Alan Bambina - Prospector Ranger

Using your plans, and skills picked up at the Wooden Boat School course, I started building this Ranger 15 in late February and was done with it in early May, 2011. Rather than the traditional staple process, I took hints from Ted's book and made up about 40 clamping brackets to secure strips to the stations. I happened to have a good stock of black walnut around, so they became the accent strip, along with some thin maple. The football presented a new opportunity to play with the planks, so I took an idea stolen from Cory Wishart and made a figure eight pattern on the bottom. Decks were glued up from leftover scraps and have a definite arch to them. Memorial Day was the perfect time for a launching, although the wind has me thinking about a keel. Horseshoe Bend Lake in East Texas was busy with fishermen in bass boats, but all of them had favorable comments on the way the canoe looked and performed. I can't tell you how helpful Ted Moore's book was in the planning and construction of this craft. The photos explained concepts the text covered and made it clear what I had to do next. Now on to the next project. Alan Bambina Instructional Technologist Carrollton-Farmers Branch I.S.D.