Adding the Trim
Added slotted inwales
After more sanding on the outside and filling with epoxy and more sanding, the outside is very smooth. I left the inside rough and "toothed" with only two coats of epoxy. The next step was making gunwales and inwales. Since the canoe is 16' long, I needed lumber at least 16' long in order to fashion one-piece gunwales. I called around to several hardwood supply companies and none of them carried anything over 14'. I decided to splice two shorter pieces of cherry to make pieces long enough for the canoe. Surprisingly, this was fairly labor intensive and time consuming. In retrospect, I should have searched more carefully on the internet or called some boat supply places. On the other hand, I've pretty much made everything by hand and the gunwales proved to be no different. I spent time trying to decide whether to make slotted inwales or not. Searching the web, I found arguments for slots and without. I like the look of slotted inwales and so I cut them with the use of a spiral bit with a router. In this picture, you can see the slotted inwales epoxied and screwed (with stainless steel screws) to the inside edge of the canoe. The two long pieces resting in the canoe are the gunwales to be attached later.
Slotted inwales
Here's a close-up of the slotted inwales. After the gunwales are attached, everything will be sanded smooth and all the excess glue will be cleaned up.
Cherry and walnut decks
On Thanksgiving Day 2002, I glued up these cherry and walnut decks. I looked for some "figured" cherry in my stash of wood. It turns out, a cut-off piece from building some bookshelves was just the right length and had nearly perfect grain for making these decks. The day after Thanksgiving, I cut out the decks and carved the tops so that they're convex and epoxied and screwed them into place.
Carving the center thwart or yoke
After installing the inwales and decks, the next step was to build the center thwart or yoke. The yoke adds much structural strength to the canoe and also provides a convenient way to carry the canoe on your shoulders as you portage the canoe between lakes or from the car to a river. I searched the web for good examples of a yoke. The best example that I could find was here: http://216.247.220.14/cglad/canoe/canoe13.htm. Even better was the fact that the canoe builder left a link to the yoke pattern: http://www.canoebuilding.com/usr/articles/Yoke/yoke_template.htm. Finally, the same canoe builder kindly left detailed pictures and measurements of the carved yoke: http://216.247.220.14/cglad/canoe/yokedetail.htm. I loved the looked of the carved yoke because it looks like it's just itching to be carried on a person's shoulders.
Using the template, I cut the yoke out of a piece of cherry with an interesting grain pattern. I almost bought a carving chisel before I remembered my wife the crafter has a little-used power carver. Using the carver, I was able to quickly remove a lot of the waste wood out of the concave portion of the yoke.
Smoothing the yoke
Using a convex-bladed spokeshave, I was able to easily carve out the concave portions of the yoke. Then I used a scraper (the flat tool above the spokeshave) to smooth the whole yoke.
More views of the yoke
Attaching the gunwales
The cherry gunwales are fastened to the outside of the canoe with epoxy and screws. The screws are countersunk and hidden behind walnut plugs..