Skin on Frame Canoe

 I started working at a canoe shop this spring, and while I was brushing up on the technical aspects of canoes to better be able to articulate the merits of various canoes with customers, I stumbled upon the skin on frame building style.  Naturally, I decided that I should make one.  I have a bad habit of losing steam partway through a project and never finishing it, but hopefully this is simple enough in the construction that I can keep chugging along to the end.  So far I've purchased 5 furring strips from the lumberyard, a couple of which I've ripped down into gunwales and a keelson.  I've "dry bent" the two ends by ripping many 1/8" strips and laminating them with glue around a simple plywood form.  I may do the same thing for the ribs, it may be easier for me than building a steam box and toying with that.

 Above you can see the gluing of the scarf joint that joins the keelson (the strip that runs down the center of the canoe) to one of the ends.  It's a simple 5" long lap joint.  After the glue is dry I will probably drill a couple of small dowels into it for reinforcement, and maybe whip the whole joint with cord.

Below is the selection of tools I used to make the scarf joint.  This project so far has required very few tools, which is good for beginning boat builders looking to avoid a huge investment right away.

This is my simple form.  It was originally a shelf inside one of those recycled canoe shelves made from the ends of busted canoes.  The shelf didn't fit right, so I rescued it from the trash and drilled a couple of holes.  I decided I was pleased with the curve, so simply used it as-is.  I'll make a different form for the ribs since this is for a 38" wide Old Town, and my boat is going to be 32" at the widest.

Portable Woodworking

I bought this cheap Ryobi table saw a few weeks ago.  I've been thinking about some sort of power saw ever since I broke that little bandsaw I got last year.  A casted part simply snapped on me, and replacement parts don't exist for that model.  A real shame.  So I finally broke down and picked up this table saw, for now it will do what I need.  I am mostly using it for long rips, such as ripping stock to width.  I've also used it to cut the shoulders of a couple of cross grain rabbets on some wide boards (12") that I couldn't easily do with my handsaw.

The stock blade that came with it is far inferior to the Diablo blade I picked up for the saw.  The Diablo blade is thinner, which helps to make up for the less-than-monstrous motor, and it feels like the Diablo blade has less vibration and tendency to jam.  Overall an inexpensive upgrade that makes this saw cut noticeably better.

Here are a couple of pictures of my portable planing beam I've been toying with.  The first picture here is it on the floor, without any cleats to raise it.  It's not terribly comfortable to use, I think cleats will help some.  It would also help to have some sort of stick to brace it against a wall so that I don't have to hold it in place with my foot.

I'm also trying it on horses, this time with a stick keeping it off of the wall so I can just focus on planing.  The trouble with this setup for edge planing is that if the opposite edge isn't square, it's hard to make the top edge square.  I may try getting a couple of wood screw clamps to hold the two faces of the board, so it's held perpendicular to the workbench.

I tried attaching this cheap little vise, looks like it was originally designed for a kid's bench, and it worked okay but it doesn't have a ton of holding power.  Maybe some grippy cloth in the jaws would help.  For now I pulled it back off.

Just for fun, I moved my planing plank inside to the kitchen sink and glued up some legs.  

I'm having a bit of trouble getting my new Japanese plane to cut a straight line, it seems to like to make hollows.  I need to take a closer look at the sole, maybe it's not quite as relieved in the right places as I thought.  Anyways, I'm not giving up on my #8 jointer just yet. 

Some Small Projects

A friend of mine recently moved into her own place, and has been furnishing it with free and cheap furniture.  This particular piece was originally picked up at the dump for firewood.  After taking a look at the solid Maple top and halfway decent construction underneath, I suggested instead refinishing.  For about an hour of work and $2 of paint (a pint of mis-tint from Ace Hardware), the table looks much better.  Good enough to go into the living room, in fact.  I simply planed the top down a little, taking off the old finish and most of the grime.  As you can see, I didn't want to go deep enough to totally remove that ugly stain, but it's significantly minimized at least.  Then I ragged on a few coats of Formby's tung oil finish and painted the base.  Not perfect, but good enough for now.

