: I saw a message posted somewhere from a guy who said he built a red cedar
: strip canoe in 80 hours, including the time to build the strongbacks. Is
: that possible? I see people talking about anywhere from 250 to 500 hours
: for many of the kayaks I see here.

I believe that 80 hours for building a canoe from cedar strips is a possibility -- but not very common. Of course a lot has to do with how you count your hours and which hours you count.

Some people don't account for the time to travel to the store for supplies, and others do. Having all the materials on hand at the start can be a real timesaver.

Buying readymade items, such as full size plans or precut forms saves the time of lofting these from tables, or enlarging small patterns. Buying precut strips saves the time of making them. Using many full-length strips can save the time of fitting butt joints. And some canoe designs are ideal for rapid stripping.

With some experience, or a good reading of the tips available from books and online sources, stripping can go very quickly.

when I do my next canoe I'm planning to strip it more in the method used by David Hazen. He suggests laying down all the strips for the bottom of the boat at one time, and then cutting the perimeter of this block to the "football" shape needed. In effect this technique takes care of all the trimming and fitting at once, saving the time of fitting individual strips.

I'd lay up 3 to 6 rows of strips on each side of the boat, starting at the waterline, and working toward the gunwale. Instead of trying to bend the strips to rise to the height of the bow and stern I'd apply staight strips and then go back and trim them (as I did with the football area) This should bring me back to filling the area from the waterline to the bottom football, which should take no more than 4 filler strips on each side, with maybe a few "cheater" strips to fill out the ends.

I should be able to do the bottom in an hour, and most of the sides in 6 or 7 more hours -- all with straight(not steambent), full-length (maybe bead and cove) strips. That would be the first day of stripping, so I'd be ready to do the trimming and fitting of the remaining strips on the second day.

After that it is just sanding, glassing, and fitting the gunwales, thwarts and seats. Using narrow (1/2 inch or 5/8th inch) bead and cove strips should significantly reduce the sanding on both inside and outside. While there would be more strips to apply, they should go on very quickly with this concept of not individually fitting or seriously bending them.

PGJ