All Done! And Happy New Year!

Just realized I sort of left things up in the air after posting about getting the keel on. It’s all done, and Clementine is now hanging safely in the garage and ready to go out on the water as soon as things warm up in the new year.

As you can see, Clementine is now blue rather than orange, although this sort of spoils the joke. The canoe left the Old Town factory painted “Princeton Orange.” When I put her back into working order, I made the hull orange again, but the original 1937 canvas was showing its age, leading to a rather dimpled appearance (canoe cellulite, if you will) which suggested the name. This time ’round, after some family discussion, we decided to go with a deep, rich blue (Kirby’s #33 Dark Blue), but the name remains.

Looking forward to a new year and some boating and, of course, more boat projects–my new year’s resolution is to finally get to work on the Ontario Canoe Company decked canoe I’ve been waiting to do since 2013: https://authenticboats.com/2013/10/13/not-another-boat/.

Talk to you all soon.

Still More Gunwales

The new spruce gunwale was stark white. The original 1937 gunwale, even stripped of its varnish, has mellowed to a rich, almost pinkish color, so I need to blend the two of them together before varnishing. The repair will still be visible because of the scarph joint, but I don’t want to have it stand out too much. With the help of an artist, in the form of my wife Wendy, we selected several stains that were ready to hand and tried some colors.

The nearest match was a Minwax Cherry stain with lots of pigment from the bottom of the can. Interesting that the cherry was the closest–I guess it picked up the pinkish tone from the spruce. Then it was time to re-fasten the gunwales. I had saved the original slot-head brass screws for re-use. Slot-heads can be hard to drive when you have to apply force, and the last thing you want is to have the bit walk out of the slot and dig into the spruce. I used a brace and bit so that I could apply some pressure and go nice and slow. The gunwales lined up well and I was able to find all of the old holes in the ribs and inwales after drilling a clearance hole through the epoxied canvas.

Now it was time for the keel, so I flipped the boat over (did I mention that my dear old canoe weighs about 85 lbs? I don’t believe the epoxy/canvas method has made it any lighter!). I had previously sawn a long piece of white oak to a bevel matching the original keel, and I had also been smart enough to save one of the ends of the original so I could pick up the taper.

I bandsawed the taper to the rough shape, both in plan and profile, and finished it with a low-angle block plane. The taper is all cut from the top side, leaving the bottom straight. This makes the oak flexible enough to conform to the rocker at the bow and stern. It will be held down by the last three screws in the stemband, which go through the rib and plank into the heel of the stem.

With the tapers cut on the ends of the keel, it was time to butter the whole underside with bedding compound and fasten it. The screws are driven from the inside. After the bedding compound was applied, I lined up the keel with marks I had previously made on the bottom and fastened it a few screws at a time, weighting it down above where I was working to ensure that it was drawn down tight to the bottom and I achieved good squeeze-out of the bedding compound.

With the keel securely fastened, the next step was to re-install the original bronze stembands and then we’re ready for paint and varnish.

 

 

Interpreting Maritime History at Museums and Historic Sites

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that one of the projects that slowed me down a bit in getting back to working on the Old Town was a book chapter. I was invited to contribute to a volume on interpreting maritime history being edited by Joel Stone, a Senior Curator with the Detroit Historical Society, which manages the Detroit Historical Museum and the Dossin Great Lakes Museum. The book, titled Interpreting Maritime History at Museums and Historic Sites, was published in March 2017. Copies are available from the publisher. 

My chapter is titled “Curating and Exhibiting Recreational Boating.” Here’s a little extract:

If you were to ask a visitor to a maritime museum or historic ship to name important themes in North American maritime history, it is reasonable to expect that they would mention at least some of the topics that make up the chapters in this book: whaling, naval affairs, shipwrecks, commercial shipping, lighthouses and inland waterways. It is also reasonable to expect that far fewer, if any, of them would mention the fiberglass runabout on its trailer in their driveway, or the personal watercraft at their vacation house. And yet pleasure boating is and has been an activity of significant economic and social consequence, and is worthy of consideration as an important part of maritime history. But it’s only pleasure—how could it possibly be as serious a topic as the navy, or exploration, or shipping? In the words of naval architect and historian Douglas Phillips-Birt, from his book An Eye for a Yacht,

