I decided it might be helpful for folks that are coming to see info about my Peace Canoe, PEACE OF THE PUZZLE, to have a little better overview page for the project. Below, therefore, please find a list of all the related posts, along with the topics covered.

Walking the walk - a wooden boat [...]

Gorgeous October day here outside DC, a perfect day to be on the water. Gulls and an osprey wheeling about, gusty nor’wester keeping things clear and cool, the pleasant surroundings of Mason Neck State Park (map) - just the environment to christen and launch the Peace Canoe. So christen it we did (the [...]

So we have a short paddle in PEACE OF THE PUZZLE under our belts now. I spent a couple months building it (a few have asked me for hours - I have no idea, but it was a good many) - aftre all that work, what is this boat like? Obviously I’ll need [...]

I have spent much of my free daylight hours over the last couple weeks putting paint on the Peace Canoe. Today, at about 10:30 AM local, I made some final touch-ups and called her done.

Obviously there are little things that make me cringe (that only I will likely notice, for the most [...]

And after a couple weeks of planing and sanding and one final clean-up, she is ready to paint. Voila!

I have also chosen the colors, not an easy task for me. She will look something like this:

Stamping Out Shipboard Noise and Vibration / Sea Chests and Manifolds for Small Vessels / How to Build [...]

And then, after a final push, in the gathering twilight, the Peace Canoe had a bottom. And that, gentle readers, means she is structurally complete. Houston, we have a boat!

Just a whole lotta planning and sanding, plus a mother lode of plastic wood, and we will be cracking open a paint can or [...]

At long last, I believe I have the sheer clamps replaced in a working manner. Man, oh man, was that an mistake that added time to the project! Just getting the broken ones off took several nights of careful digging for the nails with a tack-puller and cutting the goop with a utility [...]

At the beginning of Howard Chapelle’s seminal tome Boatbuilding, there is a 4-page introduction in which Chapelle goes through the entire building process at a 10,000′ level. After talking through getting out molds, cutting the rabbet, and installing deck beams, Chapelle devotes the final paragraph to a subject that one must assume is of [...]

Voila, the seats are ready. I have been working on them at night or during glue cures, and they have come along well. Here is the middle one. The plans specify cut-outs on the ends of the seats; I added my own flavor of these cut-outs.
I have also installed both chine logs, [...]

So I got the plywood, some good quality, from what I can tell, marine fir. That in hand, it was time to start getting big pieces together, starting with the sides.

The plans call for five 4×8 sheets of 1/4″ plywood, 2 1/3 of which go into the sides. The Getting Started in Boats [...]