What's Happening?

Apprentices launch a 45-year old White Bear Skiff that they restored

Updated: 1/29/08

There are currently 6 boats under construction, and nearly sixty young boatbuilders measuring, marking and cutting them into existence.  At this time, more than half of our project partnerships are off site, that is, at their schools rather than in our shop in the Midway Shopping center.

Their group of students has been impressively team oriented, and a pleasure to work with as they've measured, marked, and cut their way toward a finished canoe.  Their goal is to finish this particular boat before their fundraising gala in April.  They are coming into our shop once a week.

 Here are a few of their comments so far:

"We are working on a boat for the Gala.  We started out making the gunwales.  Then we steam bent the gunwales to make the shape of the boat.  I am the master of the bandsaw.  Working on the bandsaw is fun.  Phil is a good teacher.  I am not too good on the spokeshave or block plane or Japanese saw, but I am good with the drill.  I think more students should go to boatbuilding 'cause it is fun."  -Mike W.

"I was so nervous about going to my first day of boat building.  I have learned so many new and different things...I have learned how to use the bandsaw and do a lot of different cuts.  I have also learned how to build a boat, and I didn't know much about that before.  I have also learned how to use a lot of different tools.  I really like to use the drill when we have to drill stuff on the boat.  I have also learned how to use a spokeshave and get a lot of the boat pieces smooth before they go on the boat.  This has been a great experience of my lifetime to be able to go to Urban Boatbuilders' shop to build the boat."  -Kari T.

"It takes a a lot of work to build a canoe, but with the help of Phil, Mary, and Rich, we are already making great strides in the boatbuilding process.  I have gotten the chance to use a drill and take screws out of wood with it, and I have also gotten to use a spokeshave and a block plane, which takes some muscle, but the wood looks smooth when you're done.  I really like helping build this canoe because I have not had any experience really with boat building and I thought it would be fun, but also hard work!  I also wanted to be more involved in the Gala, so I thought this would be a good way to support my school.  I can't wait for the finished product and hope that whoever the canoe goes to at the Gala recognizes all the hard work and dedication put into building this boat."  -Emily L.

We started out this year by building two 11-foot Mississippi River Skiffs and two pairs of spoon-bladed oars.  They are structurally complete, and we are starting this semester with an eye on completing a 16-foot skin-on-frame canoe by the end of the school year.

Project Overview:

In September 2007, starting with a pile of wood and a few buckets of hand-tools, about ten young people each day began moving the construction of these two boats forward.  We started off with several preliminary hand-tool exercises designed to build skill and confidence needed throughout the construction phase.

Skiffs are fairly simple craft, and ay UBI we've built perhaps forty over the last several years.  Nevertheless, the process of bending each pair of 3/4" thick white pine planks around a single mold never fails to raise our heart rates.  It baffles the mind how much curvature a strong rope and an organized crew can bend into a relatively thick board. 

Urban Boatbuilders was asked to provide instruction throughout the building of two 16-foot skin-on frame canoes.  To make things interesting, Renee Peek, who coordinated this partnership and found funding for it, decided to encourage elements of competition and cooperation by pitting a core group of female builders against a core group of young men.  Each group selected a supervisor amongst them, and steambending of the gunwales began 9/27/07. Each student also built his or her own paddle.

Skin-on-frame construction descends from Inuit culture, but is also found in several other cultures around the world.  The Inuit used driftwood and lashed their craft together with seal sinews, carving it as needed with a crooked knife, and finally skinning it with the hides of seals stitched together.  Since we didn't want to kill any animals in building these boats, we'll be using synthetic cordage and skin, but otherwise the construction remains true to its origins.

Project update: 12-5-07

By Tracy Lindberg

After steam-bending the gunwales, we made and put molds in to keep the boats' shape and made the yoke. (Which is the part in the middle of a canoe that is used when carrying it over a distance.) We then put in breasthooks and something that we invented on our own to hold the breasthook in place which we called the "boat bra". After the triangular breasthooks were put into place and secured with the boat bra and crochet knots made out of lashing (which is like really, really strong floss made with wax), we started on the stems.

The stems are what make the boat look 3D. To make these, we glued lots of small strips of wood together into a half-U shape to prevent any weakness that comes with having only one grain direction. We then attached the keel-stringer to the two stems. We were only half way done. (If that.) Right around this time; because we were under a time restraint, we pretty much had to abandon our paddles in order to make sure that we would be able to finish the two boats in time to be able to launch them before it became too cold to do so.

After connecting the keel-stringer, we had to use pliable wood strips to help outline where we would be putting the twenty ribs on each boat and approximately how long they would be and what shape that they would be. The two boats, which be this time were named KwaiiLani (meaning heavenly waters) and Wene-Chi Wene-Cha Kaee (meaning welcome learning experience), were becoming two completely different shapes and identities. After pretty much sketching where the ribs would go, we cut them to length and steam-bent them as well to make them into the shape of the boat. This part of the project was a very adrenaline filled part because of the time restraints. Each rib had to be shaped and put into place and clamped within 30 seconds or so.