Yachting was as exclusive, as brilliant, as undemocratic as a Florentine palace. And it was creative. Some of the most original and talented minds in several countries devoted themselves to the creation of the yachting fleets—men who might have reached the top in any sphere of imaginative work. (London: Faber & Faber, 1955, pp. 13-14)

The high net worth individuals who commissioned grand yachts from designers such as the Herreshoffs, C. Raymond Hunt, Clinton Crane, Starling Burgess and Olin Stephens were no less patrons of genius than the Renaissance princes who bought out the best work in the artists they supported. Their choices, exercised free of almost all of the constraints that normally bind you and I, are therefore a truer index of desire than many more pragmatic and workaday decisions.

More Gunwales

Once the rebate and profile of the new gunwale piece were right, I epoxied the scarph joint. I did this on the canoe to make sure that the alignment was correct.

 

After the epoxy had set, I started to shape the new gunwale with a low-angle block plane.

I picked the angle up from the starboard gunwale and trimmed the end of the new piece.

Final shaping was done with 150 grit sandpaper.

The next step is to stain the new spruce to match the original gunwale.

How Long is Your Canoe (Project)?

So, back in July 2013, I told you about putting new canvas on “Clementine,” my 1937 Old Town canoe. As you know if you’ve read previous posts, later that year I left Peterborough and took on a new job just west of Toronto. The canoe moved with me, but didn’t get any further because I had to finish the basement first.

In April 2016, I completed the new shop space. By July, I had moved my 1880s Ontario Canoe Company decked sailing canoe “Pip” into the shop. Then, there were a couple of writing projects for WoodenBoat magazine. Then, there was a historical plaque writing project for the Ontario Heritage Trust (more in a future post).

Then, there was a book. I’ve wanted for years to write a book, but I didn’t know where or how to start. I didn’t want to write a manuscript first and then try to find a publisher (worked for J.K. Rowling, but she’s out of my league). In the middle of 2016, I came across a call for book proposals put out by the American Association for State and Local History. I sent in two ideas: one for a book about maritime museums, and the second for a book about developing museum exhibits. The first one turned into a chapter for a book by another of their authors (more in a future post) and the second one turned into a book of my own. 19 months and 65,000 words later, Creating Exhibits that Engage: A Manual for Museums and Historical Organizations is done and it will be out next month. 

So, how long is my canoe (project)? 17′ or 5 years, depending on how you count. I’m determined to get “Clementine” in the water this summer, so I’ve picked up where I left off with the re-canvassing. The new canvas needed to be trimmed down to the top of the planking. 

Normally this is quick work, but I used epoxy so it required a sharper blade and a bit more force.

After sanding the epoxied canvas with 150 grit, I dry-fitted the old gunwales to check the trimming of the canvas.

The starboard gunwale was fine, but the port one had broken when I took it off in 2013. In the intervening years, the broken piece had disappeared so I needed to replace it. Here’s the starboard bow:

And here’s the port:

The gunwales are spruce, and rabeted on the back to fit over the top of the planking, which is cut down from the ends of the ribs. The tricky part about making a new end is that it curves both in plan and in profile, and it’s too short to steam, so the whole thing, including the rabbet, has to be carved out. The first step was to make a pattern from the starboard gunwale:

I traced it onto some scrap white cedar and sawed it to shape.

I cut a long scarph in the port gunwale, being careful to miss the existing screw holes:

The port gunwale was then clamped back on. I fitted pattern in place, marked the scarph I had just cut and trimmed the template to match. Then, I resawed a piece of clear spruce to about 1/4″ wider than the finished width and bandsawed it to the pattern shape, including the scarph at the end:

To make the rabbet, I rough-cut it with a Fein multi-tool and followed up with a chisel and a rabbet plane:

The new gunwale is still a little too large, so the next step is to shape and taper the inside, adjusting the rabbet to match as I go.

Field Trip: The Great Lakes Boatbuilding School

Back in April I spent a couple of days at the Great Lakes Boatbuilding School in Cedarville, Michigan. I was there working on an article for WoodenBoat, which you can read the the July/August issue, #251. The resort community of Cedarville is located in the Les Cheneaux Islands area of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. A small village whose population burgeons during the summer months, it reminded me very much of the 1000 Islands’ Clayton, NY, where I lived while working at the Antique Boat Museum, and South Haven, Michigan, where my family summered when I was young. The area has a rich boating history, and the nearby village of Hessel is home to the annual Les Cheneaux Islands Antique Wooden Boat Show.

