Stats

I was doing a tally of the boats built by Salisbury Students since we began the program, and was a little surprised by the numbers:

30 boats, all together, plus 5 I've built myself.

Skin-on-frame Canoes

The frames are finished and coated. We will now be working on floorboards, a cushion seat, and when the frames are completely dry will be skinning the boats.



Chris Ross started at the beginning of the spring term, but by having the stringers and gunwales pre-milled, and the strong-back set up for him, we are making great progress. He is also a great worker, doing some tasks on his own time.



We added the 'makers marks' today. We got these, by the way from http://www.makers-marks.co.uk/ . They were very reasonable, even for small batches, and add a nice touch to the finished boat.

Oxford Shells

All four boats are decked. On two, the cockpit rim and deck wash are on, and we are beginning to prepare the mounts for the Pantidosi Row Wing.

4/17 Rear decks are on the last two shells. The other two have are nearly 'built'. (See photo) Just a bit of fairing and filleting with the wood-flour mix and they will be ready for a final coat of unthickened epoxy.

Two Oxford shells have both decks on. We are still installing the skegs on the other two.



We used just four screws for alignment, then used duct tape / packing tape to hold the decks down. The only down-side to this, that I can see, is that if you have a lot of overhanging material, the tape tends to make the deck 'hump up' or take a smaller radius than it should. We solved this by pre-trimming most of the excess plywood, thus reducing the possible leverage on the edges.