Materials and Supplies

These are the materials and supplies you'll need to build your QuickLap canoe. If you are building from a kit it will include a set of planks with the scarfs and gains cut and the rivet holes drilled. Everything else is available at either a marine retailer like BoatsUS or West Marine, or at a hardware store or home center like Home Depot or HQ.

- If you are going to cut your own parts with a ShopBot, marine plywood and boat-quality lumber may be available at a specialty woodworking supply business in your area, or you might be able to be order it through a local boatbuilder. If you can't find it locally, check the classified ads in WoodenBoat magazine. You will need 2 sheets of 4mm plywood to build a 13'6" canoe. Imported marine plywood is the best, and will cost between $50 and $80 per sheet. If this is more than you can afford, and cost is the deciding factor for whether you build a boat or not, there are several manufacturers of exterior Occume plywood in the $30 to $40 range. If you're really broke, or just want to try out the files with something cheaper, 1/8" luaun is available for less than $10/sheet. Although I don't recommend it, if you decide to try using luaun I've added some ideas for cutting and scarfing it at the end of the ShopBot section. Remember that the cost of two sheets of good plywood is minimal compared to the amount of time you'll spend building a boat; buying cheap plywood is usually false economy.
- a piece of lumber 3/4" by 6" by 14' for the solid wood parts of your canoe. Mahogany is one of the traditional wood choices, but ash, pine, spruce, and white oak are all possibilities.
- a pair of diagonal or end cutters to cut the cable ties.
- an electric sander or a sanding block, with assorted sandpaper. All of the sanding can be done by hand with a sanding block, but an electric sander is well worth the money. Ryobi makes an inexpensive random orbit sander with a velcro attachment system that is available from HQ and Home Depot for less than $60
- a hand plane, preferably a low-angle block plane, for trimming plank edges, etc.
- a sharp, ½ " or wider wood chisel
- a utility knife
- about 400 of the small size ( 4" long x 3/32" wide ) cable ties. They are included in all of the kits, but if you are cutting your own boat lots of places carry them, sometimes in assortment packs. Northern Hydraulics carries them through mail-order for about $5.00 / 1000.
- a small box of 3/4" or 1" nails with heads. These are used for clamping the scarfs when gluing plank halves together. You'll also need a dozen or so very small (1/2" or so) finish nails or brads. These will be used to keep the planks temporarily aligned when scarfing the plank halves
- a roll of 3/4" masking tape
- a pair of sawhorses
- a fairly flat table to glue-up scarfs. You need to be able to drive nails into it, so the dining room table would probably be a bad choice. Ideally it should be as long as your planks, but 4' x 8' sheet of plywood on a pair of sawhorses will work fine if that's all you have
- general woodworking tools to cut and shape rubrails, breasthooks, etc.
- 12 small spring clamps. The 2" size is the best, but anything close will do. I suppose you could use clothes pins, though I've never tried them. You will also need some larger clamps to hold the trim in place while the epoxy dries; if you don't have enough clamps you can make clamps from split rings of PVC pipe.

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