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 Post subject: Stitch and Glue Canoe
PostPosted: October 28th, 2007, 2:29 pm 
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Location: Ajax, ON
I've been thinking of building a stitch and glue canoe. Does anyone have any good ideas or recommendations about design sources. Or would designing my own be a better idea? I have been trying out some design ideas using the Hulls program, trying to get panels that would be easy to cut and assemble, as well as use material economically. Does anyone have any experience in this area?

Dave

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PostPosted: October 28th, 2007, 7:22 pm 
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There is/was a fella around here that did his own canoe(s) by the name of
Madkanuist ( or Lloyd Bowles ). I don't think I've seen him post for some time now, prolly enjoying the retirement life :wink:

Not sure, but maybe someone who's heard from him might chime in or have their own thoughts on boat building.

All the best,

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PostPosted: October 29th, 2007, 9:09 am 
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Location: Bancroft, Ontario Canada
IIRC, Green Valley and Noah's had S&G canoe plans, the Osprey was available in S&G and maybe others... there's email addresses at the websites.

www.noahsmarine.com

www.greenval.com

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PostPosted: October 29th, 2007, 10:33 am 
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Location: Big Flats, New York USA
Lloyd built the Osprey II S&G offered by Green Valley. Talking with Lloyd, it sounded like he really enjoyed the performance. Funny though, this doesn't appear to be offered on the website any longer.

Maybe contacing Green Valley about the status of their stitch and glue plans would be worthwhile.

Tony


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PostPosted: November 4th, 2007, 11:04 pm 
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Location: Saskatoon
Waters Dancing out of Edmonton has 2 S&G canoes, the Explorer 16 & the North Lakes 19.

CLC has one or two.
Pygmy Boats has one.

Also, there is the book The Canoe Shop By Chris Kulczycki of CLC which is about S&G canoe building.

Cheers,
Bryan

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PostPosted: November 4th, 2007, 11:06 pm 
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Tonycc wrote:
... Funny though, this doesn't appear to be offered on the website any longer.


I was wondering about that and noticed it a little while ago. I've heard good things about that canoe so was suprised when I couldn't find it on the web page.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: November 5th, 2007, 8:04 am 
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S&G designs require the building of a prototype before offering the plans to assure the boat will assemble easily and properly. Martin Step did not have time to build one and so he took the boats off the web site since he did not feel he could provide good support.

To fill the gap I am now working with Noah's to develop some S&G boats that assemble easily, have good performance and look good.

The first boat is a 16' Sea Kayak and it practically assembled itself. Will test paddle next week.

I won't go into a long dissertation about the challenges of designing an S&G boat beyond saying that to get an idea you can try doing a scale model using cardboard. Plywood just doesn't like to bend around compound curves so you have to create a shape that has compound hull curvature but is made from panels that only bend in one direction. A lot of what looks like it will work in the drawing stage is a pure pain in the butt when building. The original S&G Osprey was a good example. Yes, it could be built but it was too difficult for any but the most dedicated builder.

if all goes well Noah's should have a range of kits for kayaks and canoes by mid-spring next year

If you are in a real hurry to build you might be able to ask Michael Vermouth
at The Newfound Woodworks, Inc., 67 Danforth Brook Road,Bristol, NH 03222,
603-744-6872, http://www.newfound.com, If he will sell you a kit.

We developed a modified Osprey for one of his customers that went together nicely. Not sure if he is going to offer it as a standard item but he does have all the needed information to create a kit.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: November 13th, 2007, 11:05 pm 
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Location: Ajax, ON
Thanks for the input Mr. Winters. I have read much about you and your abilities as a designers. Fame travels well.

As I mentioned, I have played with Hulls and tried some different design parameters. I have tried to reduce twist in individual panels. I have tried to keep the curve of each panel to a minimum so I could possibly get everything out of two sheets of plywood. I have thrown both of those parameters out the window to try to reproduce some design I have seen elsewhere, to get as much a canoe shape as possible. Even at this basic level, I have learned to have a huge ammount of respect for designers. I havn't even begun to start to analyze righting moments, displacement, drag coefficients, or any of the other things that real designers do. But I must say that it is fun to play, and maybe I'll stumble upon somthing sometime.

I recently procurred some poster paper and I plan on trying that approach as well. I might just build a 1'=1" or 1'=2" model set of frames and try to loft and plank it with the cardboard until I find a set of lofted planks that seem to work well. Right now there are unfortunately a number other life projects that are taking priority. Once they are out of the way, I'll start on this project. But I am always open to more info.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: November 14th, 2007, 7:05 am 
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As you will have discovered the hard part is wrapping the panels around the hull to get a shape you want without twisting the panels more than they can stand.

Here are some hints that you might try.

