Building the Sassafras 14 Canoe

Building A Stitch And Glue Canoe

I am not a boat builder by profession. But since January 2008 I have been building a Sassafras 14 canoe using plans from Chesapeake Light Craft. The 14 foot plans are no longer available on their site (only the 12 and 16 foot), I used the plans and instructions found in Chris Kulczycki's book - The Canoe Shop.


It has been a long process, involving many "breaks" from building while life interferred. But it has not been difficult. When I get the urge or have some free time I head out to my garage and do a little more work. The latest goal is to complete the canoe in time for the first trip of 2012!

 

Lofting.

I used corrected plans from a member of the clcboats.com Boatbuilders Forum and instructions from the book.

   

Batton to mark plank curves.

A thin section of wood and some old tobacco cans were great for marking the plank curves. You can see the trouble I had with my plywood getting wavy, too long in the back of the truck on the way home I think.
   
 

First plank cut out.

The first sheet of plywood only produced five planks (the templates for the rest). I was able to get all the planks (20) from only two more sheets. I decided to keep the first set in case I wanted to build another canoe.
   
 

All planks cut

There are five planks rough cut to size, four of each and the reusable template.
   
 

Sanding edges of planks fair.

I stacked the planks and used a belt sander to make the planks. Faster and easier than using a hand plane. The only trick is to watch that the edge stays perpendicular to the plank so all the pieces are the same shape and size.

   
 

Making the scarfs.

Stagger the ends of the planks to make the scarfs. Again I used the belt sander, a bit of practice and everything went well. The layers within the plywood really helps you see if you are doing it evenly along the width of the plank.

   
 

Gluing the half planks together.

I laid out the planks on the floor and epoxied the scarfs together. Check your measurements carefully and then look to see that it looks fair.
   
 

Cutting the rabbits in the plank edges.

I used a rabbitting bit in my router instead of a hand plane again. If I had a good plane I might have done this by hand, but it was fast and easy with the router.
   
 

Cutting the gains.

I bought a miniature chisel plane from Lee Valley for cutting the gains. It worked quite well.
   
 

Drilling holes for wire ties.

A simple template for drilling the holes for the wire ties, about six inches apart. Support the plank underneath or you will get some tear out.
   
 

Wiring the planks together.

Starting with the #1 planks I began wiring things together. I used leftover electrical wiring (14/2) because I had lots of short pieces.
   
 

More planks wired together.

The planks are a little unwieldy because of their length. I used three sawhorses to support the canoe at this point.
   
 

Ends pulled together, looking like a canoe now.

It was a little tricky bring the ends together. I had to get another set of hands and a few clamps. You need to be careful not to split the wood at the gains when you are pulling the top plank into the bottom one. You can see my ends are not lining up. There seems to be a known error with the length of plank #3 and my template for the tip of plank #1 seems to have been a little longer than it should have been.
   
 

Ends wired and started shaping.

I took my belt sander to the ends to help smooth things out after I had aligned the planks as best I could.