The Making of a Cedar Dugout Canoe
(Page 6 of 7)
January/February 1984
By Jim McDowell
BASIC CANOE-CARVING TOOLS
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Except for some occasional help from a chain saw, Norman and Earl sculpted their entire canoe with the following six hand tools (from left to right in the photo):
Broad adz . Used mainly for rough-shaping, this tool bites deep—especially at the corners—so swing it with restraint.
Curved knife . The boat builders made this finishing implement, which is ideal for delicate work, from a four-inch curved blade purchased from a sculpture supply house and a 12-inch piece of yellow cedar.
Double-bladed ax . A heavy, long-bladed feller's ax like this one is necessary to provide ample reach and tuning force for chopping out the hull's interior. The blade's corners should be rounded off with a file so they won't catch in the wood.
D-adz. Named for the shape of its handle, this is the perfect canoe-carving tool . . . Tait used it for most of the final shaping. Norman made the D-adz you see here, using a six-inch length of a half-rounded steel file—ground on one end of the curved side to a 15° cutting edge—for the blade and a piece of alder for the grip.
Elbow adz. Norman made the blade of this elbow adz—a tool that proved ideal for rough-shaping the sides and stems-by cutting an old automobile leaf spring to a 6-1/2-inch length and grinding one end to form a single-sided cutting edge with a 15° bevel. For the 22-inch handle, he chopped off an alder branch, including an 8-inch portion of the tree's trunk (the limb extended out at about a 45° angle). Then he whittled a flat ledge into about half of the trunk stub, leaving a back notch to keep the blade from sliding. After laying a leather pad between the wood and metal to provide a tighter bond, he wrapped the two parts together with halibut line.
Cooper's adz. The scoop-shaped blade of this implement—which is traditionally used for making barrel staves—is useful for cutting across the grain and roughing out the curved bilge line inside the hull.
Although red cedar is a relatively soft wood, it can dull a cutting edge on any of these tools very quickly. Tait and Carter found that their work was much easier when they took just a few minutes from time to time to restore their blades to razor-sharpness with a whetstone.
[1] Carter, Tait, and a friend flatten the canoe's bottom. [2] Carter chops away the first chunk from the
log's "top" and . . . [3] pries out a large section. [4] With the waste wood removed, Earl uses an ax to
shape the prom and [5] hollow out some of the interior. [6] While Tait sculpts the sheer line with a curved
knife, Carter rough-shapes the hull. [7] A broad adz is ideal for contouring large areas. [8] By working
carefully and slowly, the two craftsmen gradually coax the canoe's graceful shape from the cedar.
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