Finally ready :)

Today was the day when i made my Solo Day completely finished.
Final adjusting and mounting the seat. Final weight check showed 12.53 kg (27.6 lbs)
Next step is to put it in a lake.

Final weight.

Seat mounted

Nice interior

Next stop - the lake

Outside ready

Outside ready for now. 3 layers of clearcoat. Maybe I will add extra coat later, but now I want to get the canoe out on the water. Tonight I will give the decks and gunnels an extra grinding and a finishing layer of clear coat.

Good enough

OK for now

Time for clear coat

Finally it is time for the clear coat. I will start with 3 layers on both in- and outside.

Ready for clear coat

Weight check. 12.22 kg (27lbs)

Inside and decks ready

Outside next

Securing inner and outer gunnel

As I have all these holes in the inner gunnel it is difficult to seal the upper edge of the hull with epoxy and glassfibre. This means that there will be a risk that the inner and outer laminate can separate if  I hit something hard at the gunnel. Solution is to glue hardwood dowels that connects the both gunnels.
The hole is sealed with a cedar plug to get a nice look.

A lot of holes drilled. First a 5 mm deep 8mm hole for the cedar plug.
Then continue with a 30mm deep 6mm hole for the hardwood dowel

Hole ready

Hole filled with glue and hardwood dowel inserted

Hardwood dowel fully inserted

Cedar plug in place

Glue dried

Plug trimmed and grinded

Cleats for the seat

Mounted the cleats for the seat today. Decided to make 4 small cleats instead of a horizontal bar that is the most common. Little more work, but I think it looks nice and probably a little less weight added.

Cleats ready to mount

After glueing them in place I added a layer of glassfibre and epoxy

Finished sanding - looks OK

Testing the seat. Perfect fit.

Decks and thwart i place

Today i glued the decks and thwart. Now it is just the cleats for the seat left to make.

Deck adjusted ready to glue

Deck adjusted ready to glue

Glued

Glued

 

Thwart adjusted and glued in place

Preparing for seat and thwart

Preparing for the seat and thwart. Calculated the height of the seat and made temporary cleats to use as distance from gunnel to top of seat. Seems that this was exactly right height, so now I just have to mount the permanent cleats under the seat arms.

Test mount of seat and thwart

Measurements seems OK. just add the cleats for the seat and trim the thwart



Made a weight check. 11.65 kg bare hull and 12,3kg  with seat and thwart added.

Mounting outer gunnels

Mounting of the outer gunnels is straight forward. Add glue and clamp up.

A lot of clamps again

The outer gunnel I tapered from 12 mm to 6 mm. The taper is 1,5 m (5") long

The bow looks nice

Mounting inner gunnels

Time to mount the inner gunnels. Thickened epoxy and a -lot- of clamps.

Ready to glue

Holes in detail

A lot of clamps



Looks OK

Making decks

I make the decks by glueing together a number of strips. They are formed to follow the curve of the hull.  Not much curve, but it looks better than straight strips. The deck is made in 2 halves that is glued together.

Laminating half of the deck

The two halves glued together and grinded a radius for the decorative strip

Laminating the decorative strip

Mounting the decorative strip on the deck

Decks ready to mount

Makeing holes in inner gunnels

Time to make the inside gunnels ready. I go for the traditional design with a lot of holes and a small for and aft deck. I make the holes with a router instead of glueing a lot of cleats.

 

Clear marks where to cut



Both gunnels marked. Ready to cut holes.

12 mm router bit and 25 mm gunnel makes a nice look.

Preliminary fit of gunnels and marking for the decks.

Seat ready

Got some spare time, so I made the seat. 11 layers of  red cedar to get the right shape. Glued and pressed in a jig with right profile. Grinded a slot to attach the cane.

500g (18 oz) seat is OK

Inside gunnel fitted

Today I got the inside gunwhale temporarily fitted. Precision job as the angles and the length must be exact. Turned out OK.

Aligning the gunwhales in front

A board form with right form is temporarily fitted to keep the right angle of the bow.

Bow - Looks OK

Stem. Good enough