Making the Seats
Mortise and tenons of seat pieces
I searched the web looking for interesting canoe seats. The nicest ones that I found were from Green Valley Boats http://www.greenval.com/seats.jpg. Fortunately, they sold plans for the seats and I ordered a set. The actual construction of the seats is very simple; just basic mortise and tenon construction. I cut the frames out of cherry and fashioned the tenons using a Japanese handsaw.
Gluing up the seat frames
The frames were glued up with epoxy.
Rough seat frames cut out
After transferring the seat pattern to each of the two seat frames, I cut out the outside of the frame with a bandsaw. The inside portion I cut with a jigsaw my dad gave me for Christmas a few years ago. I sanded the edges smooth with a drum sander.
Rough seat frames cut out
I've carved the sculpted seat frames, rough sanded them, and drilled holes for the cane. I carved the seat contour simply using a Japanese chisel and then sanded everything smooth with a palm sander.
Fixing a major goof
The next step was to cut the arms of the seat frames to fit in the bow and stern positions in the boat. The bow seat fitting worked out perfectly. I wasn't thinking when I cut the arms for the rear seat. I had the seat backwards! I had ruined the seat. Many hours went down the drain. Before making a new seat, I decided to try and see if I could fix the arms of the ruined seat. I cut a 3/4" channel underneath the arms. In this channel I'd epoxy a splint made out of madrone. I cut a dovetail joint in the pieces to make it the boo boo look better than a simple joint.
Routed channel underneath seat
Here's the channel I cut underneath the seat arms. A solid piece of madrone fits in this channel to give strength to the arms. I epoxied a splint in the channel. After it had dried, I tested the seat by putting a lot of weight on it. The repaired arm snapped -- but not at the joint. The top of the wood was good solid cherry, but the bottom portion was weak sapwood (you can see how yellow it looks compared to the darker cherry color of the top). Now what? Do I make a whole new seat?
Cut old broken frame from tenon
Before making a new seat (a lot of work), I thought I'd try and salvage the good part of the seat. Using a Japanese saw (very thin kerf), I cut away all the old wood and exposed the buried tenons. Fortunately, the tenons were still sound. Then I made a new piece of the seat frame, chiseled new mortises, glued up the frame, and finished it.
Stern seat repaired and caned
After "rebuilding" the frame and finishing it, I caned the seat with a size cane classified as "common." The cane isn't pegged nor held in with "binder" cane around the perimeter. Instead, the various loose ends are tied off underneath the seat.
Caning the bow seat
This is the bow seat at the beginning of step 5 of a 6 step process of caning. Unfortunately, I started off step 1 shifted to left by one hole and will have to cut out the cane and start over (I started caning rather late at night waiting for my daughter to get home from a dance). Fortunately, the caning process is enjoyable.