Has anyone on here built one? If so I'd love to see what you did to steal a few ideas.

I started to get the itch to get a canoe or kayak at the beginning of this season. After looking around at a lot of great boats, I decided to spend a few days over Christmas putting together something a little different. Yeah, I get it. Right in the middle of duck season is the exact wrong time to be building a boat, but it's the only time that I would have a few days off as well as a few extra helping hands.

I'm specifically building an Uncle John's Pirogue http://www.unclejohns.com/boat/default.htm. It's been a blast to build and quick to put together, but don't kid yourself with the "6 Hour Canoe" tagline on the website...


Day 0 - Supplies and Dimensions

Uncle John recommends building a boat between 12' and 15.5' using his "plans", which are really a set of general guidelines. I'm going with 14'8", but with a couple modifications:
1. 4 ribs. Using 4 ribs instead of the standard 3 the UJ plans call for will increase the average width slightly
2. Lengthen ribs. I decided to increase the width by 2" for the largest ribs, and a little under 1.5" for the smaller ribs to give myself a little more weight-carrying capacity

Wood:
Ribs- cypress
Stems- cypress
Hull- 1/4" Luan plywood from home depot
Rub rails- 3/4"x1 1/4" pine furring strips
I settled on cypress for the ribs and bow/stern stems to stick with tradition. New-growth cypress isn't nearly the wood old-growth cypress is, but it's the best I could find.

Other materials:
All of my epoxy and fiberglass was ordered through Raka.com. These guys are great and are a wealth of knowledge when it comes to small boat building. Not to mention their epoxy is reasonably-priced and of great quality.

Pictures and more to follow!

Just go buy a 4 Rivers layout boat and go hunting

Are you going to do a scraf cutt to join the wood together or just butt them up against one another?

I haven't built a pirogue but I did build a Gatorboat Duckhunter many years ago. We hunted out of it for 7 or so years before the wood eventually deteriorated enough that it was unusable. I stored it upside down, outside, under a tarp. I built it from home depot exterior grade plywood, glass cloth and epoxy. Building your own boat is a very rewarding. My advice would be to take your time, keep all the joints tight and have fun. Good luck with your build and I'm looking forward to pics.

Here are a couple of pics of the boat I built.


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Why didn't I think of that?

I scarfed the plywood but was about 10 find 16' sections for the rub rails. I was worried about that scarf joint but it ended up being really simple with a belt sander. Plus, it gets covered in fiberglass later so I don't have too much concern.

Good luck! Should be a fun project. I look at a duckboats site pretty frequently, almost every day. Keep thinking I want to build a boat and keep stopping myself from yet another hobby/time/money killer Would love to hunt over my own blocks with a boat I built though.

Day 1 - Make Stems and Ribs

I was planning to build the pirogue back home in Texarkana with my dad and brother and knew we would only have a couple days to work. To get a head start I headed to FW to work in my buddy Dave's wood shop. He's a proper wood worker type with proper wood working tools, which came in handy. (If you're interested you can check out his work he does on the side at http://www.burkettcustomfurniture.com/)

The shop:



Step 1: Rough cut, joint, plane


Step 2: Cut lap joints and angles in the newly-squared stock to make our final pieces. These would eventually form the skeleton of the boat


I lost of few pictures from day 1 on my phone. Of note was us using a compass and a ruler, but no protractor, to figure out a 15 degree angle needed for the ribs which would form the sidewalls and remembering equilateral triangles contain 3 60* angles. Thanks geometry

Also taking place while I was shaping the ribs, Dave put together a few carving knives for wooden spoons. The steel was cut from an older planer blade and needed heat treating, and I thought these turned out nicely. A little ugly, but functional.

Those knives will work!

this is great, I have been telling myself that I would like to do this, but the lazy gets me every time

Now that is impressive!

Day 2 - Ribs and Plywood Glue Up

Christmas Eve was a shortened work day but we were still able to get a little done. The goal was to be completely ready to actually piece the boat together on Christmas morning. To get to that point I needed to:
- Assemble ribs
- Cut and glue scarf joints
- Cut bow/stern angles in the newly-glued 16' plywood sheets

I used Raka's 127 thin resin and fast hardener for most of this work. The fast hardener gives you a working time of about 8 minutes, which is plenty long enough for any of this. Only when we got to epoxy coating the hull and glassing did I move to slow hardener.

