Gluing Up the Gunwales and Stringers

Tools

The tools we've used have followed a progression from left to right with the levels most important at the start to make sure that the station molds and stanchions all would sit in a parallel set of planes and give the canoes a symmetrical shape.

We used the glue guns to anchor cleats to the cardboard and temporarily set the stems on the center line of the strong backs. We also use them for many small tasks like glueing scraps of wood together as jigs. The plastic bag just above the glue guns holds bandages and first aid. 

At the far right, you can see part of one of the eight plans we have posted around the studio so each builder can check the details and building instructions. A bulletin board holds pictures of finish details from previously built skin on frame canoes.

We put these pictures from Tom Loeser's sculpture exhibit "Flotilla" up on the board as a cautionary reminder. 

Tom actually built these sculptures by taking Platt Monfort's designs and shifting the stations so that the boats would bend and curve. We know that if we don't get the molds straight and true, we could easily build a boat that keeps turning left.

At the strong backs

Each builder has a mat knife and two bins, one with zip or cable ties and one with "clamp its," an ingenious wire clamp that Platt Monfort invented to help in holding parts together while gluing. They can be easily adjusted so that you can control the pressure while gluing. Too much pressure from a clamp, the problem with spring clamps, and you can squeeze all the glue out of the joint. Too little pressure will yield shifts in alignment or too little contact between the members. The bins are made from recycled lemonade cartons from our dining hall. 

We use cable ties to hold the stringers down to the stations by poking a hole in the cardboard and then securing the stringer so that it doesn't pop up and distort the hull when the ends are glued to the stems or the ribs are put in place.



We also use them to glue stringers to stems if we run out of clamps - which happens most every day. Chris is our most artful cable tie clamper. As you can see in this photograph, he leaves the ends of the stringers sticking beyond the stem. He puts one tie on the inside of the stem, one outside, and then ties them together with a third he can use to position the stringer and control the amount of pressure on the the two vertical ties. We wear gloves for all work with glue. 

Steam Box

I built a steam box to bend the oak ribs in our school's shop using scrap plywood, the frame of a futon that someone put out on trash day, and oak dowels. 


Andrew measuring for a cut on one of the bottom stringers which have a complex twist as they join the stem.

All of the stringers had to be cut at complex angles where they joined the stems and then glued using a two part epoxy. To adjust and refine the angled cuts, we used strips of 80 grit sandpaper attached to stiff cardboard with 3M 77 spray adhesive. If you pass the sandpaper back and forth between the stringer and stem with the rough side facing the stringer, you can make the fit very precise.

Sanding blocks to adjust cuts to stringers as they meet stems

We mark uncut pieces that stick out into the center of the studio with orange 

so that we won't bump into them when walking between boats.