DONE!

For those who have been out of touch with us for a while, the Beast was officially floated today and rechristened as Ingrid. Our project presentation went off without a hitch, and the canoe floated beautifully. Unfortunately, the only pictures I have are on film, but there were many cameras present, so we will work to get pictures from people and post them.

Thanks so much to everyone for their help during the project, especially Roger Wakeman, Joe Kovolyan, and everyone else in Facilities Management, without whom, this project would never have been possible. We'd also like to thank Mr. Robinson and Mr. DiCarlo for their help and guidance through the building process, and for allowing us to use their tools.

For anyone who is interested, Ingrid is currently tied off and beached by the track. We're not exactly sure what we will do with her yet, but Keith suggested that we move her to a more central location, and convert her into a garden planter. If anyone has any other ideas for future usage of Ingrid, please comment and we will take your suggestions under consideration.

finishing the inside

The most annoying part of hollowing the log. This is in the stern, and it is an absolute bear to chop through. There are three different knots in the wood in this small area, and the wood that is not knotted is almost sponge-like. The knots are hard to cut through, but once you get started on them, they're not too bad. The spongy wood is the worst though. Personally I've never seen wood do this. It is almost as if it is completely waterlogged, except that it's dry. When you swing into it, instead of splitting, the wood swallows up the blade of the adze or axe, and gives in, like a gummy worm or sponge. Then when you pull the blade out, the wood swells back up to fill the cut. Like I said, the wood seems waterlogged, but it is dry to the touch. Very weird. The only way to work through it is just determination and perseverance.
The dry rot that Gar mentioned earlier in a post. Luckily, the rot does not go all the way to the bottom of the hull, but it is an issue we need to deal with. Because we have several inches to work with, we've decided to leave it be. The worst case scenario we can see is that the rot does not go all the way through, but comes very close and so if we took all of it out, we would end up with a very thin hull. From what we can tell, it runs the length of the hull, so we're thinking that leaving it alone is the best plan.
The almost finished inside. You can see the depth we've hollowed out to. Now the hardest thing will be flattening the sides. From this angle you can see that the hull does not come straight down to the bottom, but instead curves in. We're working to get that curve out. Any wood that stays in the hull that we don't need is extra weight, and also takes away from the space inside the boat for us to sit in.
Because of the questionable weather and the fact that we are carving a hole in the log, we put up a tent over the log so that if it does rain, no water will get into the log and fill it up like a giant bathtub. It's also nice to keep the sun off when we're working, though it does limit our motion a little bit. I've already accidentally put a hole in it from the axe.

one week into hollowing

The tools of the trade resting on the log. The depth is hard to gauge from this angle, but it is currently about six inches deep along the length of the log. This picture is two days into hollowing, so it is going fairly quickly.

Here's a better view of the inside. You can really begin to see the depth taking shape. At the top of the dugout, you can clearly see the curved cuts made by the adze. When chopping with the adze, the wood comes out so easily. It's interesting because the technique for chopping is very different than with an axe. With an axe, you want to chop across the grain at an angle, then come from the side, but with the adze, the best method we've found is to chop almost directly down onto the wood so that the wood almost calves off. If you imagine a glacier coming into a bay, and the very front edge sheering along its length and a long, tall strip peeling off. That's similar to what happens with the adze.

Again, the axe and adze on the log. From this view you can see the general shape that the inside will eventually take.

more pictures. leveling the bottom and beginning to hollow.

The top of the log, ready to be hollowed out. We marked the gunnels with red spray paint to ensure that we wouldn't cut into them by mistake.

Mr. DiCarlo taking a turn with Beowulf. When the log was moved, we were able to slide two railroad ties below it to elevate it off the ground and cut down on moisture and all the other bad things about having a big piece of wood directly on the ground. Right now, the side that Mr. DiCarlo is taking a swing at is going to be the bottom.

There's the log! Because of the construction, we were able to move it around the corner of Webster, so it is now sitting right outside of my kitchen window. Mr. Robinson and Mr. DiCarlo can be seen scheming as usual.