Epoxied ribs curing (4 instead of the usual 3)


Scarfed plywood sheets that will later form the sides. I wish I had taken a few pictures of making the scarf joint with the belt sander- it was quick and easy.



After a few hours the sides had set enough to move them around and cut the bow/stern from each piece. I clamped these together and used a pull saw. If you've never used one, I highly recommend it. My $15 pull saw from Lowe's is my favorite cutting tool and comes in super handy for small-medium precise cuts.

Alright after a long delay I'm coming back to this thread. Something to hold us over for the next month, right?

Day 3 - Finish Glue Up

Day 3 was a good day. We got the structure totally assembled, with ribs, sides, and the bottom of the hull all epoxied together. I thickened up our batches of epoxy with wood flour to make sure any gaps were filled and the glue remained in place.

As you can see- this was a family affair with grandpa, dad, and little brother all helping out.

Step 1: Glue ribs to the sidewalls. These are screwed into place now, but the screws were later removed and holes filled.


Step 2: Attach rubrails to the new structure. This portion adds a ton of strength and helps to smooth out the hull shape a bit.


Step 3: Rough cut the bottom and glue it down to the hull. Again used a liberal amount of wood flour to make sure we get a good connection between bottom and sides.

Hold on man, that aint right. You can't just stop posting pics and leaving us hanging. I am sure JP has that written somewhere in the THF rules.

Here is another set of plans

http://www.lsuagcenter.com/NR/rdonlyres/10718979-8410-44B7-8AB6-B8759C364547/15186/2801Pirogue.pdf

If someone else is interested in building a glass over wood boat, I have a ton of fiberglass in various weights, sand paper, stir sticks and other supplies that you can have, you just have to pick it up at my house.

I've run across that page. It looks good. One thing I liked about the Uncle John's plans are that if you cut the ribs and bow/stern correctly it takes a lot of the guesswork out of things. The boat just sort of pops together without much opportunity to screw it up.

I might take you up on that offer for fiberglass later this fall if you don't have any takers. I've got my eye on boat #2.

pirogue ????????????------------- call it a canoe,,,Texans dont know what a pirogue is.

I have an electric start 52cc Honda clone scooter motor, gear reduction and clutch housing if you are thinking about building a mini longtail, I have built several, pushes a small layout pretty good. I also have the plans for the longtail if you are interested.

Day 4 - Sanding and Epoxy

With the structure complete- it's time to get real friendly with a sander.

Steps on Day 4:
- Remove excess bottom with pull saw
- Shape bow/stern
- Sand everything
- Sand everything again
- Roll on initial wetting coats of epoxy on interior and exterior
- Fiberglass inside seams

Commissioning little brother to do the dirty work


Doing some shaping


First coat of epoxy


Glass tape laid down (this will disappear once it's soaked

Id never trust something I built out of wood.... looks cool!

A little tip, place the hull in the sun prior to the glassing, bring it in and coat it with epoxy, as it cools it will draw the epoxy into the wood, also requires less adhesive since it flows better and the glass soaks it up easier.

This is awesome... but you may be getting me in trouble... I might have to do this.

Day 4.5

Forgot to add this pic. Not too bad looking for a $15 sheet of plywood, right?

Great idea- I didn't try it to that extent, but we did heat heat up the hull/garage with a propane heater before coating, and then would turn off the heater. My concern was the bubbles that can form as warming wood expands.

You want to glass and epoxy as it cools, not as it heats up. You are correct about the bubbling, as the wood heats up it expels the air, and contracts as it cools.

You also want to use the slowest activator you can, I usually use the West Systems 206 or 209 depending on the temp. I have tried them all and this is absolutely the best epoxy system on the market. In 20yrs, I have laid a ton of glass and epoxy on various substrates, and wood has taught me more than anything else.

Nice work!

SWEET!

I pm's Zach with some pics of a dugout pirogue that I restored,,, he suggested I post it so I am, it is about 55 yrs old.
my grandfather carved out of a cypress tree--and I restored----- left it in the marsh at our duck lease for about 10 yrs, then moved it to a pond. the wrecked house is on Miss coast after Katrina,,look closely and you can see the pirogue under the house,,, no one can figure out why it was not washed away. pirogue restored

Beautiful work of art....glad you were able to save it....awesome heirloom for sure....