The school was founded in 2005 by a local group who were inspired by a visit to the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding in Washington State and wanted to offer a similar education opportunity to students in the midwest.

All students take a one-year program, and an optional second year teaches more advanced skills. The schools facilities are also used to teach a range of workshops for the general public during the summer months when classes are not in session.

There are always a variety of projects on the shop floor. From left to right: a Hacker runabout; a Paul Gartside catboat; a flat-iron skiff; a fibreglass inboard launch and a Phil Bolger fisherman’s launch.

The Bolger launch ready for planking.

Students build the cold-moulded hulls of the Hacker runabouts, which are then shipped to Runabout Restorations in Guntersville, AL to be outfitted.

Program Director Pat Mahon and second-year instructor Andy James currently teach 15-16 students but are looking to expand the program. Completed boats are sold (at very reasonable prices!) to help defray the costs of operating the program. It’s a good thing that I flew there and didn’t drive a vehicle with a trailer hitch, or I might have come home with the last thing I need, which is another boat. I was particularly struck by the Harry Bryan KATIE sloop that is currently for sale.

The Great Lakes Boatbuilding school is a wonderful place to visit, a worthwhile place to support and maybe something to consider for your first, or second, or third career.

A Near Run Thing

After the battle of Waterloo, Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, said to Thomas Creevey “It was a near run thing. The nearest run thing you ever saw in your life.” On a much smaller scale, and in a more maritime way, that’s what happened at my house tonight.

You’ll recall that I bravely posted a couple of months ago that I was back in action with boats. Well I was, sort of, but then two writing projects for WoodenBoat came my way, about which more soon. The second of these is finished, so now I can turn to more pressing matters, and the above-mentioned “near-run thing.”

At lunchtime today, I went to my storage locker to retrieve the Ontario Canoe Company decked sailing canoe. Yes, I probably should have put a plank on top of the roof racks and under the keel, but I wasn’t going that far and I slowed down over the railroad tracks(!).

I had measured the window into my new basement shop several times, and I knew it was going to be close, but I hoped we would end up just on the good side of “close.”

In we go:

I learned a couple of useful things today:

1. Future projects should be LESS than 14′ long and LESS than 31″ wide!
2. Make sure that the canoe doesn’t get any bigger during the restoration!

Time to start scraping green paint.

Back in Action! (and it’s about time, too)

Hello, Dear Readers (at least the two or three that have stuck with me).

I’m ever-so-pleased to announce that the new workshop is finished, finally. You’ll recall that way back in April 2014 I showed you a photo of an unfinished basement and a plan for a new shop. After many twists and turns, and a few delays, and a lot of cutting and nailing and fitting and painting &c &c, the basement is almost finished and the shop, as of this afternoon, is finished! It’s a tight little space, and I think that the Ontario Canoe Company decked sailing canoe, at 14′ LOA, is the biggest thing that I’ll be able to fit in through the window and work on. No matter, I’ll just begin building smaller boats. Here’s the new space. The floor, laid over the original cement, is DriCore 2′ x 2′ T&G squares of oriented strand board with a plastic underlay. Walls are regular 2″ x 4″ studwall, with 1/4″ OSB over. The overall aesthetic is solid but not beautiful–“fisherman finish,” as Harold Payson called it:

That’s the window, which should allow the OCC canoe in with about 1/2″ to spare all ’round. In fitting my tools and projects into such a tight space, I’ve had to re-think how I do things. In order to free up floor space for the boat, I’ve gotten rid of all of the stands and mobile bases and resigned myself to pulling out and putting away tools as I use them. The workbench top is mounted on lumber racks strapped to the wall studs with lag screws. I even shortened my sawhorses to a canoe-appropriate width of 30″ to save space:

All of the tools, materials and supplies are concentrated in the dogleg part of the shop so that the main space is clear:

There’s even, thanks Harry Potter, a “cupboard under the stairs” for deep storage, paint and the like, the entrance to which can just be seen in the back of this photo.

