In which a canoe is built, its progress described and photographed.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

31. Cranberry Lake

In the first week of October, I took my canoe to Cranberry Lake, in the Adirondacks. It was a good adventure, though the nights were much colder than I expected. Below are a few pictures. The full set of pictures is on Flicker.

Setting off


Putting in


Merganser duck (female?)


This doe let me get very close

Beautiful split rock

Thursday, August 27, 2009

30. Looking back on the project

Tom asks:

"I stumbled across your blog and was wondering about your experience building the canoe. Did you ever figure out how much you spent? I can't decide if I want to buy the kit from clc or do it all from scratch. Also honestly as your first boat how easy was it?"

Let's see .. about $45 on the wood, about $140 on epoxy, resin, and pump handles, and $60 on fiberglass cloth? Probably another $50 here and there. So that's about $300. I did not have to buy any tools (I borrowed a few), so that saved some money.

As a first boat, it was neither too hard nor too easy. My only previous woodworking experience was rough carpentry, like house framing, and some simple homemade furniture.

I learned about working with a plane, cutting bevels on the strips. I also learned about laying down epoxy and fiberglass cloth. The article in WoodenBoat was well written and photographed; easy to follow.