For building a scale half model (you don't need a full model to see if your ideas work) you decide how long you want to make it and build a wood "L" shaped building box with the height equal to your desired height and width on the bottom equal to the half beam of your boat. The vertical part of the "L" is the centerline of the boat.


Next make a midships section of the shape you like. It is best to make this of wood and glue it in place so it is stable.

You will not need any other sections. Now wrap a piece of good quality construction paper or cardboard around the frame as the side panel and cut it to end on the centerline where you like it. Now trim the first chine so it is a smooth curve and lays on the frame properly. You can glue this to the frame. Now wrap another piece around the frame for the first chine panel and trim it until it lays tightly against the edge of the side panel and then trim the bottom edge to create a fair line so that the panel lays flat against the frame and btts against the centerline.

You can do this with as many chine panes as you like. If you glue the panels to the midships section you can experiment with twist being careful to make sure the panel edges meet.

This is actually a lot of fun to see how much you can twist the panels and still get them to meet. If they won't meet naturally without forcing then the boat will be difficult or impossible to build. If you are very clever you can actually make panels that do curve in two directions by making the panels conical but that is a real struggle until you have got a good feel for it.

Do not worry about getting the right hydrostatic figures. Your boat will probably be just fine no matter what because wood doesn't like to be tortured and bad boats are the result of designers trying to manipulate the shape for some imagined advantage. Let the wood seek its natural curvature and it will turn out pretty nice so long as your basic dimensions are reasonable (not to fat, too narrow or to deep).



e Ou can twist the

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: November 14th, 2007, 11:03 pm 
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Joined: November 11th, 2007, 9:05 am
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John custom designed a stitch & glue canoe for me several years ago. He paddled it, listened to my construction comments & designed the Osprey II. So I built it too.

I built the first canoe on a strongback, using external frames. More on those later. It has has 5 panel shapes - bottom, chine, lower side, upper side, shear (2 of each). I fudged panel shapes somewhat to eliminate long narrow ends that I thought would be hard to stitch together & to confine the tumblehomed chine panels to the middle 3rd of the boat. The bottom panels needed a fair bit of twist at the ends but were manageable & look good. The upper & lower panels are only slightly angled to each other & took several jigs to keep the angle consistent between frames. My external frames got in the way for working on the inside & also prevented me from using a straightedge on the outside to check the fairness of the hull. In the end it all worked out ok.

John simplified the design for the Osprey II. It has 4 panel shapes - bottom, chine, side, shear. The bottom panels are a bit narrower at the ends & need much less twist. The chine panels don't come to a point & are easy to stitch into place. I followed the plans this time, or a least I thought I did. :-?

I built the Osprey II without a strongback & added internal frames only after stitching the panels together with copper wire. It went together much more easily than it's predecessor. The only problem was that the frames didn't fit well & the canoe had more rocker than the plans showed. There was no way I could force it into line even though it was just wired together. So I accepted it & continued. A strongback may have prevented this problem or may have just made it obvious earlier.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: November 15th, 2007, 9:39 pm 
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Joined: September 3rd, 2007, 11:17 pm
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Location: Ajax, ON
Again, thank you for the advice! I will have to play with the designs and see what happens. I like your suggestion, John, of trying the design on a half hull. But I was thinking of trying something akin to the methods used by Swallowboats where the centre section of the hull is actually one piece of ply, with (for lack of a better term, I will borrow one of my wife's sewing terms) darts cut into the ends. This results in a nice round section in the centre of the hull and the chines beginning about two or three feet from the centre of the hull. Swallowboats uses this technique but instead of chines uses the darted section to imitate lapstrake construction. The advantage here is that when paddling solo, the centre section of the boat will be fairly smooth and pleasant to find a good kneeling position. But it probably will involve quite a bit of pulling to get the plywood to curve nicely, and a couple of strong thwarts to help hold shape. To test this technique, I feel a full model would prove the most useful, providing in essence four half hull ends to test different darting methods.

Another method I have seen is the opposite, where the ends of the boat are one piece and the chines start about three feet in from the ends. The bow section will then twist to form the garboards with chines forming the sides and shear. This may be a viable option if creating scarfing techniques were employed to produce the necessary planks. The entry profile remains nice sharp and sleek, and with some torture, the transition to round bottomed hull could be faired nicely. But this method does require some more torture by the looks of it.

Either way, the simplest may be just to form panels and stitch the whole shebang together in traditional stitch and glue fashion.

I believe I have seen pictures of the plywood Osprey II. If I recall correctly, it was on the Green Valley website. It was a nice looking canoe to say the least. It very well may have been that article about the stitch and glue Osprey that got me thinking about plywood canoes in the first place.

