How the Canoe Was Built
The artist first secured a white-ash plank (A, [Fig. 65]), free from knots and blemishes of all kinds. The plank was one inch thick and about twelve feet long. At the mill he had this sawed into eight strips one inch wide, one inch thick, and twelve feet long (B and C, [Figs. 66] and [67]). Then he planed off the square edges of each stick until they were all octagonal in form, and looked like so many great lead-pencils (D, [Fig. 68]).
Fig. 76.—Frame of umbrella canoe.
Mr. Dodge claims that, after you have reduced the ash poles to this octagonal form, it is an easy matter to whittle them with your pocket-knife or a draw-knife, and by taking off all the angles of the sticks make them cylindrical in form (E, [Fig. 69]); then smooth them off nicely with sand-paper, so that each pole has a smooth surface and is three-quarters of an inch in diameter.
Fig. 77.—Umbrella canoe.
After the poles were reduced to this state he whittled all the ends to the form of a truncated cone—that is, like a sharpened lead-pencil with the lead broken off (F, [Fig. 70])—a blunt point. He next went to a tinsmith and had two sheet-iron cups made large enough to cover the eight pole-ends (G and G´, [Figs. 71] and [72]). Each cup was six inches deep. After trying the cups, or thimbles, on the poles to see that they would fit, he made two moulds of oak. First he cut two pieces of oak plank two feet six inches long by one foot six inches (H, [Fig. 74]), which he trimmed into the form shown by J, [Fig. 75], making a notch to fit each of the round ribs, and to spread them as the ribs of an umbrella are spread. He made two other similar moulds for the bow and stern, each of which, of course, is smaller than the middle one. After spreading the ribs with the moulds, and bringing the ends together in the tin cups, he made holes in the bottom of the cups where the ends of the ribs came, and fastened the ribs to the cups with brass screws, fitted with leather washers, and run through the holes in the tin and screwed into the ends of the poles or ribs.
Fig. 78.—Canoe folded for transportation. Canoe in water in distance.
A square hole was then cut through each mould (K, [Fig. 75]), and the poles put in place, gathered together at the ends, and held in place by the tin thimbles. The square holes in the moulds allow several small, light floor planks to form a dry floor to the canoe.
The canvas costs about forty-five cents a yard, and five yards are all you need. The deck can be made of drilling, which comes about twenty-eight inches wide and costs about twenty cents a yard. Five yards of this will be plenty. Fit your canvas over the frame, stretch it tightly, and tack it securely to the two top ribs only. Fasten the deck on in the same manner.
When Mr. Dodge had the canoe covered and decked, with a square hole amidship to sit in, he put two good coats of paint on the canvas, allowed it to dry, and his boat was ready for use ([Fig. 77]). He quaintly says that "it looked like a starved dog, with all its ribs showing through the skin," just as the ribs of an umbrella show on top through the silk covering. But this does not in any way impede the progress of the boat through the water.
Where the moulds are the case is different, for the lines of the moulds cross the line of progress at right angles and must necessarily somewhat retard the boat. But even this is not perceptible. The worst feature about the moulds is that the canvas is very apt to be damaged there by contact with the shore, float, or whatever object it rubs against.
With ordinary care the umbrella canoe