Building a New Dugout

Folks at the Havre de Grace Maritime Museum have gotten a couple of large Poplar logs and are planning on building two dugout canoes. Any good sources of information on how to build them? The plans are to build one using more modern methods and one more traditionally.

Later-Bud

 

building new dugout

Contact Oconaluftee Indian Village they would be able to help you with you project
Yh&os
Chuck

 

Bud, Is poplar a traditional wood for dugouts? I know that it is not recommended for most exterior applications due to it's lack of rot resistance. The following is from a marine lumber distrubutor:

"Poplar
This wood is a pleasure to work with. It is pale cream to green in colour. The green fades to a very nice shade of light brown. It is not suitable for constructing hulls and decks in boat building, although it can be used internally for joinery and items such as panel doors and drawers. This is also a good domestic material for furniture, and solid wood floors."

However, if you have the logs....

Mike

 

yes it is as far as from pa down to fla and west.the native americans and the white settlers used it and cypress
yh&os
Chuck

 

I do believe that Lewis and Clark made 2 out of poplar for the journey,built them when they overwintered with tha Mandans on the Missouri R

 

In a book named the River Home (also sometimes titled he Horry and the Waccamaw) Franklin Burroughs (now English professor in Maine, but born in South Carolina) describes a paddle on his childhood rivers (in a red Old Town wood-canvas.) On page 35, he describes encountering Thomas Spivey, a riverside dwelling rustic and woodworker who makes and sells poplar bowls and cypress log canoes. Uses nothing but an adze, it seems.

Book is a good read otherwise too.