The bigger part of the “L” is where the boat goes, and I’ve deliberately kept it clear. In case your wondering, there’s about 1″ of clearance between the shelf brackets and the top of my head(!):

Since I prefer to work with long skinny boats, I think there will be just enough room to walk up and down either side. That’s the Radix centreboard on the end wall for inspiration. I’ve also got room to hang up the patterns for past projects, including the Fiddlehead double-paddle canoe:

Next step is to bring the OCC canoe down from the storage unit and empirically verify that it will indeed fit through the window. More soon, glad to be back.

Really Fast Company

From time to time you hear stories about couples who, try as they might, just don’t share the same interests (cut to night club stand-up comedian: “My wife and I go out twice a week and we have a great time. She goes out on Tuesdays and I go out on Thursdays.” Rimshot. Applause) Interests like, for instance going out in boats. “Wife says sell” reads the plaintive classified ad in the boating magazine. But what if you found someone who liked boating. What if you found someone who not only liked boating, but liked it as much or more than you did? And what if you liked to not just go boating but to go boating really, really fast? If all of those things were true, then you would be Harold and Lorna Wilson, Canada’s powerboat racing couple.

Beginning with summers in Muskoka as a young man, Harold discovered fast boats and wanted to go faster. Over a racing career that spanned nearly three decades, he worked his way up from outboards to unlimited hydroplanes. Along the way, he met Lorna Reid and she joined him in the cockpit. As a husband and wife racing team, they were unique. He drove and she served as riding mechanic on the water and mechanic on shore. Their first big victories as a team came in the 225 cubic inch hydroplane class, where they were world champions in 1933 and 1934.

Later on, they graduated to the big leagues and drove unlimited hydroplanes, competing in the Gold Cup, Harmsworth Trophy and President’s Cup races. All of their many raceboats boats were named Little Miss Canada and then Miss Canada. Here is Miss Canada III in 1939, the year she won the President’s Cup.

You can read the remarkable story of their racing careers in the article “Going Steady, Going Fast: The Powerboat Racing Team of Harold and Lorna Wilson,” which has just been published in the June issue of WoodenBoat magazine. You can learn more about the restoration of Miss Canada IV on the website of their son, Harry Wilson. You may see (but you’ll likely hear her long before you see her) Miss Canada IV herself out on the water in Muskoka this summer. You can see some stunning photos of Miss Canada IV after her re-launching in the summer of 2013 on the website of photographer Tim DuVernet. Finally, you can see Miss Canada III in the exhibit “Quest for Speed: The Story of Powerboat Racing” at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, NY.

Canoes and Romance

You know how when you buy a particular marque or model of car you start to see them everywhere? A few years ago, wandering through ebay while avoiding a more important task, I came across some images of canoeing on romantic themes. I can’t recall now which one I saw first, but here’s a representative example.

How charming, I thought. They’re courting in a canoe. I bought the first one I saw, and then I bought a few more, and soon the search expanded to sheet music and souvenirs too. Last year, while I was still working at the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, Ontario, I proposed the idea of an exhibit about canoes and romance. Because I left the museum for another job at the end of the year, I didn’t end up curating that show, though I did do a design concept for it.  I did agree to write the Gallery Guide for the exhibit, however.

These Gallery Guides are a project that I started at the Museum three years ago. The original idea was to publish some of the material that inevitably doesn’t make it into the finished exhibit and provide visitors with some more information that they can take home. The first Gallery Guide was about the Museum’s “It Wasn’t All Work” gallery and explored the topic of canoeing for pleasure. The next Guide in the series was published in 2013 and recounted the story of the Museum’s founding and its origin in the private canoe collection of Kirk Wipper. The third Gallery Guide, I’m proud to say, is my own. It was released when the exhibit it accompanies was opened on Wednesday, April 23rd.

 

The collecting of the images and souvenirs was great fun (and continues to this day), and the writing was a lot of hard work, but it’s a great exhibit and I encourage you to drop in if you’re travelling through southern Ontario. It’s open now and will be up until next March. You can purchase a a copy from the Canadian Canoe Museum Store. The first (It Wasn’t All Work: Canoeing for Pleasure) and second (Becoming Kirk Wipper: The Story of the Museum’s Founder) Gallery Guides are also available from the store online.