Before we Begin,   1: This Is How,    2: It Starts With a Plan,    3: What I Want Is,     4: Strongback & Molds 
5: Strips,    6: Doing It,   7: Sanding,   8: Sheathing ,   9: Details,   10: Shine    

When I first started with strip-built boats back in the '70's, finding a plan for boat of any kind was a real chore. Sure, there were plans for plywood boats. But none I could find for canoes. So for my first stripper I took the lines off a 1956 Old Town canoe.

It's much easier to find plans today - at least for canoes and kayaks.

In fact, the problem now is that there are so many canoe and kayak plans, that making the choice between them can be a real pain in the butt.

Since you are reading these pages, the obvious first choice is to look at Free Canoe Plans. What you will find there are the offsets, or measurements,  for a solo canoe and two 17' tandem canoes. Using the instructions in Lofting 1.5, which use the solo canoe measurements, as your guide, the result will be exactly what you need to proceed with the project.

Or you can buy the full scale Small Craft Plans from me. At $25.00 they are inexpensive. And they are accurate.

A second choice is the internet. The links below are repeated in Resources because most of the sites are also involved in offering custom small craft, as well as building supplies. One thing you will notice is that all of them charge much more than I do for a set of plans. Don't know why that is exactly. But if they have a plan you really like, paying twice as much, or more, shouldn't be a problem.

So. You spent some bucks for a plan, and you figure that finally the time has come to make some saw dust.

Well, not quite.

You really should invest some time thinking about what you want that new strip-built watercraft to look like.

Copyright 1998, 1999  by Lew Miller, DBA Marlew Publishing.
Image copy granted for personal use. Please credit source.