Homemade kid's canoe?

Does anyone know of plans for building a kid’s canoe? I’d like to get my nine-year old interested in canoeing while teaching her some building skills. I’ve never built a boat myself and I don’t have an extensive array of tools (i.e. specialty wood working tools). I’d appreciate any comments on the feasability of completing such a project with a nine-year old.

can be done
since it’s the first boat building for both of you, might want to stick with something simple.



E-mail me if you can’t find any plans out there you like.

check ebay
I’ve found a few sets of inexpensive sail boat plans there. Also check here: http://www.svensons.com/boat/



I like the looks of the little chief.

SOF or S&G
You could try your hand at either a small skin-on-frame (SOF)4, stitch-and-glue (S&G), or other simple design. For an SOF you would probably want to adapt plans for an existing boat, kind of like I did with this one:

http://community.webshots.com/album/400333983UKCFQw



There are a couple of kit manufacturers that offer a 12’ Wee Lassie type boat. I think Chesapeake Light Craft www.clcboats.com is one of them.



Geodesic Aerolite might have something that would interest you:

http://gaboats.com/boats/



Rainbow Boats offers a few designs

http://rainbowboats.com/stitch.html

Geodesic boats
I’m curious if anybody has experience with them? I am considering building a couple of solo’s as a winter project with my 15 year old. I’ve got a full wood shop but would be interested in feedback from soneone who acutally built one.

Six hour canoe?
http://www.theboatshop.com/plans/sixhour.shtml



Probably big for a nine-year-old, but you could scale it. I don’t know of anything that’d be an easier build.

I have a friend on his second GA
boat as we speak. He built the Snowshoe 14 and now the Rob Roy. Nice lite very user friendly. If you buy the kit from them the rest ot the materials are available locally inexpensively. I have built one canoe using Morris’s and Cunningham’s books as a guide, lashing instesd of glleing the joints. This has been very successful too.

Kid’s Canoe
Warren,

I constructed a kids stitch and glue canoe for my granddaughter from free plans obtained at bateau.com. The material used is luan plywood with exterior grade glue. The seams are reinforced with 2" fiberglass tape, and the whole craft coated with epoxy. I don’t think you would want the youngster handling the epoxy, but cutting out the pieces and doing the fitting and initial gluing is well within her grasp. Tools needed are minimal and the results are very good. I paddled the canoe eight miles while on vacation to test it, although it really isn’t intended for an adult. It handles reasonably well with a kayak paddle (which can also be made). If you are interested, visit http://www.bateau.com/freeplans.php . If you would like a picture of the one I built, or if you want further information, email or call me at 585-659-2877. I put gunwales on mine (hers) and it stiffened up the whole canoe. My time investment was about 40 hours.

Teaching woodworking skills to a youngster is very important.

Good luck,

Ken

kids canoe
I found an artical about building a canoe type boat for kids. It is a small stitch and glue boat that can be built by the child. I will try to email you some pictures of kids building and using them.

To get information about it email fritzf@alaska.net.

Kids Canoe
Do a google search and you will come up with all sorts of free plans as I did.



Hard part was finding the materials in my area. Best I could do was marine grade eight inch plywood one hundred miles away. Yea like that’s going to happen.

Wacky Lassie
http://www.alaska.net/~fritzf/Boats/Wacky_Lassie/Wacky_Lassie.htm

Thanks for the great info!
I appreciate all the comments. I’ll be sifting through the different ideas and let you know which way I end up going.