Just started my first real boat build after spending lots of time on design modifications on the model of Skye Maid. Tom Hill's canoe design Charlotte is a great first boat to build for lapstrake design. It has six planks a side, beveled stems and inner and outer gunnels. All the basic elements of small wooden boats. Tom's book "Ultra light Boat Building" and DVD on Charlotte building are a great substitute for boat building school. The plans are a simple one sheet. I have had the ply for the planks all ready for this for some time. It's 4mm Bruynzeel Gaboon imported by Andrew Denman in Tasmania. Target weight for the canoe is 27lb so let's see how close I can get to this.
I copied the mould shapes from the plans onto monofilm.....
.....I've cut out the moulds from 9mm marine ply and will keep the female parts for help in shaping ring frames which I might add to support foot supports and maybe bouyancy tanks (both of which are not part of standard design).
The building jig is a bow of two 6 inch by 1 inch planks. I've used finger jointed pine for this which seems a lot harder to spread than what Tom uses in his video. Here I am using reversed clamps to spread my bow - I couldn't make it to Tom's specified breadth but I think it will work OK.
...........and after a couple of days I have the jig settled with moulds and stronback attached.
I'm trying to follow everything pretty close to Tom Hill's methods in his DVD. I've made trestles like he has and found them very unobtrusive and very useful for stacking clamps and boat pices out of the way.