After the ribs were all finished and clamped in place, we started working on the longitudinals. Longitudinals (stringers) are the strips of wood that go from the front of the boat to the aft of the boat and there are 5 longitudinals on each side of the boat. This step required a lot of measuring and lashing. With the longitudinals though, we did a type of sewing lashing, connecting what would have been 200 singular lashings into 10 long lashings. 

After all of the lashing and rat-tailing, we were finally able to permanently attach the ribs to the gunwales. After that was finished, we began work on the seats, floorboards and inwales. First we made the seats, and put in the floorboards. After the floorboards were put in, the seats were attached. The seats posed a bit of a problem with the type, size, and how many dowels we should use for the attachment of the seats being that we would have to put all of our weight on the seats and our two previous experiments with what type of dowels we were trying to use. We finally figured it out by putting two 1/4" dowels on each side and also, we lashed the seat to the seat riser that was connected to the ribs.

The inwales were then put in and attached with dowels. After the inwale was put in, we then sanded the whole boat again and put a layer of oil on the wood to protect it. It was then time for the skin. We used a synthetic material - ballistic nylon. We used this because we really didn't want to use real seal skin; and it is also is lighter and stronger. We had to cut the skin to length, then make it so that the skin was moderately tight without wrinkles, fitting behind the rubrail and without having any major (what we call boogers) pieces of fabric sticking out above the rubrail . We then put the rubrail into place and sewed the skin together on the aft and front stems. After all of this was finished, we soaked the skin in water so that the skin would shrink and become tighter around the boat.

Our boat finally looked like a boat. Before we could launch our boats, we had to make sure that we put at least three coats of waterproofing polyurethane. After this was finished, we were able to finally launch our boats. We were super excited. We went to Lake McCarrons and launched them on 11/21/07.  We took a bunch of safety measures. We brought blankets, extra people, two kayaks for pulling people to safety, hot cocoa, wading boots, and life jackets. The launching went great. We paddled our boats like we actually knew what we were doing. The females decided to push our boat to the max and since there were four of us, two of us paddled and two of us actually just sat in the middle of the boat. We were even able to keep up with one of the kayakers and he said that he was going pretty fast.

After our launching, we just had to finish the number of coats on the polyurethane, and sanding, oiling and rounded the edges of the rubrail with a router. When this was all finished, we began to work on our paddles again. We took about two more weeks to completely finish our paddles. All of our paddles are very, very different. We were, as our instructors have told us, the most creative with our paddles. After we finished EVERYTHING we presented our boats and paddles to our school. We are very proud of ourselves and our boats.

To anybody who may be interested in seeing or even possible buying one of our boats with paddles, we will be raffling one of our boats off next summer during the state fair. We hope that you will come to see our boats and maybe even take a chance with a ticket.

This year, we have been building a 16-foot skin-on-frame canoe on commission for a client in Wyoming.  The frame is complete and we sill be skinning and sealing it in the upcoming weeks. 

Through our partnership, students from their careers class gain hands-on experience that can transfer to a number of trades. They develop their skills measuring, marking, planing, and shaping wood. But they also learn to work as a team, and as they see the boat take shape, they see the value of perseverance.

This year marks a few notable changes.  First of all, boatbuilding instructor Brian Thorkildson is now here full time. He has brought with him a wealth of knowledge and craftsmanship.  Under his guidance, our apprentices have built a portable forge fired with MAPP gas, with which they temper the steel blades for wooden planes and spokeshaves they've made by hand.  He has also taught some basic timber-framing joinery through the construction of a couple pairs of stout sawhorses, all while building and restoring several boats here in the shop. 

As of this writing, there are five apprentices, with three applicants in the interviewing process.  They completed the restoration of a White Bear Skiff, are building  a 17-foot cedar strip canoe, and have been building shop necessities and commissioned smaller projects such as spoon-bladed oars, canoe paddles, block planes, and spokeshaves. Soon, they will begin planning for the 80-mile river trip in July. To the left are some pictures of their work: 

 Please see a more complete description of the program at the Apprentice Page: http://www.urbanboatbuilders.org/Apprentices.htm

 Wednesday Night Open Shop 
Like to work with your hands?  Every Wednesday night, 6:30-9:30, Open Shop is an opportunity for volunteers in the community help out with project preparation, shop development, and tool maintenance.  Anyone with website skills is welcome to help too. Below is a typical open shop scene:

Equipment Donations Needed

 

2007/2008 Project Partners:
Boys Totem Town, St. Paul
Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Minneapolis
Hubert H. Humphrey Job Corps, St. Paul
Great River School, St. Paul

Interdistrict Downtown School, Minneapolis
Hennepin County Home School, Minneapolis

Minnesota Life College, Richfield

 

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