This past weekend I took some time off work and headed up to Holyoke, MA to run in the 7 Sisters Trail Race, a 12 mile (3700 feet elevation gain) trail race on some rocky, rooty, and generally tough trails.  Three days later, my legs still feel as though they've been beat with hammers.  I'm looking forward to getting ready for the mile and 5k races coming later this summer.

As I'm spending more time bouncing around between a few locations on a weekly or daily basis (and the weather is warming up so when I get the time to work wood, I want to be doing it outside), I'm trying to get my whole woodworking kit smaller and more portable.  For a while I was trying to work out a portable work bench solution (the Close Grain blog has a great write-up on this), but I've since abandoned that idea and have been studying Japanese methods.  Below you can see my solution at the moment.  This is a planing beam made from a solid Red Oak plank that used to be a mantle in a house I worked on last summer.  They didn't notice it missing, but I took their reading glasses too.

I planed the top flat and removed a little twist from it.  I'm thinking about adding cleats or feet for use on the floor, and alternatively I set it on a pair of horses to bring it to standing height.  The two incomplete holes in the right are for sliding planing stops.  It's about 4 feet long and maybe 10 inches wide.  You can see some stains on the left from where I used the far end as a sharpening station.

I have been reading up on and have been wanting to try a Japanese plane for a while, so I finally ordered the cheapest one from Japan Woodworker in California.  It arrived a few days ago, and I put it to use.  I was pleasantly surprised to find the body pretty much ready to use right away, with the area behind the blade relieved, the sole in wind, and a slight hollow scraped in the appropriate place.  Unfortunately, while flattening the blade I apparently removed too much metal so that now the blade sticks out too far when inserted.  For now I'm simply using the chipbreaker as a wedge to hold the blade in place much like a western wood bodied plane.  Eventually I may glue some paper shims into the blade bed to fix the issue.  I need to sharpen the blade some more, but so far it cuts very well, and I am enjoying using it.

As time permits, I plan on writing more about a portable woodworking setup in the future.  My goal is to fit as much functionality and versatility as possible into the smallest, most portable setup.

TFG NE Gathering

 This past weekend was the Timber Frame Guild's North East Gathering.  It was hosted by Garland Mill in Lancaster, NH.  The venue was terrific, featuring a fully functioning water powered, belt driven mill that had saws for milling boards, milling the edges, and cutting to length.  The scenery was also incredibly beautiful, as you can see in the pictures.

Because my car is dead right now, I took a train into Boston and met up with my friend Emma and her dad, and we all drove up to Lancaster.  Saturday morning we were treated to a wonderful breakfast, including bagels cut on the shop's bandsaw.  The main events of the day were a talk presenting load considerations when designing a timber frame structure, followed by either scribing a small trailside shelter or a guided tour or a historic barn nearby.  I decided to stick around for the scribing workshop, which began with mapping out a scribing floor.

At the Chester bridge project that I worked on, we did not use a scribing floor or any other similar locating techniques, instead measuring diagonals and pulling off of reference points to locate our timbers in the lay-ups.  In this case, however, we had the luxury of a scribing floor built before hand.  This floor is level and flat, and has the full scale blue print for the East bent drawn onto it using points and chalk lines.  Using this floor, putting the timbers into position is quick and easy.  All that needs to be done is line the timbers up over the lines on the floor using plumb lines, no math or checking diagonals or anything else necessary. 

Another bent was laid-up in the workshop at the mill, with a map drawn on the floor in there.

 Because I was traveling by train, I had to keep my toolkit fairly small and light, as well as innocuous.  I assembled what I believe to be a fairly comprehensive but compact kit.  It all fits in a zipped bag that came with a Craftsman reciprocating saw.

I'm missing a couple of tools in my kit.  I still need a good plumb.  This past weekend I ended up using a rock tied to a string.  It worked, but it wasn't ideal.  I would also like to get a pair of trammel points, as it could make scribing a small amount faster.  It would be nice to have a chalk line or two in addition to my ink line.

