Building The Six-Hour Canoe [Paperback]

Richard Butz (Author), John Montague (Author), William Bartoo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2000

A guide to building a canoe that contains scale plans, specifications, a tool list, step-by-step instructions, and even a helpful explanation of how to paddle the canoe. All the building operations are clearly illustrated with photos and sketches. The canoe is constructed from a single 4'x16' (or two 4' x 8' sheets) sheet of marine plywood and a few pieces of dimensional lumber and, with epoxy glued seams, is watertight from the moment it hits the water. When completed, the canoe is 15'3" in length with a 31½" beam. Inexpensive to build using ordinary tools and materials, the canoe gives everybody access to boatbuilding and a boat.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It's a great how to, a great read, and probably will get... many...into the...world of modest...unpretentious watercraft." -- Messing About In BOATS

About the Author

William Bartoo, Richard Butz, and John Montague founded the watercraft studies program at Buffalo State College. They have all been involved in boatbuilding for decades. They all live in Buffalo, New York.

Product Details

• Paperback: 65 pages
• Publisher: Tiller Pub (March 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0961039671
• ISBN-13: 978-0961039677
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.6 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #835,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This is one easy project to start on., March 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Building The Six-Hour Canoe (Paperback)

The tiltle can be very deceiving. At least it was for me. Building the 6 hour canoe was very easy using the plans and directions provided by the book. I do not have allot of experience working with wood and this book made the whole experience pleasurable. The whole project took me 4 weekends to complete. I imagine that with the right equipment all the components of the boat could be cut out and prepared for assembly within 6 hours. The epoxy recommended requires a cure time of 6 hours so be prepared for the project to last longer than expected. The pictures help explain the directions. There are a few errors in the pictures but by following the directions you can't go wrong. Do not forget the limber holes in the frame. the plans show the location but the directions do not cover them. The hardest part was finding the 16 foot 1x2s required. I ended up having to rip them from a 2x6. Other than that, it was fun and I now want to try another style of boat. My daughter and I are looking forward to having fun with this canoe.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great fun, December 9, 2002

By 

Andy "Sayonara" (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building The Six-Hour Canoe (Paperback)

Although the six hours refers to someone with experience and possessing all the tools and wood, the design is perfect for people (me, for example) with no woodworking experience. Because I had little experience, I had to refer to Tom Hill's extraordinary Ultralight Boatbuilding, which though written for a skilled woodworker includes important details left out of Six-Hour. There are only a few things I would want to change to Six-Hour:
There are two lists of materials, one on p. 11, one on p. 58. They do not match. The one on 11 has a frame bottom, but this is not in 58, and 58 does not list the keel. They mention a "full sized pattern" for the gussets on p. 18, but no such pattern exists. They also might as well include the butt block procedure for two 4x8 pieces of plywood in the main part of the book because most places on the planet do not have 4x16 pieces of marine grade plywood. Also, readers should work hard to find a source of cheap bronze screws before they start (the project requires about 120 of them--not the 50 given in the text--and they are expensive!) It would also have been nice if they had photographs showning the canoe at main stages in the process. The above minor points did not detract from the 30 hours or so of pure enjoyment I had in using this book to build a canoe. I hope the authors come out with the sailboat version they promise.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It can be built in a weekend, June 6, 2000

By 

Steve (NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building The Six-Hour Canoe (Paperback)

I have taken a class a Buffalo State College with John Montague, the author. In the class I built the weekend skiff, a row boat/sail boat. I have also built the 6-hour canoe with high school age kids in the Adirondack Mountains at a summer camp. It took a group of 6 kids to build 2 canoes and approximately 4 days working about 4 hours per day, this includes painting the canoe which is not part of the 6 hours of building the canoe. The directions are easy to follow and the cost is very inexpensive. The canoes have lasted 2 summers so far and look to withstand many more. They are made of marine grade plywood. Have fun building one yourself.