Building a flat bottomed canoe

Discussion in 'Wooden Boat Building and Restoration' started by troy2000, Jun 18, 2010.

  1. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    Very nice. Looks like the back isn't self-supporting, though.

    Did you make that?
     
  2. ancient kayaker
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    ancient kayaker aka Terry Haines

    Yep, guilty as charged! Cedar, birch ply and pine - I was going to whip up something in ply then decided to use up some of the contents of the junk box! It is mounted on a drawer slide (not visible) and the back rests on the thwart: the sliding seat allows me to change the angle of the back and even recline it. No metal other than the slide - the back pivots are maple dowelling. It's reasonably comfortable even without a cushion, I've even slept in it, but not for long! For a thwartless canoe some means of holding up the back would be needed, maybe a prop or cords. Definitely adds pizazz to the boat!
     
  3. lewisboats
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    lewisboats Obsessed Member

    what about triangulating the corners with a small clip on brace or a couple of nice curved (bent?) knees?
     
  4. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

    As promised, I added the chair photo to post #134. They weigh very little, are very cheap and are easy to clean or replace.
     
  5. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    Interesting idea. I'd have to add some boards across the legs front and back though, to distribute the weight a little. Don't want pressure points on that thin plywood bottom....

    Do you think the back and sides would get in the way of paddling?
     
  6. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    You definitely had too much fun building those.:p

    Good job, too.
     
  7. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    I saw some home-made seats somewhere with adjustable backs; I think they just drilled a series of holes in the seat rails, and stuck pins in them.
     
  8. troy2000
    Joined: Nov 2009
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    Spent the day working on an outboard for the Blue Bayeau. It's an old Elgin 2 1/2 hp, made by West Bend for Sears sometime between 1946 and 1951.

    I spent 10 hours basically taking it apart and putting it together, and finding nothing wrong with it. For example, factory specs for the vane in the water pump were .854 inches wide, with a wear allowance down to .842. I put calipers on mine, and they measured exactly .854.

    I wouldn't even have bothered with the tear-down, except that the other day I found more water than grease in the gearcase behind the prop. Looks like the gasket wasn't doing its job. But water and all, the gears had no discernible wear on them.

    I cleaned everything I could reach inside; cut and replaced gaskets, and lubed everything in sight with a little Lubriplate 105. I also packed the gearcase with it.

    The only other thing I found was a corroded mess where the original brass screen fuel filter had been, in the fuel line fitting at the bottom of the tank. I didn't like my chances of finding a replacement, so I added a glass inline filter to the fuel line. If you want to drive yourself nuts some Friday afternoon, spend it hopping from auto parts stores to hardware stores to plumbing shops and back again, looking for fittings to stick one of those filters into the middle of a 3/16" copper fuel line.

    To add insult to injury, the fittings at the fuel tank and the carburetor were flare fittings, while the fittings for the fuel shutoff valve in the middle were compression fittings. No bit deal, right? Except that I shortened one of the pieces from the wrong end, and wound up spending twenty bucks for a flaring tool, because mine is 168 miles away at home. !@#$%^&*........

    I even stuck the fuel line, shutoff valve and fuel tank in a parts washer, and did my best to get all the old varnish out of them. Hopefully, the inline filter will catch anything that shakes loose later. Normally when I'm dealing with old fuel tanks and lines, I just add a settling bowl in front of the carburetor and the Hell with it; that works every time. But this outboard is so small it would look like it had a tumor, if I did that.

    The only thing I didn't touch was the carburetor itself, except for checking to make sure the adjustments were somewhere near preliminary spec's. It's an old Tillotsen, and I'm not going to open it up unless I have to. But we have a clear path for fuel to it. The magneto is in one piece and the points properly set (didn't have to touch them, either); the spark plug is good; and I get a strong spark when I crank the little beast.

    So tomorrow after all the gasket sealers are good and dry, I'll stick the prop in a barrel of water, pour some mixed fuel into the tank, give it a few pulls and see what happens.

    Would have had pictures of all the above, except that I was at the pipeline garage at work and left the memory card for my camera back at the motor home in my laptop; it has no memory of its own. Oh well...I'll at least get some pic's of the reassembled unit tomorrow.

    By the way, the following site was a godsend; the author goes through the same engine, almost step by step. I felt sorry for him by the time I finished reading it, though. Apparently his outboard was thoroughly corroded and worn, and he had serious troubles with seized bolts snapping on him. In contrast, I didn't run into a single fastener in mine that didn't come loose meekly, with a little penetrating oil and a judicious grunt or two.

    http://www.sschapterpsa.com/ramblings/Sleeping_2.5hp_Elgin.htm
     
  9. ancient kayaker
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    ancient kayaker aka Terry Haines

    That would work but the seat folds down at present!

    Damn. I've been caught:!:

    (boat build time: 35 hours approx. Seat build time: 12 hours)
     
  10. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

    I paddle ok with it and get where I am going. If you find them unsatisfactory they are like I said, very cheap. The chair arms are lower than the gunwales so they are out of the way. My canoe shows no wear from the plastic leg stumps. 4 heavy rubber pads would probably do the trick if you felt the need.
     
  11. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    Re: the little Elgin. Came up with good news/bad news/'that's OK, I can handle it' news.

    I mixed up some fuel, poured it into the tank, opened the fuel valve and let everything set for an hour. Then I tried starting it.

    Good News: it fired on the first pull, and started on the second.

    Bad News: it only ran about 30 seconds before dying. No matter what I fiddled with, the best I got out of it in umpteen tries was about a minute of running.

    That's OK News: I figured the parts of the old brass filter screen I never found are probably in the fuel line somewhere. So I pulled the stem of the fuel shutoff valve, and sure enough: there was only only a slow drip of fuel, plus some gritty green stuff. That means the intake side of the valve is probably clogged with old filter debris. If not, the 3/16" line upstream, or the fitting attaching the line to the gas tank, surely is.

    Hopefully I'll find time this afternoon to take the valve and fuel line loose, and clean them out thoroughly. And I'm patting myself on the back for being clever enough to have installed the new fuel filter beyond the shut-off valve, instead of before it.

    That was from habit. Any time I'm fiddling with something that's been setting around for a while, I install a filter or a settling bowl as close to the carburetor as possible. I always assume the old lines are full of crud that will shake loose eventually.
     
  12. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    I might give that a try, at least until I get the time and ambition to do something fancier. Wonder if WallyWorld carries them in blue?:)
     
  13. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

    Krylon makes blue aerosol paint for spraying onto plastic. Try Home Depot or Lowe's.
     
  14. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    Eh... the boat's blue and white anyway; I'll probably just get the white ones. No point getting fancy with a simple idea.
     

  15. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

    Simple ideas are usually the best ones.
     
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