: for my wood-strip canoe, I'm using poplar for a nice, pale colour.
: Unfortunately, the trees are still standing. After cutting them down and
: dragging them to a clearing (There's BIG ant hills in them thar woods),
: how do I go about splitting them into peices small enough to A) dry at a
: reasonable speed and B) go thru the saw-thing we're using to rip the wood?

: Any other advice on wood-strip will be appreciated. The book I'm using as
: reference is Canoecraft, the only one I can find on the subject. Please
: don't ask me to buy or order any books, because I can't afford it and by
: the time the ordered book comes in, It'l be too late in the season to
: build the thing.

: Thank you all for helping.

: Anne G

Hmm. we started with a skin on frame boat and progressd to a wood strip boat built from raw materials. The differences in labor, methods, materials, costs, tools and time involved are great.

The big question, while occasionally rude to suggest, is still money. Please pardon me for getting personal, but if obtaining the books on skin on frame construction is too expensive, then will you be able to afford the epoxy resin and fiberglass cloth that is mandatory for a strip built boat? Don't post your financial status. You must answer this question only for yourself, not for me or anyone else. It is none of our business. Glas and resin will be in the $150 range if you shop carefully.

Skin on frame boats can be built in a weekend (most aren't though) Strip built boats tend to take months. Personally, I did my canoe over two summers as I could not afford the glass the first year, but after I had the hull built I had a stronger incentive to save my money for the materials to finish the thing.

If you are working from standing trees, not from store-bought, pre-milled bead-and-cove strips, then you will be taking longer and you will need some tools. If you don't have these tools, you can rent them or buy them, but the question comes down to whether it is cost effective. If you have tools, then your costs can be kept down. If you must acquire tools your costs will be higher. Strips for a strip built boat require more milling operations than the wood neded for a kayak frame for a skin on frame boat.

Thre is a guy in upstate New York who builds birchbark canoes. He claims he can build one using only a crooked knife. That is about as minimalist as you can go with tools. The frame for a skin on frame kayak is bery similar to that in a birchbark canoe, so I suspect this guy could build one with hand tools. Personally, I'm not that proficient. If you have not built a boat before, then you would probably need some parctice at this, too.

OK. Back to the trees. We felled ( cut down) two trees at my neighbor's house. They were in the area where he planned to put an addition on his house, and had to go. We used chain saws to remove the lower branches up to about a 6 foot height, then cut down the tree, leaving a stump about 4 feet high. Probably could have cut it lower to the ground. There are several articles on cutting down trees. read a few first. This is a dangerous operation.

The fallen tree then had to have all the branches cut off and disposed of. This left us with a very heavy log -- far too heavy for the two of us to manage. If you must remove a log, use a strong chain attached to a truck to tow the thing to an area where you can work on it.

I tried using steel wedges to split the trees, and they did split, but it mada a mess of the nicest heartwood, and swinging the sledge hammer to drive the wedges was long, hot, sweaty work. It took about 3 hours to split the first tree in half. Knots or areas around major branches are much tougher, and tend to make your splittig effort go to one side or the other. You want to try to drive a line of wedges straight down the center of the tree. After starting a crack with a steel wedge i would widen it with wooden wedges, which I could make on my table saw. I couldn't afford many steel wedges, so I only had three to use. This is not enough wedges.

The second day I split the second tree using a chain saw. I tried to keep the thing perpendicular and going in a straight line down the center of the tree. It was not easy, I made a mess of it, but it beat using wedges. I had less wasted wood, and it went faster. It dulled a chain, so add on the time to re-sharpen the thing.

I tried using a reciprocating saw to split the halves into quarters. This was very slow, so I tried using a circular saw to cut a slot in them first. This was only a marginal improvement in speed. In an afternoon's work I cut halfway along the length of a tree, and broke a blade on the reciprocating saw. It was back to the chain saw. In the second afternoon I was able to finish the quartering of the trees, and i stacked them to dry. They stayed that way over the winter, as I was disgusted with them. The quarters are the right size to be ahndled by two people, but I have to rig something to cut them first into planks. The planks will then be ripped into strips in the conventional manner, using my radial arm saw. Right now I have to build some sawhorses that are as high as the table on my table saw so the log quarters can be supported as I cut them.

If I wanted to use these for skin on frame boats, I'd do another pass with my chain saw, freehand, and get two plank that I could clean up on my table saw. That would be enough wood for the long chines. For ribs for a skin on fram I could go back to the stump and cut it close to the ground, or split it as it stands (using the chainsaw) to get material I could further divide by wedges or saws, and then bend into ribs. The rib material I would work while it was green and easily bent (no steaming!) and I could use the thinnest material from the very top of the tree, as well as wood from some of the larger branches, too. Anything 1.5 to 4 inches in diameter I would run through my bandsaw to get a flat edge, then measure out from that edge to get the thickness I would need for the ribs. (1/2 inch or less, depending on the plans.) The thin strips of green wood should bend into the rib shape, and then dry on the molds, so it holds its shape forever. Branches that already have some bend in them are halfway to being ribs, just follow the curve as you cut them the first time.

Anyhow, hope this gets you started.

Paul G. Jacobson

I'll send some pictures along as I go through this process. But for right now, you want to cut those trees before they get all leafy and green, as you'll have less foliage to go through.

You can cut the trees with an axe and tree saw. For one or two trees the labor is not that bad. Chainsaws are easier, though.

Hope this helps.

The halves of the trees were still too heavy for two people to manage, but I was able to put them on dollys and wheel them to my lot, 200 feet away. Moving the 4 tree halves took another hour.