The Baidarka Building Process Illustrated

Bow, Stern and Keelson

In this section, we assemble the keelson with the stem piece and tail. This step sets the depth of the boat. The keelson also acts as a depth gage for the ribs.

But first we have to fabricate the stem piece and the tail and decide whether we want a one part or three part keelson.

Let's assume a one-part keelson for the sake of simplicity. This would be our choice if we were in a hurry.

Aleuts builders used to construct the stem piece out of a solid block of wood. But we can do it more easily by glueing up several smaller pieces of wood. The stem piece consists of a horizontal bow plate joined to a vertical component that is an extenstion of the end of the keelson.

We notch the ends of the gunwales to make room for the bow plate to sit on top of the notch. At the same time, the end of the bow assembly slides under the bow crossblock that joins the ends of the gunwales.

Two battens clamped to the ends of the gunwales give us the shape that we want to cut the bow plate to. We trace this shape on the underside of a piece of wood that we will cut our bow plate from.

The completed bow plate, cut shaped and stained. Perhaps staining was a little premature since we still had more assembly to do.

When the bow plate is done, we set it on the end of the gunwales to make sure it smoothly continues the line of the gunwales. If the shape is off, now is the time to correct it.

Now we cut out the vertical components of the bow. These will sit under the bow plate. we have made the vertical parts of the bow in two parts. We could have made them in one part as well, although doing the carving on either side of the bow slit is a little easier with the bow in two parts.

Next we shape the vertical bow parts. In the Aleut boats, these parts were carved with concave profile to minimize contact of the skin with the wood. Skin up against a flat plane of woud would trap water and shorten the life of the skin.

And now we clamp the lower part of the bow assembly to the bow plate, ready for doweling.

And we dowel the parts together.

We also add two blocks on either side of the vertical piece of the bow. This reinforces the vertical and also provides a broader plane for sliding under the gunwale cross block.

Now all the components of the bow are in place and we have lashed the upper and lower vertical parts of the bow together. Note that the horn on the bow plate has a higher elevation than the bottom part of the bow. So when we turn the boat upside down, the more rugged horn takes the stress.

We also dowel two pieces of wood to the underside of the bow cross block to keep the bow from sliding from side to side. It can, however slide forward and backward.

The bow in place, bottom view.

The tail is the link between the deck and the keelson and sets the depth of the stern. Unlike the stem piece which is probably the most complex part of the boat, the tail is simply a flat piece of wood cut to shape. We optionally cut a hole in the middle of it to make it lighter.

The notch in the tail slides on the stern cross block and sets its vertical position.

We have now constructed both the bow and the tail and are ready to install the keelson. The keelson will be supported by the bow and the tail at the ends and by some temporary spacer blocks in the middle.

In this sequence, we show the installation of a multi-part keelson.

We use a thin piece of wood as a spline to establish the curve of the bow section of the keelson.

We mark the curve of the spline on the face of the piece of wood that we will cut the bow section of the keelson from.

The rough cut bow section of the keelson in place so we can check fit and alignment with the bow.

And we make the other two section of the keelson in a similar manner. And clamp them it place to check fit. This picture also shows one of the keelson joints, as yet unlashed.

We lash the bow section of the keelson to the bow.

Closeup of a keelson joint lashing. The lashings are both horizontal to pull the two section together end to end and vertical to keep the sections together in the vertical direction.

The view of all three sections in place. We are now ready to install ribs.

This picture shows a one piece batten clamped up against our three piece keelson. Note that the bow section of the one piece of wood has less arch than the three piece. If we had gone with a one piece keelson, we would have added another shim or two near the bow to give it the right profile.

Ribs