Day 1 And so it begins...

Tea Count - 3
Injuries - 0
Time sent 6 hours

Well it's not really day one as this was a few days before Christmas when I marked out the panels on the 8x4's. It would have been pointless taking pictures of this as to be honest it wasn't really that impressive. So today is day one.

I have to admit to being slightly scared of cutting into my lovely 4mm marine ply but all went well and within a couple of hours - about 4 - I had all the panels cut to size. Another couple of hours of sanding and shaving and all the lumps and bumps had been fine tuned into perfect curves in readiness for stitching together.


I had only planned to cut the panels out today and possible sand and shave them to shape, but with things going unusually well the stitching process was too much of a temptation. And so with about 70 pre-cut wire ties in hand the first half of my canoe began to take shape. I say the first half because due to the lack of building and storage space I have decided to build my canoe in two halves, a proper cut and shut! Well actually not as the canoe will be built in two halves and then shut (joined together) so no err.. cut.


So with day one over I can look back in admiration at half an achievement and I must admit to being very pleased with my progress thus far! Although, now I've finally begun and can see it taking shape I'm starting to have some major concerns. Firstly and most worryingly, what happens if when the two halves are built, they don't meet up properly? Will it a)leak like sieve or b)if the two halves aren't straight mean we can only go around in large circles. This will haunt me until the end of the project I'm sure. My other major concern is this. After applying the resin to the joints and then fibre glass tape and I remove the wire ties will my canoe simply spring apart and once again become several sheets of 8'x4' albeit in 14 adjoining panels.

Well, we shall wait and see but fingers crossed it will remain canoe shaped at least for it's maiden voyage.

Tomorrow will see me twisting the wires together to bring the panels into a closer alignment and re-shaping the front (or back depending on which it becomes)as the centre panels are a touch long.