Building a stitched lapstrake canoe - Installing thwart and seats

August 26, 2007
Installing thwart and seats

When I installed the inwhales I had to remove the spreader stick amidships. Afterwards the hull was narrower by about 1", so when I went to install the thwart I re-inserted the spreader stick to force the hull out to it's design width. Then I measured out the location of the thwart per the plans and drilled 1/4" holes for the bolts. I went to the hardware store today and bought all bronze hardware for mounts. I feel that it will look more attractive than stainless steel.

Here is the thwart from underneath before I tightened the nut. The plans say to use a wood screw from the bottom, but the cover picture shows a carriage bolt, and that seems stronger to me. The book also mentions that you can get a complete seat mounting kit from a marine supply place, but my local ACE hardware has a lot of marine hardware that made it easy to get the right parts. I spent over $22.00 on this nice bronze hardware.

Next I lined up the seats in their intended locations and cut off the excess wood so they would fit inside the hull. I took care to clamp them in place -- carefully measuring them so they were centered. Then I drilled 1/4" holes for the bolts right on the glue line. I had to go back and ream out the holes in both parts to get them to line up and eventually got all 4 bolts in place. At this point I decided that 3" spacers would be needed, although the book suggests placing them 1/2" lower. A lower placement will make for a less tippy boat, so I may go back and change my mind on this.

To make the spacers, I took some of the extra mahogany strip that I had left over and rounded it over on the router to make a dowel.

Then I drilled them out with a 9/32" drill on the lathe. Here they are ready for installation.

Installing the spacers was a bit tricky getting them all lined up at the same time. I torqued down the nuts with an adjustable crescent wrench so that the heads pulled in to the inwhales.

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