Building Sunshine

      The Cedar Strips

    Most of the wood strips for this canoe are western red cedar but not all of the wood is cedar. A few of pine and redwood are included to provide some contrast. All the strips are cut from clear 1"x6" x 14' boards. Most of the strips will be ¼" thick by ¾" wide, a few a little wider and a few not as wide.
   After ripping out the strips a bead and cove will be cut using my router table setup. The bead and cove allows the strips to fit together snugly when they are installed over the molds.

      The Accent Strips

    This "work bench" was made especially for building my accent strips. This was back in 2006 when I actually started building "sunshine". We relocated, so I had to take everything apart, except the accent strips, which I stored with the other cedar strips and lumber I had on hand. It took about every clamp I could get my hands on to keep it all together. The station molds can be seen in this picture with the first cedar strip clamped on to check the alignment. I did not take up the project again until September, 2011.

This image can be enlarged.

      Router setup

    My router is attached under an old portable circular saw table. The cove and bead router bits are made especially for the 1/4" material. Two of the feather boards were purchased and the others were cut on my table saw. I use four feather boards. They hold the canoe strip snugly against the fence and down on the table top. My shop vac sucks the wood chips away from the cutting area and keeps the strip on a clean surface. The bead is cut on all the strips first as damage would occur the the cove if it were pressed hard against the fence.

      Feather board - modified

    I wanted to prevent damage to the cove edges while pushing the strip through the feather boards on the router table, so I made a slight modification to one feather board. This one has the fingers rounded so they will fit in the cove as it passes by. It keeps the strip well in place and the cove slips by just like it was made to fit. The picture above shows the rounded feather board on the output side of the router table.

      Cove and Bead on the Cedar Strips

    Here are some cedar strips with a cove on one edge and a bead on the other. These strips are 1/4" thick and 7/8" wide. I used the wider strips on the upper side of the hull. As the stripping progresses toward the bilge area, where there is more curve in the shape of the canoe, I will use 3/4" strips. When finishing up the bottom I'll use a few 1/2" wide strips as they bend more readily. Also, the contrast strips of pine and redwood are 1/2" wide. The accent strips (see first strips page), made up from 3/8" wide pieces of pine and redwood, and redwood strips, are 1-1/8" wide.

      There actually is someone working on this canoe

    Here's guess who, routing the cove on the last of the cedar strips. Some of the strips that had been stored for nine years in the garage had some damage along their fragile coved edges so I ripped off those edges, reducing their width, and routed a new cove. Also, I had to cut twenty more strips. Luckily, in the stack of saved lumber there was a 1x6 (7/8"x6"x14') cedar board. I was able to get 21 strips from this one board.

Home Page - The Plan - Cedar Strips - Strongback - Station Molds - The First Strips - More Strips - Sanding the Hull - Fiberglass & Epoxy - Working the Inside - Gunwales & Decks - Building the Seats - Varnishing - Building a Paddle - Detail images - Thumbnails - First Voyage - Fish Lake - Reference Material
E-mail wolfden@terragon.com