Making a rawhide canoe, step by step

A lot of reenactment level work is about learning appropriate historical crafts and skills. This board is for all general skills that don't have their own forum.

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Udwin
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Making a rawhide canoe, step by step

Post by Udwin »

Alternate topic title: See? I haven’t disappeared, I’ve just been very, very busy!

Background:
Two years ago, I constructed a twelve-foot dugout canoe from a cottonwood tree which had been downed by beavers:
Image
It turned out to be a fun little vessel—after adding an outrigger, I managed to paddle it to victory in a local homemade boat race—but I have since discovered the limitations of that particular craft. Despite installing a copper keel, it is still quite a bit tippy; the narrow width (18”) makes for limited cargo capacity and limits passengers to myself or small children; and it must be kept submerged when not in use. None of this is to suggest that it’s a bad little vessel, but in the years since I have been considering other period options: I had considered building a coracle, but those aren’t exactly well-suited to journeys on large rivers (I like on the Ohio, which flows swiftly even at low pool); and while I have a friend who builds birchbark canoes, there was no way this semester I could escape to the wilds of Michigan to work with him.

Tolkien-specific considerations to guide my research:
-reference to watercraft are rare; specific descriptions are practically nonexistent. (I’m ignoring elvish-type stuff; I’m not going to be making a hallowed swan-boat to take the Straight Road). This is what I have been able to find:
*Smeagol’s proto-Stoorish folk living near the Gladden “made little boats of reeds.” (Bk1Ch2)
*a key trait of Bucklanders is that they are “fond of boats.” (Bk1Ch5)
*Bombadil seems to have used a rowboat of some kind (it has “oars”; TB and hobbits both refer to it as a “cockle-boat”) (ATB)
*Hobbits of the southern Marish ferry TB across the Brandywine in a wherry (a light English skiff)
*Boromir also calls the craft from Lorien “cockle-boats” (Bk2Ch9)
*Lorien boats have “skin-covers…to prevent them from being flooded” in rain
*“…light boats used to journey out of Wilderland down to Osgiliath…until…the Orcs of Mordor began to multiply.’”

All of which is to say:
Some six or seven months ago, while surfing the internet looking for inspiration for my next project, I happened upon a fascinating image from a ‘stone age reenacting’ group based in Finland: a woven willow canoe framework!
Knowing the resources available to me, my own abilities, and the challenges this project might pose, my brain lit up. YES! This I can do!
Image
Personae: Aistan son of Ansteig, common Beorning of Wilderland; Tungo Brandybuck, Eastfarthing Bounder, 3018 TA; a native Man of the Greyflood, c.850 SA
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Re: Making a rawhide canoe, step by step

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As I had done for my dugout, I got in touch with the builder to get more photos, details and inquire about his process. (Now there’s a protip: find yourself a More Knowledgeable Other to help answer questions and guide you through the process—Vygotsky’s social constructivism for the win!)
After some more online digging, I had assembled a decent collection of reference images of other skin-covered boats to be scrutinized, which I filed away in my ‘future projects’ folder. Unrelated to this venture, I coppiced my willow trees to produce young shoots (mostly for basketry, or wattle boat weaving at some unspecified time down the line)

Cut to six weeks ago, while on a walk I see that the local quarry had cut down massacred all the young willows in the wetland between their gate and the road. Now, nothing fires me up and makes me hasty quite like Sarumanists needlessly cutting down trees, so I resolved to make sure that they weren’t killed for nothing. Of course, the joke’s on the quarrymen, because all they really did was coppice some more trees for me! = )

With a source of appropriate wood, the time had come to accelerate my plans! Over the course of a weekend, I surreptitiously pilfered the best pieces and, safe at home, stuck them in a tub of water to prevent early drying out. (They made a visually-shocking leaning bundle that reached up to the tops of the apple trees.)

I then selected a workspace to begin building my boat.
“The building site was carefully selected. The space in which the canoe was to be set up had to be smooth, free of stones and roots…and the soil had to be such that stakes driven into it would stand firmly. A shady place was preferred…the site had to be close to a suitable place…where food and water could be obtained.” (Edwin Tappan Adney & Howard Chapelle, Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America)
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Re: Making a rawhide canoe, step by step

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Framework:

“The gunwales are the first members to be formed.”
I first laid out the footprint of the canoe’s gunwales on the ground with twine and cane pegs, and then stuck poles every foot; these would later be bent over to form double ribs. The basic proportions of the craft are taken from my father’s Grumman fifteen-foot canoe, which I scaled down to twelve feet.


Unlike Pheifer’s boat, I wanted something that could stand up to a bit of abuse and hold itself together; it needed thwarts to lock the gunwales in place and give the boat some structure. These needed to be strong but light, and so were split from birch logs.

