Building a stitched lapstrake canoe - Installing thwart and seats

August 26, 2007
Installing thwart and seats

When I installed the inwhales I had to remove the spreader stick amidships. Afterwards the hull was narrower by about 1", so when I went to install the thwart I re-inserted the spreader stick to force the hull out to it's design width. Then I measured out the location of the thwart per the plans and drilled 1/4" holes for the bolts. I went to the hardware store today and bought all bronze hardware for mounts. I feel that it will look more attractive than stainless steel.

Here is the thwart from underneath before I tightened the nut. The plans say to use a wood screw from the bottom, but the cover picture shows a carriage bolt, and that seems stronger to me. The book also mentions that you can get a complete seat mounting kit from a marine supply place, but my local ACE hardware has a lot of marine hardware that made it easy to get the right parts. I spent over $22.00 on this nice bronze hardware.

Next I lined up the seats in their intended locations and cut off the excess wood so they would fit inside the hull. I took care to clamp them in place -- carefully measuring them so they were centered. Then I drilled 1/4" holes for the bolts right on the glue line. I had to go back and ream out the holes in both parts to get them to line up and eventually got all 4 bolts in place. At this point I decided that 3" spacers would be needed, although the book suggests placing them 1/2" lower. A lower placement will make for a less tippy boat, so I may go back and change my mind on this.

To make the spacers, I took some of the extra mahogany strip that I had left over and rounded it over on the router to make a dowel.

Then I drilled them out with a 9/32" drill on the lathe. Here they are ready for installation.

Installing the spacers was a bit tricky getting them all lined up at the same time. I torqued down the nuts with an adjustable crescent wrench so that the heads pulled in to the inwhales.


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HOME	1. laying out the planks	2. cutting planks	3. gluing planks	4. rabbeting edges	5. stitching seams	6. shaping hull	7. filleting stems	8. gluing seams
	9. removing stitches	10. filling holes	11. gluing inwhales	12. gluing outwhales	13. glassing outside	14. glassing inside	15. glassing keel	16. decks and seat mounts
	17. installing seats	18. epoxy coat	19. sanding	20. varnishing	21. finishing up	22. launching	storage	BILL OF MATERIALS
	This canoe was built from plans in the book "The Canoe Shop"