Introduction
Unlike most forms of boat building, a cedar-strip canoe is very forgiving in its construction. A first-time canoe builder with modest tool skills can build an excellent craft.What is a cedar-strip canoe, anyway?
The basic idea behind a cedar-strip canoe is to make a hull of narrow wood strips, each one glued to the next with ordinary carpenter’s glue, and then cover the hull with fiber-glass, inside and out. The wooden hull by itself is weak, but the two layers of fiberglass make the canoe extremely strong, lightweight and waterproof. No ribs are needed, no canvas covering, and no caulking.
This “sandwich” construction, with the fiberglass as bread and wood as the filling, is also why this type of canoe is very forgiving to a novice builder—the wooden trips don’t have to be fitted exactly, because the fiberglass covers all the gaps.
What it takes to build
You don’t need the skills (or the fussiness) of an expert woodworker to make a cedar-strip canoe. If you can operate a table saw or radial arm saw, you can do it. You do need patience and persistence, however. There are a lot of wooden strips to put on, and there’s plenty of surface area to sand. You should count on it taking about 150-175 hours to finish the canoe.
A garage is the best place for building, because you need 12-16 ft. of clearance in front of and behind your saw for cutting the long strips. Furthermore, sanding the glued-up hull produces clouds of sawdust, and applying the fiberglass produces noxious fumes. You could work in a basement shop, but be sure you can get the finished canoe out, and install a powerful fan to exhaust dust and fumes. If you’re ready, take a deep breath, and let’s get started. The following will walk you through each step of building a cedar-strip canoe. Find a full, printable version of the article at the end of this project,