The basic process was the same as weaving a wattle hurdle, that is, weaving rods back and forth between vertical swales. Because my willow was several years old, each was too big to use as-is; I was required to split each in two and thin them to usable size on a shaving-horse.
Image

Image
As a result, each horizontal row of the boat’s frame took me approximately one hour to complete—this would have gone much faster if I had simply used whole (round) shoots as Herr Pfeifer did on his example boat.
However, this meant that I was able to use half as many pieces as I had planned (so I have a nice amount left over for other projects), and the two rods in each row of the frame are roughly mirror pairs of each other, which gives the boat a nice bit of natural symmetry.

When completed, the framework weighed roughly 35 pounds.
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Re: Making a rawhide canoe, step by step

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Skin Cover:
The skin cover is made of two full-size beef hides (a bull and a cow), which each had to be fleshed, membraned, limed, dehaired, and membraned again.
Image
By my count, getting both hides from green to rawhide took well over 20 hours, and was by far the most laborious part of the entire process. Not only did each skin weigh in excess of 80 pounds when green, but cow does not behave like deer; the fat and membranes do not easily part from the skin by scraping, and often had to be shaved off instead.
Image
(^ approximately 72 square feet of future rawhide)

When they had reached the rawhide stage, the skins were sewn together using 2-ply sinew thread. Image

The seam in question is double-stitched to ensure that it is waterproof; in the first stitching, only the inner skin is fully pierced, and in the second (outer) stitching, neither is fully pierced. This subcutaneous 65-inch seam took me 6.5 hours to sew, as there is a bit of a learning curve in working with slippery materials in the ¼-½ inch-thick range

After working these hides, I now have a newfound admiration for cultures that had to deal with bison, pachyderms, walrus, and such megafauna (even those with steel tools, to say nothing of those who only had access to stone tools!), and I am much more appreciative of the whitetail deer I normally work with, whose skins peel and membrane so cooperatively. (I’ve also learned my lesson—if I ever find myself making another craft like this and need large skins for the cover, I’m using elk!)
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Re: Making a rawhide canoe, step by step

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After the skin were processed, they were lashed to the risers and allowed to dry, tightening to a hard shell around the frame.
Image

The finished boat weighs approximately 65 pounds, which is enough that it's good exercise for me to move by myself, but isn't outrageously heavy. (for comparison, my dad's 15' Grumman is 58 pounds)

With the good weather supposedly coming this week, I am going to treat the skin cover with pine tar (leftover from treating my dugout), and pay the seam with some of my 1:1 beef tallow/beeswax mixture. And I have a tiny hole on the rear quarter that needs to be patched with pine pitch.

Chronological matters:
From acquiring the materials to putting the skin on the boat took 39 days.
At least 12 hours alone were spent twining sinew into thread; I didn’t keep track of how much time I spent cutting laces for lashing everything together…but I can confidently say that the boat consumed a whole goat’s worth of rawhide (thanks, Elleth!) and a little bit of deer as well.

I laid what would become the gunwales on April 15 (26 Chithing) and laid the final row (#17) just over two weeks later on May 3 (14 Thrimidge). The next two weeks were spent finishing the frame: lashing the bow and stern into place, adding keel-pieces, extra ribs, and risers, before sewing the cover and stretching it in place.

The fourth annual Blue River homemade boat race is one week away, so I will definitely be reporting back with a performance debrief following!
Personae: Aistan son of Ansteig, common Beorning of Wilderland; Tungo Brandybuck, Eastfarthing Bounder, 3018 TA; a native Man of the Greyflood, c.850 SA
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Re: Making a rawhide canoe, step by step

Post by Peter Remling »

That is a great reason to be away for a while. Love the step by step slideshow. Keep us posted on how she handles.
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Re: Making a rawhide canoe, step by step

Post by Ursus »

This project is beyond words. My first thoughts: Utter respect salvaging the trees and for fleshing your own hides. That is some seriously hard labor. Especially cow, I've done several for shield facings and am not eager to do so again anytime soon lol. I take this post as a sign. My father and I were just talking about making some form of light canoe for traversing the local creeks. To say the least this has greatly inspired me. Glad to see you back, thank you for sharing this.
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Re: addendum: later developments

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After 2-3 days drying and stretching on the framework, the insides of the sewn seam were still squishy and uncured (and still very foul-smelling), even after being subjected to direct air circulation overnight. On Sunday, I set the boat outside in the early morning sun, which caused the seam to dry…as well as cause the rawhide to either side to shrink further, popping both lines of sinew thread! (which took me ~10 hours to ply!)
Image

To remedy this semi-catastrophe, the skin cover was removed from the framework, then taken apart and wet again until soft. The skins were then resewn (cheating and using non-stretchy waxed nylon for the internal stitch and hemp cord for the outer stitch--done properly this time).
Image

After sewing, the whole cover was soaked overnight in the pond to regain some flexibility, then re-stretched over the frame and again allowed to dry slowly. Once dry, the outside of the skin cover received a coat of pine tar.
Personae: Aistan son of Ansteig, common Beorning of Wilderland; Tungo Brandybuck, Eastfarthing Bounder, 3018 TA; a native Man of the Greyflood, c.850 SA
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Re: Making a rawhide canoe, step by step

Post by Greg »

Bravo on getting down to business. Most folks would leave it alone for a month after a frustrating setback of that magnitude.
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Re: Making a rawhide canoe, step by step

Post by Elleth »

HOW DID I MISS THIS - WOW!!!!

