: Rehd,

: This reminded me of a super-light balsa 11-footer I read about (link is
: below). To shorten it the remaining foot of difference, it would seem to
: make sense to contract the ends a little. You can do that by conforming
: the planned form spacing onto an arc and then projecting that onto a
: tangent line to gain a new "squashed" spacing, which'd contract
: the length a greater amount nearer the ends than towards the center. By
: doing that, you'd retain volume and beam and make the bow and stern a
: little more chubby.

: If the ends turn out too full for your taste by that method then you can
: instead do the scaling by contracting the length in a linear fashion. The
: best outcome would most likely come from a combination of the two,
: however. Check out the CD book The Shape of the Canoe -- it gives a handy
: overview of the design considerations.

: If you want to chop out stations from the middle then it'd be a good idea to
: draft the resulting plan and check for smoothness of the lines. I've used
: AutoCAD for doing things like this and found that the best way is to scale
: the spacing between stations to a tenth the normal distances. This makes
: it much easier to spot non-uniformities of curvature.

Hey Carl

That's a pretty awesome little boat. In Feb. next year, I will have a chance to pick up some Paulownia from our assoc.s exibit at the Tulare, Calif. Farm show. One of my Paulownia Plantation brothers is lending some trunks to the fellas from Oregon that make those trailerable saw mills. Sort of a mutual assisted advertising thing.. They cut our wood, we get a deal on one of their portable mills. However, the wood they will be milling will be mine when the farm show is over. If you're not familiar with Paulownia, it's just a tad heavier than balsa.. and has much more strength, comparable to pine. Then, I will be making a couple boats out of Paulownia and see how that works out.

I don't have a clue about boat design or how to use a CAD program, but I, with the help of a friend who does know a little, will redesign that boat, making it somewhat longer and beamier. This, after I build one by the original design. I'm lofting the numbers in the next few days.. ( got a bunch of other little projects to get done first )

I will look up that CD book.. Sounds educational.

I have a ton of Poplar strips to get rid of, so the first one will be white.
And small...

The next one will depend on when I get the lofting and forms made up and when I get that Paulownia. ?

Rehd