With very few additions to this tool kit, I could build anything from a dovetailed box with a frame and panel lid to a house, given some time.  The biggest trick would be working out solid holding methods for working smaller pieces without a workbench (as is necessary if traveling with a toolkit).  Toshio Odate's book on Japanese Tools and Their Use helps to solve this issue.

Spoon Carving Video

Finally got that video I mentioned about spoon carving up.  I was having some trouble with youtube, but it's solved now.

When It Rains

The trouble with working in an outdoor "shop" as I prefer to do in the summer is that it's hard to get much done when it rains.  I could buy one of those cheap pop up tents, to keep the sun and rain off, but that just doesn't appeal to me that much.  And it's not critical that I can keep working on my little projects day in and out, since they're not making me any money.

So, because I have no pictures and only unedited video of the thing I've been working on the last few days, here is a great video of (I believe) Swedish woodworking in the late twenties: Link  This includes a clog maker, spoon carver, and chair makers.  They all work with a great deal of efficiency and precision, and with a fairly small tool kit.  Enjoy!

Finishing Up

Sorry for the gap in posting.  We started to get down to the wire, working upwards of 12 hours each day, and I didn't have the energy or the particular inclination to get on to post.  So I'm going to put up the last few days in one post.

We assembled one truss, got it upright and stabilized, then assembled and righted the other truss.  The trick to these was making sure they went up on rollers on the timber track that some of the crew constructed earlier in the week.  Once they were both up, we could install the tie beams with the knee braces, install the floor joists and decking, and finally install the rafters.  We got the roof sheathed in 1x, and got some good bracing in place for the locals that will roof the bridge.  All of this done, the riggers Grigg 2 and Grigg 3 prepared to roll the bridge over the falseworks and drop it in place.  Stable on the rollers and rigged up to a Tirfor, a large winch-like device, it slowly crawled into place.  It was jacked up, the falseworks removed (the timbers from which became a raft and a log rolling game for me and a few others), and it was settled into place on some Black Locust blocks.

My sharpening setup that I kept in my toolbox.  A 6x2" 220/600 grit DMT, and a two sided strop with black and green compound.  With a little spit or a dribble from my water bottle, this system allowed me to quickly and easily keep the edges on my tools sharp without having to walk back to the sharpening station at the other end of the site.

Cancelling the wind in a stick of timber using framing squares as winding sticks.

Will Truax, professional bridgewright, trimming a joint with a Gransfors forest axe.

This young man jumped right into planing, using my Stanley #8 with no problems.  He both pushed and pulled it, not seeming to have a preference.

Baron mean-mugging while trimming the roof sheathing.

My new friend Emma having fun with the camera.

Consulting with Bruce.

Grigg 2, the senior rigger.

Trimming decking made of 8/4 White Oak.

Joel McCarty, executive director of The Timber Framer's Guild, looking on.

Pulling the bridge into place.

Pirates trying to capsize my raft on Wason Pond.  Below, a spoon I carved in small increments in between the three primary activities: working, eating, and sleeping.  It's made from a hunk of White Birch I got from Dick Lewis, the sawyer that cut all the timber for the bridge.  I think it might be my favorite spoon that I've carved.

Cutting!

Today I moved up to the cutting tent following the pieces that we laid out, and began cutting.  Many of these joints on the bridge need to be really precise because of the huge forces being exerted on them, so the cutting needs to be very precise.  All of our cuts are knifed along the drawn lines, and then I ran my saw right down the line.  Occasionally the saw (I'm using Japanese saws) would wander a bit in some of the deeper cuts, and I would have a belly on the face to chisel or plane flat. 

My cutting was periodically interrupted for the sake of moving some of the larger timbers for the second lay up, as well as for the false works (aka cribbing or trestles) that we will use to move the bridge in to place.

This is Bruce drilling some holes with a precise jig he built earlier.  These holes need to be pretty spot on to line up with the corresponding points on the top of the bridge.  These will hold the tension rods that connect the top and bottom chords, which are the long single sticks that run along the top and bottom of the truss.

Baron enjoying the big square mortise machine.

Me using my new saw to cut a joint, and the pile of sticks with completed joinery.

This evening I took some time and roughed out a couple of spoons from an Apple tree that we trimmed when setting up cutting stations.