A close shave

Tonight the dusty business of planing the panels started. We got most of them finished with a combination of blood, sweat and power tools. And of course, a hand plane and spoke shave for the traditionalists.



Most of the work is complete - just a few stubborn edges to finish off.

We also cut out the mould frame for the center station. This will be stitched to the frames to provide the basic shape while the chine joints are glued together.

The first cut

The four panels were roughly cut out from the first panel, and tidied up with the plane to within a few mm of the plan dimenions.





These templates were then used to mark the shapes onto a second sheet. This sheet was then clamped to two others (or screwed in the 'waste' areas) and then each panel was cut out of the three sheets at once.

	The completed panels. They will be clamped to the original templates and planed to ensure each panel is identical.

Lofting

The lofting process started tonight.


Each panel was meticulously marked out using the dimenions given with the plans along 8 'vertical' stations.

A length of box conduit was used to join the marks to make a smooth curved shape, with the to-scale drawings of the bow and stern curves used to finish each end.









We will next cut out the four panels from this first plywood sheet and use it as a template for the remaining sections.

In the beginning...

Day One of the 'Raven' canoe build.

Messrs Burnside and Waddell travel to a local builders merchant where eight sheets of 8 x 4 exterior grade plywood are purchased and transported back to the 'workshop'.

We decided after examining 4 and 6mm gauges, that 6mm is the choice of the more rotund paddler. Price for eight sheets: £78.