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Step 1: Make the stems for the bow and stern, cutting them lengthwise. Soak them for a week (in an eaves trough), replace the cold water with hot water, take the stems out and bend them.

Step 2: Make hull out of  two 4″ x 8′ sheets of 1/8″ marine plywood, cut them and glue them along a somewhat diagonal lap joint, attach stems and make gunwales Two very young daughters can steady it all.

Step 3: Add seats and one rib in the middle to shape the gunwales and fix the cross-section. Slit ‘darts’ along the top of the hull and drill holes, then lace the hull to the gunwales and pull the hull in.

Step 4: Fit the ‘darts’, abut them, and sew them closed with nylon string.

Step 5: Seal the darts and holes with fiberglass and polyester.

Step 6: Cover sewn canoe with fiberglass on the outside. Add thwarts, drill and lace seats.

Step 7: Add a ‘cap’ on top of the inside and outside gunwales. Fasten it with wooden pegs driven into drilled holes.

Step 8: Get your son to try the canoe.

The campus love story and need for a down payment that preceded this project are written up in last week’s blog.

Thank you for dropping by. This blog for all lovers of life and language aims to be useful and entertain. Topics vary from how to build a canoe to how my mom moved from “prince to preacher and fog to bog” as a war bride after world war one. Writing advice is squeezed in between. Find out more about A Book of Kells: Growing Up in an Ego Void,  Kathleen’s Cariole Ride and Eating at Church on Amazon,  Goodreads or my website.

Happy Reading from Cozy Book Basics!