: Wow, I never would have thought of that. Have you done this?

No, I haven't. This is basially a summary of plans for a birchbark canoe written by Daniel Beard in his book "The American Boys Handy Book". but adapted to use a heavy glass cloth instead of bark. Beard's books are long out of print, but there is a facsimile edition of this one which should still be available. It is worth looking through as he has some illustrations to go with the write-up. I've been considering the idea of making something similar using vinyl floor coverings (what we used to call linoleum) instead of birch bark. It comes in 12 foot widths, so I'd need to either make an 11 1/2 foot long canoe, or, if I wanted a longer boat, buy a piece 12 feet wide and a foot or so longer than the boat I'd want. If I follow the second idea I'd probably have to buy a piee 16 feet long and 12 feet wide -- enough materials for 3 boats -- and I'm not sure I need that many! there seem to be a few adhesives on the market now whih will do a good bond to this stuff, so cutting the gores, and re sealing the seams, should not be such a problem.

I have seen some ugly fiberglass canoes used by a rental livery in Wisonsin. The appeared to be flat sheets of thin fiberglass material which had been folded along the keel, with the bow and stern pinched together and the beam simply forced apart with a thwart. Not real pretty, but fairly simple to make. combining that look with the birch bark canoes frame gae rise to the idea I presented. Try it and you 'll certainly have something original!

The big drawback to these methods is that you get a hull that is shaped by the draping of the materials, and not one which is shaped to the mathematical precision that a computer design can give you. It may be a nice hull shape, but it won't be anything like what an olympic racer would want for competition. Basic water transportation? Yes. Best boat n the world? Not likely.

: The instructions were great and I can see exactly how its done. A revolution
: in my project is BAMBOO, free and strong! I'm cutting it into strips and
: making ribs and gun wales(probably) out of it. Thanks for the great idea
: though.

Well, why not lay out a panel of split bamboo on glass cloth? Put down a cheap dropcloth of polyethylene to work on, then you na either put down a layer or closely spaced bamboo splits, and cover that with a sheet off lass cloth saturated with resin (polyester or epoxy) Whatever resin drips off the glass cloth will bond the bamboo to the cloth -- not perfectly, but enough that you can flip it over and put on another coat of resin from the other side.

Use that instead of your birch bark, sealing cuts and gores with pathes of glass cloth and resin, and filling in any areas where the bamboo has come loose. After the shape is formed, cover the open side of the bamboo with a layer of glass loth and resin to give you a sandwich of glass, bamboo, and glass.

Or, work along the lines of a cedar strip canoe. Cut forms from heavy corrugated cardboard and use tiny drops of hot melt glue to hold your bamboo splits to these. Smooth this the best you can and cover with a layer of glass cloth. Remove the cardboard forms and scrape off as much of the glue as you can, then glass the inside. Actually, this is almost as much work as doing a cedar strip canoe, but you'll be using bamboo.

You can get plans for the forms from several books including those by Gil Gilpatrick, David Hazen, and Ted Moores. check amazon.com for those names and the word "canoe", then take the information on these books to your library and see if they can get copies of the books for you through interlibrary loan.

After reading these you may just decide to go for a nicer looking boat the first time. I built my canoe from plans in Gilpatrick's book and it cost me just under $300 for everything. Now that I know of cheaper sources for materials I could probably do the next one for about $225 to $250, which is closer to your budget.

All of these authors cover the basics. Do some reading -- it's either free or fairly cheap -- and you'll have a good handle on what direction you want to go in. also check through the archives and you'll get some ideas for other boat possibilities. The Geodesic Aerolite boats, for example, would also be fairly inexpensive to construct.

Hope this helps.

PGJ