July 18, 2007
Laying out the planks -- 1:20 hours

Yesterday I drove down to Portland, Maine to buy all the materials as specified in the book.  I spend about $650.00 and I came back with almost everything.  At Atlantic Hardwoods I bought 4 sheets of 4mm Okume marine plywood, and 2 sheets of 1/2" MDF to use as a support while working on the project.  At West Marine and Hamilton Marine I bought fiberglass and epoxy, and all the mixing and application tools, and also the canoe seats.  Click on the tool bar above (bottom right corner) to see the complete bill of materials, I spent $877 total on the project.

Back in the workshop I tidied up the space and moved some tools out of the way.  I first ripped an 8 foot length of clear pine about 1/2" wide by 3/4" to use as a batten to trace the lines.

I used one of the 1/2" sheets of MDF as a work surface by laying it on my table saw.  I stacked the 4 plywood sheets on top and began to lay out the points that form the lines of the 5 planks which comprise each quarter of the boat.  Lots of measurements to place all the points!  Then I drove brads into each point along each line, lined up the batten to the brads and secured it with bricks.  A couple of times I noticed a line was not fair, and had to go and re-check the measurement and move a point to the correct place - I am dyslexic and often mis-read numbers. 

Each line now looks fair and all of the boards are outlined carefully on the top sheet.

Here's a movie made from images taken every minute as I worked, time invested 1:20