Moderator:Admins

[Build log] Selway Fisher Prospector 15'8''

[Build log] Selway Fisher Prospector 15'8''

9
Member
9

    Sep 03, 2015#1

    After trying to buy as much stuff as possible, I am finally ready to start building my first canoe ever, a Selway Prospector 15'8''. I will try to document as much as possible. Although not really relevant for a broader audience, I will also list all of the costs associated with the canoe (exchange rates actual at the time of writing). Although this is my first attempt at a canoe, woodworking has been my hobby for years and I'm hoping this will help at least a tiny bit. Funny enough, the canoe will be international, as I currently work in Slovenia and Germany, so I'm in either country for a couple of weeks at a time. I plan on cutting it up in Slovenia and stitching it together in Germany.

    Initial costs
    • Selway Fisher plans with his book on building canoes (€110 / £80 / $122) - bought from Selway Fisher, UK
    • 2kg high quality epoxy with 500g of hardener ((€50 / £36 / $56)) - bought in Germany
    • 100m 80mm wide fiberglass tape ((€36 / £26 / $40)) - bought in Germany
    • 3 sheets of 6.5mm birch plywood, supposedly marine grade ((€100 / £73 / $111)) - bought in Slovenia
    Plywood sheets
    I had a surprisingly hard time tracking down the plywood, but this varies a lot from place to place, so it's mostly irrelevant to you. The lumberyard claims the plywood is marine grade, but there are no markings on it to prove that, so I'm not sure. The guy working there said he can't tell the difference and he simply trusts the bar code. Either way, it was the only one I could get, so I didn't have much of a choice to begin with. The 6.5mm is their minimum thickness for marine birch. I'll probably regret it once I'll start carrying it around, but again, I didn't have much of a choice.

    The plywood itself has different quality sides; one side is B/B and the other one is C/D (you can find the grades online, A is top notch, D is lowest). They had about 30 sheets on hand and I insisted on picking them myself. They weren't happy about me shuffling through the stack, but with the money I was paying, I didn't really care. I think I've ended up with three good looking sheets. The ply itself has 5 layers. You can see the layers as well as the "good" and the "bad" side in the following images:



    B/B side:


    C/D side:



    Marking the sheets
    The first step involves marking all the sheets for cutting. I've only managed to mark the guide lines today. I'm doing the build alone, hence the extra accessories. I'm not sure if it will make any difference, but I've used a Class 1 tape measure when marking the lines, so I'm accurate within half a millimeter (I've even used a 0.2mm pencil lead!). I'll see if the extra precision will do me any good once I start stitching it together.



    Tomorrow, I'll draw the canoe template and if the weather holds, I should start cutting the plywood as well.

      Sep 08, 2015#2

      Didn't get as much done as I've expected since it was raining all the time, but still, could be worse.

      I've first transferred all the measurements from the plan to the plywood. Fortunately, I did a double and triple check and sure enough, I've found a couple of errors, which were easy to correct at this stage.




      For those of you that don't know, Fisher plans are designed for 4 sheets of plywood (if you feel adventurous, you mark one sheet and cut all 4 together, saving a lot of time). Anyway, the plans mention you can actually use 3 sheets as well. The problem is that you have to get creative to actually fit the extra pieces from 4 sheets down to 3 sheets. I'm not sure how others have gone about doing this, but I've used SketchUp to arrange all the pieces on the 3 sheets so that they fit nicely. After that, it's trivial to get very accurate measurements. I've printed the new plans and I've used that instead of the original Fisher plans (I'm sure you understand I can't share the SketchUp project as the design is from Fisher, I've just rearranged the pieces to fit).



      Next came actually drawing the curves between marked points. I've used a 5mm plastic cover of an electrical wire channel and I think it worked perfectly. It was just flexible enough to be bent, but stiff enough for straight lines. I've tried holding it in place with weights, but it was too awkward and the thing easily slipped out of position. I then went the old fashioned way and used nails. All the nails were in the space between individual boards, so I won't have any tiny holes on the side of the boat. I've used anything at hand to hold the plastic cover against the nails. It looks primitive, but it worked flawlessly.




      Here's a close up of the hardest part, the end curves. It's wasn't hard as such, but I wanted all of the curves to be exact on each of the four pieces. I've ended up making a perpendicular line to the other marked points and using a certain distance from the line to draw the curve. This seems to be quite consistent.




      Finally, the cutting itself. I've used a special jigsaw blade that is meant for cutting countertops (which are usually a couple of centimetres thick). Cutting through 6mm plywood was like swinging a sword against the air. Since the blade is designed to minimize any tear out, the cut was very clean and there weren't any wood burns.






      First two done, 18 more to go... I've left a little over a milimetre of wood beyond the drawn line and I'll plane that by hand later.


        Sep 09, 2015#3

        I've finished with the cutting today. It took a bit longer than I thought, but no worries.

        The last cut of the last piece on the last sheet:



        There was a surprising amount of waste material left, easily more than half of sheet. I'm not sorry at all that I've opted to go with three sheets instead of four, I think this is where you can save the most money on a project like this, especially if you're working with marine ply.


        Well, the first stage is done. Now I have to migrate everything to Germany (sorry, couldn't help myself) where I'll continue with the work. Should have another update by the end of the next week, so please check back.

        2,365333
        Admin
        2,365333

          Sep 10, 2015#4

          Looking good - do like build blogs, as there is always something new and interesting. Will deffo be watching the build as it progresses -thx for sharing.

          329

            Sep 13, 2015#5

            thanks for sharing, another watcher - lots of picks of the detail please, so we can shamelessly copy :-)
            cheers steve