After the inner frame is taken out it's time for the ribs. Here the ribs are put in place on top of the canoe and marked at the edges for bending.
Marc and Tom are numbering the ribs so they can be put back in the correct order after bending.
The ribs are put in boiling water for 5 minutes above a campfire, then bending is a piece of cake. Marc takes care of the fire while Tom and Wim bend the ribs. Bending is done two ribs at a time.
Then the ribs are temporarily fixed at the right position and left to dry for a day or two. After drying the ribs are marked for trimming of excess length and taken out of the canoe.
The ribs are kept in place with clamps, they made me think of giant clothespins.
Our canoe is 15 feet long so we need a lot of sheathing inside the hull. So again Cedar splints are split to use for sheathing. This process is particularly difficult as you have to split the cedar down really thin. Tom does the lion share of the splitting as we are running out of time, we take care of smoothing the sheathing down to proper size and form. Pictures below: Marc working on the shaving horse with a draw-knife smoothing the sheathing. Each piece of sheathing overlaps the one below like shingles.
Wim is shaping the ribs ends to a wedge shape after they are trimmed.
An historical moment.... the last rib is about to put in place.
The ribs are fixed in the canoe by being forced under and between the outwale and inwale, then driven forward. Wim is working on the very last one.
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