Canoe Build – Watching Paint Dry

by Alan Cole · Published Monday, April 11th, 2016 · Updated Saturday, April 9th, 2016

Another early start for me with a run around the Newby Block the same as a couple of days ago. I did knock 2 minutes off my Strava course record though.

After a shower and breakfast at the cottage we headed off to the workshop to continue with our canoe build.

The coat of paint had dried so after making a coffee we set to adding a second coat. This didn’t take long so as soon as it was done we headed into Penrith as planned to buy some varnish while the second coat of paint dried.

Vanishing Varnish

You would have thought that a quick drying, exterior gloss varnish would be easy to find these days, but B&Q didn’t have any and they had run out of the slower drying yacht varnish too. Screw fix couldn’t help either so it was back to B&Q to buy some basic (not quick drying) exterior varnish.

Waiting for Paint to Dry

Despite taking almost two hours, the quick drying second coat of paint wasn’t dry when we got back so we had to wait for it to dry. More coffee and some experimentation with a decoration for one of the decks wasted a bit of time, but it was literally like waiting for paint to dry so we sat down and had some lunch. In the end we decided to flip the canoe over anyway and start work reinserting the seats and handles and varnishing the gunwales.

Shrinkage

We tried to fit one of the handles but despite having been in place yesterday there was no way it was going back in. The handle was now at least 2 inches wider than the boat!! We were puzzled so decided to try the seats. It was the same story with the seats, the canoe had shrunk, and shrunk by quite a bit.

We didn’t want to start cutting and drilling all of the seats again so I decided to get physical with the canoe and push the sides out while Anna squeezed the spars and seats into the ever closing gap. It took a fair bit of bravery to push the sides apart as our new creation creaked and groaned under the strain, but by starting in the middle and working our way to the bow and stern we managed it. All of the seats and handles were in position and everything was now under a fair bit of tension which will hopefully add to its strength. We also fabricated some nice spacers out of bamboo canes so that we could drop the seats a little lower into the canoe so that they aren’t perched up high above the waterline. I think we will probably want to drop them further still, but the fact that we’ve built it hopefully means that such adjustments will be easy to make at a later date. We do after all know the workings of the canoe and have gotten pretty intimate with every last detail and quirk of it over the past few days.

Seat Spacers

Varnishing

With the seats in place we fixed on the decks, added our names to the canoe and then started varnishing the gunwales.

: Names on the Gunwales

: Nearly Finished

Two of our fellow canoe builders had now left and were heading home, and another couple who were building a canoe had gone out whilst waiting for varnish to dry so the workshop was now quiet. It was just the three of us, Mike who was painting his canoe and Steve who was prepping things for the next course.

The varnish went on well and ii finished it off nicely. The paint still wasn’t dry however so our plan to get a coat of varnish on top of this was put on hold.

Revealing the Design

We decided that the paint was dry enough to peel of the sellotape and reveal our design though. We weren’t sure how successful this would be but as the tape came off it had seemed to work and our ‘square spiral’ looked really good. We were pleased with it, as Steve said, the angular design contrasts well with sleek curves of the boat.

: Canoe Building Workshop

: Canoe Design

: Peeling off the sellotape

: Revealing the Design

: Square Spiral

Tea and Cake

In the end we decided to leave it like that for the day as the paint was still quite wet in places and planned to pop back the next day on our way out to apply a quick coat of varnish. So we headed back to the cottage for a quick change into more respectable clothes so that we could go to the The Mill Cafe in Morland for afternoon tea and cake. However I discovered that the only pair of jeans I had brought with me had a huge hole in the side of them where the stitching had come undone. So much for the respectable clothing, I was forced to wear shorts.

After tea and cake we had a stroll around the garden and then headed to the cottage to relax for the evening.