The hull is from a western red cedar that fell behind my house 2 years ago. I plugged the coordinates which describe those curves into a curve fitting program which made a much smoother bulkhead shape.
The table of offsets for the frame sections (let's call 'em bulkheads despite the fact that they don't play any role in the finished boat) yielded curves which were not very fair. The only glue is the RTV I used to affix the jig to my "table" after laser alignment. The frame is freestanding without any glue or fasteners.
OSB doesn't hold fasteners very well, so it was cut out with keys to hold the assembly together. The entire assembly frame, including the stringers to set the bulkhead spacing and alignment, the keys to hold the stringers in place as well as some u-shaped pieces to clamp the strips to the frame sections was cut from a single 4x8 sheet of OSB (about $6 USD). Most of the work in fact, is the construction of that assembly jig.Ī mechmate makes this easy. Strip-molded canoes are built around a frame. We want to make our kits as foolproof as possible, since I volunteered to take care of the after-sale support. The photos are primarily for the purpose of creating an illustrated kit assembly manual. This model was actually made first, the one shown in the photos above will be completely finished. Here's an assembled model kit showing how the panels are stitched together and the epoxy fillets are applied. Building a stitch-and-glue boat is a bit like reassembling a banana from the peels. Here's the boat with a couple of hull panels stitched to (and around) the bulkheads. (the fullsize boat will have a similar jig, just bigger) Here I am putting together the assembly jig for aligning the bulkheads. The plans came from a well known marine architect, we are currently building quarter-scale trade show display models of his 16' outboard runabout, with the anticipation of offering kits (of both the model and the fullsize boat) starting early in the new year. Here are some photos of a boat model project we are currently working on.