were many excellent moments along the way and I do have a canoe or two I can be proud of. Many people find this style of building very satisfying as you can see by looking at this excellent site http://www.bearmountainboats.com/index.htm
 
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