Building a Cedar Strip Canoe (Full Montage)

THANK YOU!!!
- to everyone who donated to #ripcanoe to make this possible
- to people that have been watching, liking, commenting on, and sharing my videos
- to all the people that helped me during the build process
- to my beautiful wife for helping so much and putting up with all the sawdust

Disclaimer: I don’t always follow best practices for safety (working without gloves and respirators, free-hand cutting on a tablesaw, forgetting to wear goggles). Everyone has their own risk tolerance, I’ve developed some bad habits over the years, I’ll probably end up regretting it when I get cancer at 50 or cut some fingers off. Please be careful for your own sake when doing stuff.

Here are a couple good resources to learn more about Cedar Strip Canoe Building:

Feel free to comment on this video if you have any questions! Thanks for watching!

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Music:
1st song:
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0
2nd song:
Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported— CC BY-SA 3.0
3rd song:
Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported— CC BY-SA 3.0

[thestank]

This would be enough to bring a tear to Ron Swanson’s eye. Absolutely excellent build.

[uktony]

It is not merely a canoe, it is a piece of art. A magnificent build which should become a family heirloom. A HUGE thumbs up.

[TheRandynorris]

I've been a woodworker for forty years. I thought it was a dyeing art. Then I see this young man with so much talent and skill it gives me hope that true craftsmanship, pride and patience will live another generation. I am almost in tears.

[chukmil]

In 1989 I built my first cedar strip canoe. This was such a great video I could smell the varnish ...love the smell of varnish . When you smell that you are almost done. I will never build a boat for another person because I love the building and the schedule a client has ruins the enjoyment of the build. My first canoe took me 13 months. My second 7 months and it was far better than my first. Love wooden boats.

[ryanelliott]

I couldn’t like this enough. I’ve been a carpenter for years. And this was so beautiful. Loved the seats. Such art.

[ryancartwright]

My life has changed sense i discovered all of these channels on YouTube that do wood working montages, it's practically therapeutic

[woodstoney]

Looks like it should be on public display in a museum. Beautifully done!

[joeybirdlover]

I just wanted to say I built my own canoe over the past few months and these videos were an incredible help. I can't thank you enough for posting these - I would have been lost without them.

[planetdisco]

Invested in an entire suite of woodworking tools for Xmas. I used to weld weld up ship hulls for a living and once even helped build a paddle steamer. You have inspired me sir! This is floating poetry. Bravo!

[bobjohndrow]

That sweet dog finally gets a ride in the canoe. What an amazing project.

[mickberry]

this canoe is so beautiful, I would just hang it on the wall and look at it for hours.
FANTASTIC Workmanship!!!

[adamoryza]

A guy like him should have billion subcribers. what a world we living today.

[jktechwriter]

Over 400 people don't like this??? You click on a Build a Canoe montage video and see this beautiful canoe crafted and you don't like it? There are some people who will never be happy in this world.

[Xsyuanari]

Made one of these in highschool, best wood shop teacher ever (shout out to Mr Lang. idk where you are now but i think of you at least twice a year, you rocked homie.)
My muffler fell off, kinda, so i stopped at the nearest home i could and asked if they had any wire so i could tie it back onto my car. temp fix, but necessary. I look at his front yard and see the first steps to one of these bad boys! We talk about it for a minute, i mentioned that i had made one over ten years ago and he invited me to make another!
Now my introverted ass assumes he was just being nice but i honestly might take him up on it. That canoe was the most significant piece of art i had ever created. granted there were 5 or 6 of us working on it, but it felt like my baby. I dont know what happened to the boat, i think the school sold it, but id love to make another.
Good video, great craftsmanship. 10/10

[robinhind]

There are no words to say what I feel right now !!! I've loved wood from a child it's the greatest material ever including trees & Woods beauty. A BIG ONE to you !!!

[TurkiAU]

Wow, one of the best builds I've ever seen on YouTube.

[johnpandolfino]

What a feeling that must have been to launch her for the first time.
Truly beautiful and thanks for sharing.

[DPDK]

Comments from a fiberglass boat builder (retired):
I don't even need to make this comment ... but this canoe is a beautifully crafted piece of art. Worthy of a museum show piece. Amazing to watch! All that time and effort being compressed into an 11 minute video.
That being said: Now I must go change my soiled underwear after watching you laminate 7oz cloth over this fine wooden boat. One of the worst methods of building a boat is fiberglass over wood. It was commonly done in the '50s and quickly abandoned by most builders by the '70s. The last boat builder to use the method was Carolina Skiff who gave it up in the late '90s. The reason is that the smallest, single flaw in the lamination, a single crushed air bubble in the resin, a small gouge into the glass from a rock or shell in the sand allows water to seep under the glass and will slowly de-laminate huge areas. This then leads to darkening of the wood (if not actual rot). I hate to say it but the 7oz cloth you used is probably the worst offender for de-lamination. It's flexible enough to balloon out creating larger and larger bubbles but rigid enough to de-laminate the entire side of a boat. The course weave of the 7oz almost grantees there is a pinhole somewhere even with a second smooth coat.

Since the glass adds strength to the wood strip construction, a technique for laminating 3/4 oz mat (random directional "chop") which is less likely to de-laminate is to wet out the mat and then take 7 oz cloth laid over it to squeegee out the excess resin and bubbles, then carefully *remove the cloth*. This will smooth the surface of the mat so that only a little smooth sanding needs to be done before the finish coat. If de-lamination happens later it will be less catastrophic because the glass will break as it peels.

I also would have used oil based, clear urethane over the epoxy resin (plastic on plastic) rather than an organic material like varnish. Epifanes is high end materials but even they do not recommend using their varnish below the waterline. The varnish you used is formulated to coat directly over wood and you may find your top coat eventually blistering and cracking sometime down the road. A urethane finish would outlast the varnish and is more easily buffed to a mirror gloss. When you find it's time to remove the yellowing, dry, cracking varnish, consider Epifanes Urethane, but frankly, I use Minwax oil based urethane on all my wood restorations with no problems for years even over teak.

[wesleyplace]

Wow. Just wow. What a beautiful boat you have made. You remind me of my late Grandfather. He was a Pattern-maker by trade but an artist by hobby. He built a few bigger boats but he also built a mahogany canoe/kayak. It was beautiful as I keenly remember, but quite heavy. Yours however is truly a work of art as well. I loved the design you put in it to make it really unique. Thank you for sharing this video. It brought back to me a wonderful memory of the greatest man I ever knew or loved, and his love of boats and boat building.

[renevanginneken]

A Guy doin’ stuff? A Guy doin’ magic.... congratulations on this piece of art! Very well done!