Subject: Re: [baidarka] Anyone else see this on Ebay?
From: wolfgang brinck (nativewater@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Jun 04 2004 - 16:33:59 EDT
--- Liz Sayre <esayre@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
But I have access
> to virtually unlimited quantites of both red and white birch,
> alder,
> poplar, aspen, cedar
> and ash.
I know of at least one builder from the Juneau, AK area who have
successfully used alder shoots which are fairly straight and without
side branches.
White cedar was traditional canoe building material and bends well
though they used larger logs which they split.
The main attraction of green wood out in the wild is young shoots of
about 1/2 inch diameter which can be bent into ribs without steaming
and don't require any work except peeling after which they are about
the requisite 3/8 inch diameter.
Young green wood of about any species and about two inch diameter can
be sawed to length and split into quarters lengthwise which can then
be whittled into rib size pieces. These usually require some steaming
but don't have to be soaked first. But this approach is definitely
more work than just finding straight shoots of the right diameter.
A few years back, I built a boat all the ribs of which came from wood
that I found growing out of cracks in alleys near my residence in
urban Milwaukee, mostly elm of two inch diameter which I split and
whittled down. Poured boiling water on it to do the bending.
In any case, just experiment til you find something that works. And
when you do, make all your ribs from the same source since different
species will bend differently and will give you erratic results.
Wolfgang
The trick is to experiment
-
Baidarka Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be
reproduced outside Baidarka or Baidarka archives without author's permission
Submissions: baidarka@paddlewise.net
Subscriptions: baidarka-request@paddlewise.net
Searchable archive: http://rtpnet.org/robroy/baidarka
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b27 : Thu Jul 01 2004 - 01:30:01 EDT