Oh that's gorgeous work, and impressive gumption! I've seen a friend do a little coracle - but nothing so large and sophisticated as that! How very cool!
Persona: Aerlinneth, Dúnedain of Amon Lendel c. TA 3010.
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Re: rawhide canoe performance report!

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After a brief test-paddle in the pond Friday night (to make sure the holes were suitably pitched), I carted the craft down to the river in preparation for Saturday morning's annual homemade boat race.
The race is held at the confluence of the Blue and Ohio rivers (3 miles from my farm), so a friend and I hiked down to the put-in point early Saturday and used the trip downriver to the race to familiarize ourselves with how the boat handles and work out any kinks.

#1: It only leaked at the seam a tiny bit at first. This started as a trickle but lessened to a mere seep as we continued, owing I believe to the seam becoming saturated and swelling--which means it is essentially self-sealing! (What little water accumulated in the bottom was 'bailed' with a large sponge.)

#2: When it came to figuring how to paddle it, 'third time pays for all'. When we embarked, we both used a kayak paddle. My buddy was sitting behind the first thwart (further aft than I had intended), while I kneeled behind the third thwart. This meant that our paddles often clashed.
After making the crossing to the Indiana side, we tried each using a canoe paddle. This worked well enough, but as the craft is very maneuverable and likes to steer towards port (owing to the slight twist in the internal keel, I believe), my friend had to often switch sides.
After a brief pause about a mile above the race, I suggested he use his kayak paddle to help steer, while I stuck with a canoe paddle to provide the primary forward thrust.
This was the winning combination, as he wouldn't have to switch sides with the double-ended paddle, and could reach out further with it to 'sweep' for quick gross course corrections.

Image
Even though we started a minute or two later than the other participants, our teamwork, lightweight craft, and water-repellent oiled skin cover combined such that we quickly had a lead of at least 150' on the other 'boats'. However...this year's race was less organized than in previous years, and the finish line was...a total mystery. We wound up doubling back to the finish line of 2 years ago (turns out it wasn't this year's finish!), which cost us our lead and allowed our only other real competition to continue its slog to the final boat ramp... we came in a hair's breadth beside them.
Regardless, I'm calling it a solid win--at least in the 'traditional craft' category. (It's easy to come in first when you're the only one in your category!) I'll be having some words with the guy who 'organizes' the race...
Image
Personae: Aistan son of Ansteig, common Beorning of Wilderland; Tungo Brandybuck, Eastfarthing Bounder, 3018 TA; a native Man of the Greyflood, c.850 SA
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Re: Making a rawhide canoe, step by step

Post by Elleth »

Wow... after re-reading for details, that's even more impressive: I'm agog at the precision you had in that sinew cord! My sinew thread looks all kinds of ugly, and I assumed that was the nature of the beast. What critter is it from again? Deer?

With the pitch, does the rawhide stay stiff in the water? Or does it all go blubbery again? Expanding to seal up leaks is definitely nice!

Bummer on the race layout - but I think "covered all that extra distance in the same time" counts as a win. :)
Persona: Aerlinneth, Dúnedain of Amon Lendel c. TA 3010.
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Re: Making a rawhide canoe, step by step

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Yep, the sinew thread was from deer backstraps. It looks nice in the picture, but it wasn't really very precise, and that (and the splices, I'm sure) was the weakness. The thickness varied a lot, and if I'd known how big it could be and still go through the awl-holes, I could've gotten away with making it all about 1.5mm. Oh well, it kept my hands busy while subbing, and made students ask questions (no doubt helping add to my status among middleschoolers as a legendary woodsman), so it wasn't a total loss.

The pitch was only used to patch the two small holes in the hides--one from a slipped awl while sewing the seam, and one from a nick from the butcher. The coat of pine tar on the outside was done with water-repellency in mind, and it seems to work. After about 5+ hours in the water, the bottom of the cover kept its shape and had only really became a bit flexible... I don't think it will ever return to the blue-white raw state (blubbery really is the perfect descriptor!).

I think my next step will be to give the cover another coat or two of pine tar, run a line of pitch along the inside seam (covered with a strip of birchbark to keep it from sticking to things!), add some weight-distributing supports where paddlers will sit/kneel, then give the frame a coat of 'boat soup' (linseed oil/turpentine/pine tar &c.) before lashing it all back together for good.
Personae: Aistan son of Ansteig, common Beorning of Wilderland; Tungo Brandybuck, Eastfarthing Bounder, 3018 TA; a native Man of the Greyflood, c.850 SA
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