Building the Outer Stems.

Building the outer stems was one of the funnest parts of building the canoe yet because it was one of the first pieces of the canoe that was not repetitive. First, I screwed the stems to the bow and stern of the canoe. However, before these were attached, I had to sand down the edges of the strips to make sure they were flush with the outer stems. Second, I sight lined the flow of the canoe and drew a pencil line of this curvature, making sure that both sides were nearly the same. Then taking the two pieces of white oak downstairs to the work room, I cut the top piece of the stem with the band saw and sanded it down. I tried to make this piece as straight as possible, so it would be flush with the bilge of the canoe. Then, I sanded the edges on the horizontal orbital sander to form more of a blunt point. (If that even makes sense...) Then gluing the piece back onto the canoe, I screwed it back in to ensure that it would join to the cedar. When I eventually sanded the entire hull of the canoe, I sanded down the edges of the outer stems a bit more because of the wood filler, which brings me to the next step. Wood filling...