Shopsmith Forums

Anybody ever built a wood canoe with a Shopsmith? Just wondering if it could be done. If anyone has please post a picture. Thanks

Welcome to the forum azboxmaker. Check out this thread. http://www.shopsmith.net/forums/showthr ... ight=canoe

Thanks that is an interesting link. I guess you can build anything you want with a SS, its almost like its a magic machine.

No offense to SS but there are no magic machines, just magic people...... But give a magic person a SS and you may just have something.

Paul M

Wooden canoes come in two primary flavors, strip built and stitch and glue.

Stitch and glue are made from plywood panels, bent and stitched together with copper wire or zip ties or such. These panels are best cut out with a hand held jig saw or circular saw. The design is not amenable to tablesaws or bandsaws.

Strip built boats are made of long thin strips of wood. These pieces are best cut out with either a table saw or bandsaw. A shopsmith will do both just fine. Personally, I prefer using a bandsaw as there is less sawdust and more strip. The edges of the strips are often times routed with bead and cove to facilitate better jointery of the strips. Normally cut on a table mounted router with appropriate bits, but it certainly can be done with a Shopsmith and appropriate bits.

foxtrapper wrote:Wooden canoes come in two primary flavors, strip built and stitch and glue.

Stitch and glue are made from plywood panels, bent and stitched together with copper wire or zip ties or such. These panels are best cut out with a hand held jig saw or circular saw. The design is not amenable to tablesaws or bandsaws.

Strip built boats are made of long thin strips of wood. These pieces are best cut out with either a table saw or bandsaw. A shopsmith will do both just fine. Personally, I prefer using a bandsaw as there is less sawdust and more strip. The edges of the strips are often times routed with bead and cove to facilitate better jointery of the strips. Normally cut on a table mounted router with appropriate bits, but it certainly can be done with a Shopsmith and appropriate bits.

Thanks for info you must of built some wood canoes

When several of us attended Shopsmith's "week-end" in July '08, Nick's partner, Drew Atcherman, was building a strip canoe in the old retail sales room. I don't know if Drew ever finished it. Nick introduced Drew as the worlds slowest canoe builder.

A few years ago, a co-worker built a cedar strip kayak. I thought his milling of the slats was rather ingenious. He started with 4x4's and after sawing the strips, he built a jig that aligned two routers on the outfeed side of his planer. As the strips exited the planer, one router cut the bead and the second router cut the cove.

I did a video tour of my shop when it was pretty new. If you watch to the end you can see the stitch and glue canoe I'm building.. no, I still haven't finished it... Alec

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBkQ8EYvxiQ

Nice little shop you got. Whats that white stuff on the roof? Here in Arizona the saying is "You don't have to shovel Sunshine" Thanks for the tour looks like a nice boat also hope you finish it someday. Brandon