Now I knew the shape and how deep the stems needed to be. I cut a female mold, and steamed a lot of long Ash slats. Then filled up the mold with slats!

Once each slat would stay in it’s shape, I began carving the ends to fit into the Breastblock mortises, and the Keelson tenon.

I carved notches for stringers, cut out sections that weren’t needed to be holding anything and were just useless weight. The pale areas are reliefs for lashings, and the concave divot in upper right is to capture the ’stopwater’ dowel at the end of the keelson.

This picture is taken a bit ahead in the build sequence, but it shows the stem assembly off to great advantage.

Here the stringers are all on, and I can begin inserting ribs.

Consider a Skin on Frame boat to be similar to a basket.  Most people are familiar with the 'ribs' of a wooden boat, a Skin on Frame boat also has 'ribs' running lengthwise.  Along with the lateral 'ribs,' these lengthwise 'stringers' provide the boat's shape, to which the water resisting skin will be pulled.

For Skin on Frame boats, most builders use zip ties to hold parts to the molds. I don’t like zip ties. They don’t really crank the parts down snug to the forms, and long before they get even that tight they’re digging dents into the parts of our eventual precious boat. And they’re a few hundred-per-boat more pieces of one-time-use Earth poison to toss. 1mm waxed cotton cord, cut into 1ft sections, did a little bit to save the planet. I tied what I call a Rectangle Knot, but I’m sure there’s a real name for it. It’s similar to a Square Knot: right over left and under, left over right and under, except each wrap is done an extra time. A Rectangle Knot is therefore right over left and under and over and under, left over right and under and over and under. When one does the right side twin twist and haul it tight, the knot holds well enough that slight pressure w a pinky holds it in place for the now left side to be manipulated. And then when one's done using the knot/clamp, a Rectangle Knot has a gap between the first step and the second into which an ice pick can be inserted in and pulled at, and the knot can come apart easily. I made a couple hundred of the 1ft strings, tossed them in a box between uses, and now’ve used each one a few times. More on that later.

Battens between each stringer serve many purposes. Primarily they’re to add support to the flimsy stringers while you stuff only sorta floppy steamed ribs in. So the arced ribs, which want to return to straight until they’re cooled, can find their proper shape without pushing the stringers out of their's.

But I also used the battens to plan, then notate, where I’d place the ribs. A few times, as I considered long and hard about how best to avoid forms and thwarts, while keeping strength where I felt the canoe would most need it and low weight where it wouldn’t.

I placed the ribs closer together in the paddler’s position, with two pairs closest together under each thwart. I felt this would link the ends of each thwart into a ring around the canoe’s bilge. By lashing the floorboard assembly snugly to each of these concentrated rib rings, I linked the entire central section into a cohesive unit.

Back to the battens. Laid edge butted on the floor I could use a square to align rib location marks across them, so that I’d be placing ribs actually vertical instead of just what I thought was vertical as I panicked from steam box to canoe to steam box to canoe.

You can see here at one point I used duct tape on the stringers themselves as well. But I saved my good duct tape by using cheap duct tape for the markers. And I left the duct tape for a while, and the duct tape gummy didn’t want to come all the way off without Acetone and scrubbing, which required retarring and oiling.... Mark your battens. 

The gunnels on this boat aren’t quite standard. Generally there will be an outwale, which provides the bulk of the structural function. And then a smaller inwale which maybe clamps ribs, and/or has the thwarts attached to it. And on the outside a rubrail, which often hides the skin seam, and also functions as a spash diverter.

This doesn’t make sense to me. Why do people want to get out on the water, but object to water getting on them? When I get out on the water, I want to be part of it. I want to feel it. Same concept as dancing in the rain I suppose…. Regardless, I want to know I’m there with all my senses. Otherwise I may as well play a video game.

Anyway. On this boat, the inwale is the largest and sturdiest of the group. Mortises for both ribs and thwarts are on it. The breastblocks are lashed to it. The inwale is the frame on Tamboura. So I might call it a Mainwale.

Her outwale serves to clamp the ribs to the inwale, yeah OK can be seen to work as a splash rail. But I had in mind more of a visual balance the inwale, and to wrap fingers around while grabbing her for boarding or portages.

To shape the Mainwales I followed the same procedure as the breastblocks. Machine rough shape with saws, then blend it all smooth with file and paper. I scalloped out unneeded material between where the ribs will be joined.

I use my hand as backing for sandpaper. Blocks are necessary when you plan on layering varnish, and need a super true-to-flat surface. But there is not a whole lot that is flat and cornered in nature besides crystals. And Tamboura has oil all over her.

Tamboura is organic: she blends with the wilds better than camouflage is even supposed to. All her parts have the same presence as river rocks. Which are shaped by water-brushed sand grains. Very similar to a fleshly hand holding sandpaper. Hold sandpaper with a biological device instead of a synthetic one and automatically your parts will look a part of nature. In fact, many of the pics of parts I make sanded by actual hand are automatically classified as ‘Animal’ by my phone.

You can see the outwale has a deep groove cut in it’s inner edge. For lightening, and a hollow for the skin seam. I picked up the tip on how to do it from Hilary Russel’s book.