Now I have the plans and most of the materials I suppose it’s about time to start the build otherwise I may miss the summer and the best conditions to paddle.

I have a double length garage but it is full of work benches and tools so I have had to erect our family tent in the back garden to act as a temporary workshop, it’s a bit of a tight squeeze as you can see and the 16 foot workbench I have built only just fits in it but it will suffice (although I am under pressure now to complete the canoe in the shortest possible time as my wife wants her washing line put back up!


Workshop!


16-foot scaffold workbench





When my timber was delivered they left an 8x4 sheet of 1/4inch MDF that was used as protection for the ply so I have used this to mark out templates from the plans, this reduces the risk of making errors in the marking out and cutting the ply directly, it also enables all of the panels to be cut from 3 sheets of ply rather than 4 which is not a lot of use to me as I ordered 4 because I did not know they would leave the packing! Still I now have a spare sheet should something go wrong.


WEST systems fibreglass materials


An improvised sanding table to take my rough-cut templates down to the line