Building a Freedom 15 Canoe

Okay, now that the Pygmy Tern 14 is complete, I’m starting on my new project. I’ve decided to build a wood strip canoe. The design I settled on is from Bearmountain Boats and is designed by Steve Killing: the Freedom 15. Over the next several months (years?) I’ll write about the build on dryfly.ca, like I did with the Tern 14. The blog will serve up tid bits of information, with links to my gallery with pictures. The gallery is probably the easiest way to sequentially follow the build and each photo usually has a small bit of text describing the process shown.

I spent a lot of time trying to decide on the canoe I wanted to build. My criteria for the canoe was fairly simple. It had to be relatively stable, big enough enough for our small family to sit in but not over 17’, and not be a imitation of a bathtub. If that sounds like a simple recipe to you, then you are as wrong as I was. I looked at designs from Bearmountain, Green Valley Boat Works, Carrying Place Canoe & Boat Works, Gilpatrick’s designs, Valley Woodworking, and a few others. Of these, I saw several canoes that looked really appealing to me. Some of my favorite designs were the Keshequa 170, Kipiwa, Freedom 17 and Bob’s Special. For whatever reason though, I didn’t think these quite fit our needs. The Freedom 17 and Kipiwa were particularly interesting, but they both have a little bit less initial stability. Although this shouldn’t be an issue, the fact is that our family has been in a canoe only once. The last thing I want to do is turn the kids off of canoeing by plopping them in a canoe that seems a bit tippy - kids can get scared easily and then it can be a battle to change their minds. I eventually phoned Steve Killing to ask for his advice. He pointed me towards the Freedom 15 and said I could easily extend the hull to 16’. The F15 is more stable than the 17, and by extending the canoe to 16’ it will fit our size requirements. It won’t be as fast as the 17, but hey… there’s always an opportunity to build another canoe at some point, right?

So far what I’ve done with the build is:
buy and rip the plywood for the strongback
built some stands for the strongback
bought full length cedar (wrc)
bought some accent wood (AYC, walnut)
traced and cut out the stations

I’m almost finished cutting and sanding the stations, then it will be time to assemble the strongback and mill the strips. I found the cedar from an ad in craigslist. A local guy was selling a bunch of 3/4"x6"x19’ wrc planks that he had stored in his barn for 10 years or something. The wood is all straight tight grain with no knots. I bought 9 planks for $120. One tricky thing is that the planks are all edge grain. Typically a builder would start with flat grain so they can easily rip strips off the plank 1/4" thick, and these strips will be edge grain. If I do that, I’ll end up with flat grain strips. Flat grain can be more difficult to sand and it may not look as good (this depends on the grain pattern - the boat may get a very “busy” look to it). So I can either rip flat grain strips or I can do the following: rip 7/8" planks, then take each plank and try to rip 3 strips from each. My goal is to use strips that are 3/16" thick because they are easier to bend and you get more strips per board. With this in mind, I figure I can get 20 strips per plank if I cut flat grain, or I’ll get 13 strips if I mill them for edge grain. I’ll probably try both methods and see what it looks like.

Two things may delay me putting the strongback together. First, Mercy (my wife) wants me to build a fireplace mantle first. Secondly, I may try to put together a Yost style SOF kayak frame before I start the canoe. If I do this, I can complete the kayak at any time while working on the canoe. But that’s a whole other story…

So without further ado, her are some pictures and a movie clip to show my current progress. Click on the photo to link to the build photo gallery.