Better late than never!

I have been socked recently with travel, either through work or for personal reasons. This has significantly affected my ability to work on my canoe. I'm actually on travel right now in Vermont. At any rate, I have some updating to do so here goes....

As you can see from the post from 1 Mar, the stems are attached and square in profile. This will not work for several reasons, the main reason being that it isn't right. In order to fix that the stem needs to be faired into the hull so that it flows all the way to the ends and is both aesthetically and hydrodynamically correct. The next few pics show the beginning of the fairing of the stem that is completed with a spokeshave and block plane. There are some special problems with these tools being used for this as they are both designed for flat, planar work and the stems and the ends of a canoe are very complex shapes. That is why this is only the rough shaping to get them into the ballpark. I will complete the fairing and shaping with my random orbit sander.






In the next episode, I'll begin fairing the hull with the random orbit sander and complete the final shaping of the stems as well as plugging the screw holes in the outer stems with dowels.