Has anyone here ever carved a dugout canoe?
I have several large white pine logs that I'm thinking of attacking
just for the fun of it.
Any suggestions on procedure would be welcome.
I know that white pine is not the best material but I find it
interesting that an ancient dugout canoe was found locally in a natural
pond. It was white pine.
Here is my plan.
With a chain saw and broad hatchet, sharpen both ends of the log so
that,in plan,the sheer is shaped the way I want it except a little
skinnier in the middle because the log is only about 24 inches across.
Then shape the profile view using chain saw and adze.
Then shape the rest of the outside of the hull using a large shallow
gouge or sculptors adze.
I plan to oil everything as I go and keep it covered with plastic and
wet rags as I go when not working on it.
Then, once the outside is shaped, attack the inside using chain saw and
sculptors adze.
When the hull is near the final thickness, drill holes through the hull
and insert dowels to the depth I want the hull thickness to be so that
when I get down to them, I can see where I am and fine tune the
thickness with shallow gouges.
Then, fill the boat with water and drop hot rocks into it to heat the
water and expand and soften the wood so that I can spread the sheer
apart and finish shaping the boat by inserting cross thwarts.
Any thoughts on what to oil it with or whether the hull will split while
working? Will this procedure work? How thick should it be?
If it works,I'm planning on using a heavy coating of pine tar on the
outside for water proofing and tung oil on the inside. Any suggestions
on hull shape? Most of the primitive boats Ive seen like this are pretty
crude but I was thinking more on the lines of the carved canoes from the
Northwest for hull shape.