How to Build a Canvas Canoe

Canoes make it easy to get from here to there on a lake and relax and do some fishing. If you're feeling ambitious, building your own canvas canoe is a good project for the do-it-yourself enthusiast.

Things You'll Need

• Canoe form
• Wood-canvas canoe kit
• Scrap wood
• Clamps
• Varnish
• Wood preservative

Instructions

1. Get a form. You can build it yourself, but if you don't have much experience building canoes or the forms for them, buy one from someone with more experience that you trust made it right.

2. Install the stem and inwales of the boat along the spine of the form and the bottom along the right and left. Using scrap wood, mount temporary beams along the inwales to hold the canoe to the form and keep it all tight.

3. Add the ribs following the kit instructions and using the enclosed fasteners. Your canoe starts looking like the skeleton of a boat at this point.

4. Plank the spine and sides of the canoe almost to the inwales, remove the temporary support beams and take it off the form. Use the instructions for exact measurements for planking depending on the kit you're using.

5. Finish planking the canoe and brush the entire exterior of the boat with preservative. Install the seats and any other interior braces. Add the canvas exterior according to the instructions.

Tips & Warnings

• Take a class on building canoes to perfect the techniques for assembly.

• These types of canoes are hard to assemble correctly, and it's difficult to steer them. If you don't have much experience with boat building, try a plywood canoe first. There are free plans available on the Big Dam Fish website.

Resources

• Find free boat plans at Big Dam Fish.