Motor Canoe Boat Plans

ATTRACTIVE Indian markings are stick-on lype from Grumman Industries, Marathon. N. Y.

HIS 16-FT. motor canoe can do everyT thing an ordinary canoe can do and a lot more. You can paddle it, row it or sail it—but the real fun conies in powering it with the smallest-kicker you can buy and cruising all day on a gallon of gas. If you're the outdoor type, and not too much taller than 6 ft., you can also sleep aboard. The ample beam, flat bottom and hard chines give her a tip resistance that's hard to believe, and added buoyancy can be gained with the installation of optional styrofoam stabilizing fins. The materials used in building her consist of four sheets of 4 x 8-ft., 1/4-in. exterior plywood and some stock lumberyard pine, plus about a quart and a half of Weldwood resorcinol resin glue to lock it all together with peak strengthweight ratio and keep it leakproof without caulking. The finished hull weight is around 62 lbs., on a par with typical readymade models, so cartopping is easy —and you get a financial bonus: you can build the whole works in a weekend for about a 58

FOUR SHEETS of 4 x 8-ft.. 1/4-in. exterior ply are u s e d to make the 16-ft.. 62-lb. hull.

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fourth of what you'd pay for a storebought job with a lot less pizazz. Construction procedure is along nofuss lines. The only frame that has set dimensions is the midship one. You merely cut the other ones to fit on the job. To get the shape of the bottom, fasten two of the plywood panels together temporarily, end to end, with brads partially driven into a scrap strip underneath. Then bend one of the 3/4 x 3/4-in. pine chines as a batten from the panel edge to a point 18 in. in from each end, as shown in the drawings. Mark the curve on only one of the panels. Then cut it with a saber saw. The cut-off piece serves as a template to mark all the other curves. This way, both sides and both ends of the bottom will match. Save the cut-off pieces as they become the top surfaces of the buoyancy fins (if you include them) and also serve as flooring in bow and stern. You get one hull side plank from each of the two panels. The mid section of the floor and the other two hull side planks come from the third panel. After the plySeptember, 1968

wood parts are cut, place them one atop the other (bottom panels and side planking separate), brad them temporarily, and smooth off any waves or bumps in the edges with a plane so everything is smooth and matched. It's a good idea to have your midframe assembled and glued before you start putting the hull together, so the vertical members won't tilt inward during the "dry" (unglued) assembly. The dry assembly is a necessary first step to permit planing and rasping of angled parts (as at the transom) for a snug gluing fit. It also gives you a chance to undo any goof you may have made in cutting. Start gluing with the bottom, after dry-assembling it and planing where necessary to bring plywood edges and chines flush. Use 5/8-in. #5 brass flathead screws at about 12-in. spacing to hold the chines and plywood bottom together dry. Then remove them, take off one chine at a time, coat it and the meeting surface of the bottom plywood with Weldwood resorcinol resin glue, and reassemble. The bottom butt strip (across the mid59

Motor Canoe ship seam) should be in place "dry" until the chines are glued on. Then flip out the butt strip, glue-coat it and its mating bottom surface and screw it back in place. The butt strip ends should be a snug fit against the inside of the chines. If there are any gaps fill them with snug-fitting glued-in wood slivers or glue-sawdust putty. Set the mid frame on top of the strips so the after surface of the frame's cross member is directly above the cross seam of the bottom pieces. This way, a few 1-in. #5 flathead brass screws can be driven up through the bottom (just forward of the cross seam) into the frame cross member. The vertical side members of the frame should [Continued on page 120 ]

BUTT PIECE—1/4" PLYWOOD X 7" X 10W'

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Motor Canoe [Continued from page 60] be facing aft. The plywood sides should be glued on next (after their joining butt pieces are glued in place), using the dry assembly screw holes to line things up along the chines. Use a square to make sure the frame side members are perpendicular to the bottom before driving two 1-in. screws through each side into them. After the sides are glued to the bottom at the chine and to the mid frame, glue in the stem and transom. Then clamp the rub rails in place immediately before the glue sets, as these usually cause a slight change in the curvature of the upper edges of the sides. Springing them in immediately lets the still-soft glue adapt to any slight variations. Then cut and fit the remaining frames, glue them together and glue them in place one at a time. The vertical members should always be on the side of the horizontal member nearest either end of the boat. Thus all forward frames have their verticals on the forward side, all frames aft of the midship frame have their verticals aft of the horizontal members. This positioning lets you plane-bevel the vertical edges for a snug fit inside the side planking. Let the glued-in frames set up hard before you remove the rub rails for gluing. Mechanix Illustrated

Drive a few screws from inside the hull into the rub rails to line them up after the glue is applied. Then unclamp them, apply the glue, and put them back in place, adding a screw here and there, if necessary to get complete gluing contact. After the rub rails are in place, turn the hull over and install the 3/4 x 3/4-in. keel. Glue-coat it. then fasten in place by driving 1-in. copper nails at about 12-in. spacing through into the hull bottom. (These are clipped off after the glue sets.) The rest of the job is simply a matter of mounting seats and attaching the false stem and gunwale cap strips and foredeck, all bonded with the same type of glue. Mount the false stem before the deck, so you can drive the necessary screws. Installation of the optional stabilizing fins is a straightforward operation that shouldn't cause many problems. These fins are not vital to the design but will allow the use of a more powerful motor, say, up to 5-hp maximum. They are simply a wood framework containing cut-to-fit pieces of Styrofoam held in place by epoxy resin or glue. • END