Canoe paddle

Another incomplete paddle.  If I ever have a real workbench again then maybe I'll finish shaping it and put some kind of finish on it, but I don't think I'll bother to finish this project until I get the canoe completely repaired.

Cedar, white pine or yellow pine, poplar, and I-forget-what-else, all salvaged.

A canoe cart, and more kayak carts

I've started putting together a cart for the Navarro canoe.  It's made with the wheels and part of the frame from a jogging stroller.  The finished cart will have an aluminum frame that can be broken down to be stored in the canoe or a car.  The wheels have a mechanism that makes them easily detachable, so the space needed to store the parts just needs to be a bit more than the size of the two wheels.

I might also want the width of the cart frame to be adjustable so that the frame can be set on the gunnels and support a tent or tarp over the canoe, so that I can sleep in the canoe and not have to find dry land to camp on--and I guess the frame could support the canoe so that it acts as a tent on dry land...these ideas still need some work.

I'm going to have to test to see how much weight the wheels and frame will support; they may not be up to the job.

The black parts are the cart's frame, from the aluminum frame of a jogging stroller.  The frame was cut in the middle so that a length of aluminum tubing could be added.  The bushings are for the wheel axles, and the kickstand was part of the stroller.

The wheel bushings were welded to the aluminum-tubing frame, but the tubing had broken around each bushing so that the axles were only supported by a plastic casing around the bushings.  PVC couplers were epoxied into the tubes and cut away enough that the bushing and the broken tubing could be epoxied back into its original position to both the tubes and to the couplers.  The PVC provides extra support for the bushings on the inside of the tubes, and fiberglass, steel wire, and\or steel hose clamps will be used to reinforce the outside.

This is a wheel attached to the frame.

The finished cart will look something like this, probably with another cross piece near the axles.  The tube in the middle will be detachable at each end so that the cart can be broken down, and so that a different length of tubing can be used if I want to use the the cart for a kayak or for gear instead of for the canoe.

The new kayak cart will be made from an aluminum golf bag cart.  I don't really need another kayak cart, but the golf cart was only $2, so it was a must-have purchase.  Once it's finished I can sell or give away the steel-frame cart I've been using, or make it a cart for camping gear.

Part of an aluminum-frame golf cart.  The object is to make a simple folding frame that can be stored in a kayak, so the unnecessary parts were removed, and part of the long center tube will be cut off.  The wheels are detachable.  The yellow strips are cut from fiberglass battens, and will be replaced with something sturdier.

And finally, here's a photo of the old kayak cart in action at Ferry Point in Richmond.

The Necky Looksha Sport LV on the cart on the beach at the Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline in Richmond.

The old steel-framed cart.  Even tho the wheels are detachable, it's too big to fit into the aft compartment of the kayak.  The new cart will have a simplified folding mechanism, which ought to reduce the weight and size considerably, although it will be more difficult to fold and unfold.  I suppose I could make a very simple, small, and lightweight non-folding frame, but that would be boring.

Edit, Dec. 2014: the steel-frame cart was stolen out of my car several weeks ago.  If you know the whereabouts of the cart please let me know; and in the meantime, if you can determine that the person in possession of the cart was the person (or one of the people) who broke the lock on the passenger door, ransacked my car (leaving everything on the street or sidewalk), and stole the cart, please feel free to put on a heavy steel-toed boot, and give the slimy degenerate a good hard kick to the crotch - in a tactful way, of course.  Alternately, you can inform the owner of the BMW that the same people damaged of the their whereabouts - I'm sure he's anxious to talk to them.

The Loony yoke

This is the yoke from the Loon 17.  (It has since been cleaned.)

The ends are kind of messed up.  There's a crack a few inches long from one screw hole, and the wood seems to be missing that was between the holes and the ends.

I think I can glue or epoxy the crack (before attempting to refinish the yoke), but I'm not sure what to do about the missing wood.

(Update, November 12:  I epoxied the crack shut, then cut out a rectangle about twice as wide as the screw hole and epoxied in a piece of teak, and added fiberglass tape to the underside of the end.) 

New project boat

My newest project boat is a Navarro Loon 17 canoe.

This was once a beautiful boat, but it was neglected for a long time, and fell off of a moving car at least once.  It has significant damage to the hull, and the gunnels are almost entirely ruined.  (The seats are in excellent condition--I think the previous owner may have replaced them instead of repairing all the other problems.)

And the boat has a cat on it--I'm sure that wasn't there when I bought it.

Some of the cherry-wood ribs are broken or cracked.  I may have to settle for quick-n-dirty fixes for those, since the damaged ribs are over the places where the hull is damaged, and getting the hull fixed takes precedence over aesthetic concerns.  I guess I'll try repairing the other parts of the hull that need it as practice, and then see if I have the chops to salvage the ribs and repair the adjacent hull.

The bow (or it could be the stern, it's hard to tell) is smashed up.  I don't doubt that I can repair it, but I'm going to have to come up with some other scheme for attaching the painter, since the brass painter loop has had it.  The cat doesn't seem to be damaged, but may have suffered some sort of emotional trauma.

There's a hole in the bow (or stern) that I think was caused when the fiberglass was abraded away when the canoe hit the road after falling off a car.  The uppermost end of the bow was almost damaged, but may have been partially protected by the brass painter loop.

I don't have a table saw or a band saw, or the patience to to cut 20-some feet of wood by hand, so I'm on the lookout for some hardwood strips that are around the right size to make the gunnels.  If you happen to live near Crockett, and would like an opportunity to use a canoe or kayak, maybe you could help me re-saw some wood to make the new gunnels for this boat.

I'm hoping that I can use this canoe for one or two camping trips, and maybe for a multi-day camping trip in the delta.  I'll probably have to settle for some day trips on a local slough, if I can talk someone else into manning the second paddle.