Stem adjustments

The goal of every project is to learn from your mistakes - and so it is with this canoe build. It's time to laminate the aft stem and see if I'm any better at estimating the spring-back to get the right stem profile. By the time I get to the second canoe maybe I'll have the hang of it down.

So on we go to gluing up the aft stem. I used more clamping points to better capture the curvature of the stem and also made sure to maintain the curvature through past the eventual end points. I still wish I had more clamps but it turned out fine and there were not gaps in the glue joints.

So what were the results you ask? Better, but not perfect. In the last installment the fore stem came out alright structurally but I overestimated the spring-back and that made the curve a bit too sharp. The aft stem is close, but the after moving it around to find the position that matches the drawn profile the best the area that connects to the keel is too short and will need to be lengthened. Mr. Oughtred draws such a beautiful boat it would be a shame to change the stem profile even slightly because of lamination errors so I'll be planing these stems down until they match the plans as perfectly as possible.


First up is the fore stem (the bottom one) and you can just barely see that at point of greatest deviation from the plans I had to take off almost a whole lamination layer thickness. This was then added back on the back side using a strip that was tapered on its ends to roughly match the amount removed. The result is a front face that matches the plans and fairly constant thickness. Almost like I did it right the first time!

Next it's time to adjust the aft stem. This one started much closer and only took a bit of cleaning up, but then it came time to beef up the too-short connection with the keel. It worked out that I could take the section that was cut off to from the bottom keel mating surface and glue it back on the top side of the stem. It looks a bit clunkier than the fore stem's keel connection but the aft end could use a bit of extra support since this joint carries the stresses from the rudder. I'll probably still taper it a bit more just so It's prettier to look at as every little detail counts in a small open boat like a canoe.

Well that's as far as I can get using the scraps that are laying around the shop so I'll have to actually invest in some materials soon to start building the strong-back and station molds that form the building jig.