Dave

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: November 16th, 2007, 11:40 am 
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Joined: November 11th, 2007, 9:05 am
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doftya wrote:
I believe I have seen pictures of the plywood Osprey II. If I recall correctly, it was on the Green Valley website. It was a nice looking canoe to say the least. It very well may have been that article about the stitch and glue Osprey that got me thinking about plywood canoes in the first place.
Dave


It was on the Green Valley website & I used to have an article & photos of it's construction on my own webpage. The page is gone now, but drop me a private message if you want photos.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: November 24th, 2007, 9:29 am 
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Joined: September 20th, 2006, 9:22 am
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Location: Den Haag, The Netherlands
Hi,

a couple of months ago I,ve built the Osprey II S&G. It came out as a very nice solo-canoe wich I can recommend.
However the plans of Martin Step showed some serious flaws.
When I started the build I also noticed the page was removed from the website, I wondered why. I soon found out.

I have used a strongback with stations and in that manner I managed to maintain the designed rockerline, although the bow and stern section are now narrower than in the original design. I had to modify the panels because of the mistakes in the plans.
John Winters helped me very good with that.

I was rather disappointed that I baught drawings of Martin Step with flaws in them because I wanted a quick build. Now it took me a lot more work.
When I asked him why the page was removed from the website he didn,t tel me that, he just said I shoold put the panels together with ducttape and then try to solve the problem.

Altogether the result is a very nice solo-canoe; lightweight 17 KG.

BTW I told John Winters I could send him my modified offsets but he showed not much interest.

I have got a lot of pictures of the build wich I woold like to post, but I can,t find how on the website. Can you help me ?

Cheers,

Ewout, from the Netherlands.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: November 24th, 2007, 12:09 pm 
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Ewout wrote:
I have got a lot of pictures of the build wich I woold like to post, but I can,t find how on the website. Can you help me ?


Sorry to hear about your negative experience with your boat. Seems they should have been more apologetic if nothing else.

As far as photos, you need to get an account with a photo hosting website and upload your photos there first, then link them to this website.

I use Photobucket. It is OK and best of all it's free. Just register and then follow the tutorials. Look forward to seeing your photos. :D

http://photobucket.com/register.php?link=topmenu

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: November 27th, 2007, 3:13 pm 
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Location: Den Haag, The Netherlands
Hi,

thanks battenkiler.

You can click on the images to enlarge.

Here is my Osprey II stitch and glue solocanoe.

At first the bottompanels bended down instead of upwards. And there was a gap between them except in the center of the canoe.
I tried to solve it by moving the stations closer together, but then I realised that this woold increase the rocker. I didn,t want that because that woold influence the performance a lot. So I moved them back in the original positions.
I changed the centerpanels in the bow and stern, now they were bending upwards. A small gap remained wich I filled with Epoxi/ sawdust/choppedglassfibers. Then I had to narrow the folowing panels in order to close the bow and stern, and to maintain a nicely 'rounded' shape.

I also 'invented' a way to install the gunwale easily, see detail photo.
I didn,t make an outer gunwale while the stifness of the hull with the chines, in combination with the glued innergunwale were plenty strong enough. I wanted to save some weighth and I like the look better.

In the pictures there is a kneelingthwart. I like to keep it simple.
But later I installed a second thwart, one inch behind this one so I can also change to sitting.

Now the canoe weighs 17 Kg, so when I portage not to far I carry it just on one shoulder, in my other hand my daypack and paddle.
I realy like that.

So far I,m very satisfied with the performance, and so are some very experienced canoers who have tried it.

I,m thinking of making a cover in the way of how Cooke Custom Sewing makes them.

Feel free to ask if you want something to know about the build.

Cheers,

Ewout.

Image
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Next to the Osprey Stripper, also designed by john Winters.
The stripper is built by the vd Hoven brothers, who you also know from this forum.

Image
Image

At first these panels bended down.

Image

A gap remained.

Image
Image
Image

The result is that the Canoe is about an inch narrower then designed, here visible by the space between the stations and the hull.

Image

But the rockerline remains intact.

Image

Glued between the stitches.

Image
Image

When you are sure your panels are acurate it is posible to build without stations, but they are very handy to use clamps on and to control the shape of the canoe.
Here i,m gluing in the gunwale.

[Image

My topsecret way of routering the outside of the gunwale, so it fits everywere automaticly on the toppanel, and has room for a nice Epoxi-fillet.
( lets keep this between us )
Later I glued a small block of wood between them.

Image

This is before paint. I already laminated the outside with 165 grams/m2 glassfiber. And the inside ( only the bottom ) with 80 grams/m² glass.
In this way the bottom is a sandwich-construction and a lot stiffer.

I used cheaper 4 mm buildingplywood. This is glued with waterrisistant glue, but its not expensive marineply, and lighter in weighth.


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