Ranoed is a rebuilt/modified Northstar ADK kevlar pack canoe. I bought this boat because despite having grown up on boats, despite studying canoe design and construction for ten years, and despite having built two canoes, I still didn't really have a canoe to learn with. With a mass production kevlar canoe I could get a good idea of what the average enthusiast expects from a boat.
I ordered her with Ash gunnels. The Ash gunnel option normally comes with Walnut/Ash thwarts and breastplates, however I custom spec'd Ash thwarts to match the gunnels. I also requested Northstar not install the rear thwart, so I could place it where I wanted.
When I received her the rear Ash thwart did not match the Ash gunnels, her front thwart was Walnut/Ash, and Northstar had installed Walnut/Ash grab handles. I can understand where the miscommunications occurred so we don't need to get into that, but she wasn't what I wanted. But you know what? I have the ability and the interest and the enthusiasm to fix it! I decided I'd handcraft furniture grade woodwork on top of Northstar's factory production kevlar hull.
This is pretty much what Ranoed looked like when I got her, although I have already removed the vinyl logos and messed with the screws.
In the background of this picture on the spooltable you can see the Ash sawmill board I used for all the parts I built.
Sawmill lumber needs curing and finishing before using, but a person can save a few bucks and obtain unusual sizes. Like this 12ft x 14in board? I ripped the board to widths my planer could handle, cut it in 1/3ds lengthwise so I could feed it easier into the planer, and used mentioned planer to turn the Ash to usable lumber.
The thwarts were cut on a bandsaw to their general shape. Since stress rises at joints, and screws into endgrain require extra heft, I left the thwarts thick and strong on the ends, while gracefully tapering to an organically slender center.
I left a little extra on the ends of these rough cut chunks, which I used to screw them to a backing plate. The backing plate kept the thwarts true to the bandsaw's table as I sawed a relief arc on their under side.
I tried to use the cut off sections of the arcs as long curved sanding blocks. The attempt didn't work too well. On these organically shaped constantly changing radii parts, the sanding block would not evenly abrade the entire part.
Stock, the thwarts bolted to the gunnels from underneath. This is apparently acceptable since most wooden gunneled canoes are built this way. To my eye though it looks like a structural weak point, as well as mass production and ordinary. I planned to mount my thwarts flush(ish) with the gunnels.
But if they do, an observer can see the joint, and it has to fit just right. A fact about boats: no line is straight, and no corner is 90degrees.
As gunnels taper towards the stems the included angle constantly changes, and because these gunnel edges are rounded a builder can't lay a thwart in place and let a sharp gunnel edge point precisely where the thwart would need to be cut. It took me a little bit (like maybe a couple days) to puzzle out exactly how to cut the thwarts the right length and shape. I clamped small L brackets to the wide side of the thwarts, letting them extend below the part, then slid the thwarts towards the stems until the outside of the L brackets stopped against the gunnel. Then I placed an square along the other side of the thwart, lined it up with the gunnel, and drew the line up. I connected the two pencil lines, and had the thwart joint angle.
Once I cut the taper I double checked the fit. Kinda jumping backwards but that last paragraph was pretty big and not much else to say for this pic but that first sentence so I'll put this info here, late. In the above pic and this, you can see a spool of string. In order to ensure the thwarts were mounted perpendicular to direction of travel as opposed to funhouse mirror cockeyed, I'd cammed the free end of the string spool into the notch where port and starboard gunnels met, then swung spool from gunnel to gunnel.
Once the attachment angle was cut, I final shaped the thwarts into sensuously slender slinkies. I like to use a file for this step. Both blades and planes can catch on changing grain angles, rotary tools cut grooves and humps like brake bumps, and belt sanders cut way too quick and you can't see what you're doing as you do it, but files cut evenly across their stroke. Sometimes I think files cut too slowly, but consider how much time it takes to remake the entire part if you cut too much with a belt sander... For the front thwart I went for a a tipped-up ellipse cross section, and on the rear thwart's cross section I incorporated a flat at seatback angle, signature shapes reminiscent of Tamboura and Iris' thwart designs.
Turning attention to the breastplates. There is a technique to create a domed 'deck' surface where the mating surfaces of the two sides are cut at a slight angle (say 15 degrees)...
...the two sides are taped together flush on the top, epoxy is slathered in the gap, and the assembly is supported from underneath such that the two parts swing together under gravity to connect. Once it's cured you round off the peak with a belt sander or your teeth or your chest hairs: make do with whatever you got. I've done it before and it worked, this time it didn't, which is why these pictures are fakes.
First I planned to put a single pinstripe of cherry as embellishments on each breastplate. Later I decided to make multiple pinstripe versions. I can't remember exactly how things progressed from there but I think I cut one one of the single stripes I'd made in order to turn it into a multiple stripe but it broke when I dropped it, so planned to put the remaining single pinstripe in the stern and use a multi in the bow, but then cut the other multi a bit wrong, and since it was scrap tried to see if I could break it by hand and could. In any event, I ended up with one breastplate with a single pinstripe of Cherry, and after so many failures with the laminating trick I made the next breastplate plain. Plus, how many times does a builder have boards wide enough to make single piece breastplates with? Special on it's own.