Building a Canoe for My TF2...

[Gimpdiggity]

Hi everybody.

I've set to work on making a scale canoe that I will then figure out a way to mount to my Trail Finder 2.

I've got a 3D printer, so I've been working with that.

My goal was to create a canoe that looked like a pretty good scale...hopefully a "single" canoe or possibly a double. The problem with the double ended up being that they generally are about as long as a Toyota Hilux is itself, and I didn't want to end up having to have canoe along the ENTIRE top of the ENTIRE vehicle...so I ended up focusing more on a single person canoe...which is funny, because a single person canoe is actually what I'm looking into buying for myself. So I know the sizes of them quite well.

After looking around a bit, and doing some scaling and measuring, this is what I've come up with off of the printer.





It scales out to roughly 11.5' long, which seems to be a perfect size for a single person canoe, as most of them are in the 11-12' range.

I'm currently printing one at a slightly larger scale to see if I like the way that looks better, but the difference in size is a HUUUUGE difference in time and materials required to finish the print.

As it stands right now, the finished print is currently in my basement with filler drying on the outside of the hull. I'll then sand the hull down to get it as smooth as possible to hide the print lines, then I'll get to work on other finishing touches to go with it.

I'll probably end up painting with a fairly heavy type of coating to hid the print lines even more, so I'm thinking something like a PlastiDip will be perfect.

I'll keep the thread updated as I go along.

Thanks for looking!
Jeff

[Cali_Lightning]

looks rad! soo cool what 3D printers can do! What brand do you have if you don't mind me asking

[Gimpdiggity]

Thanks! I should be able to sand the hull down this evening...just gotta find what I did with my sandpaper after I cleaned up the garage last time.

I just have a cheap one...a DaVinci Jr. With some tweaking, though, I've been able to get it to produce some pretty amazing prints.

[Gimpdiggity]

Here it is with the filler on it to smooth out the lines and any imperfections in the print.



And here it is sanded down.



I ended up putting a bit more filler in a few spots, and I'll have to sand that down again. I'm not sure if I want it perfectly smooth, or a bit used and abused. Probably somewhere in the middle.

The scaled up one I printed last night is WAY too big. I went from 225% to 300% for that one. I might try one at 250 and see where that gets me. However, I do like the size of this one as a one man canoe...so I may not worry too much about trying a larger one again

[Gimpdiggity]

I have got the canoe primed and sanded pretty smooth.

At this point I'm trying to decide if I want to go for a "new" looking canoe, or if I want to go with something that looks like it's been abused a bit. I'm thinking abused, as in the real world a canoe strapped to the top of a 4x4 out on the trails probably isn't going to look new for very long.

My thought process for this has been to try to very carefully lay a bit TOO MUCH paint in a few areas to get it to bubble up just a little bit. I figure this will make it look like the metal has been banged up and is possibly rusting in a few spots. Knowing my luck, though, when TRYING to do this, I'll probably lay the paint perfectly. Why? Whenever I try to lay paint perfectly, I get streaks and bubbles!!!!

[Gimpdiggity]

Okay everyone.

Here is the canoe primed and sanded about as smooth as I can get it.



Here it is with its metal look. I've never used this type of paint before, so this was a learning experience for me.





I did purposely lay the paint on a little thick in a few spots to try to end up getting a base to try some weathering.





As you can see it produced some bubbles that appear almost like rust on a car's panels before its broken through the paint.

I'm not 100% sure I like it, though. I can always sand it back to smooth and lay the paint again, but I'm thinking I might use this as a "rough draft" of sorts to practice techniques on and then make another that's a "final" version. I have a friend that just ordered an SCX10ii kit, so I could always give this one to him.

I'm currently printing one that is 250% scaled (this one was 225%) to see how that comes out size wise. If it seems better I will surely use this one to just test techniques on. It's seeming from the first part that it is a bit too large, though.

Ultimately I'm happy with how this is turning out. I'm sure once I get some more detail work done on it I would feel it deserves its spot on whatever rack I get for my TF2.

That said, I will certainly be making one that has real wood sides laid over the print sometime this fall. That will be awesome!!!

Let me know what you guys think. You like the finish? Is it terrible?

[ADlBOO]

Without the bubbles I'd say it's the perfect finish for what your going for. Is that rustoleum hammered finish? If your trying for an aluminum canoe, probably not a good idea to try for rust, I'd go more for a beat up, dull finish if your looking for weathered.

[Gimpdiggity]

Originally Posted by ADlBOO

Without the bubbles I'd say it's the perfect finish for what your going for. Is that rustoleum hammered finish? If your trying for an aluminum canoe, probably not a good idea to try for rust, I'd go more for a beat up, dull finish if your looking for weathered.

It is Rustoleum Aged Metallic...the can looks the same as the hammered finish ones.

The reason I was going for a steel look was because a friend at my cottage growing up had a canoe that I SWEAR was made of steel...I believe this to be the case because magnetic letters stuck to the side of it. I've struggled with what I wanted the finish of this to look like because I have found basically zero references to any canoes ever being made of steel. Maybe that old one had a support or something that was a heavier metal than aluminum and those magnets were sticking to that.

I will probably wait a few days (can says give it 48-72 hours to fully cure) and then sand it down really lightly to see how it looks. Who knows, the simple act of sanding might make it look more like aged aluminum...I know that aluminum looks a bit odd when it oxidizes, but it doesn't look like rust.

Or I could end up just continuing the finish on this and see how it turns out, the paint the second one and do much lighter coats in order to get no bubbles on the finish.

Thanks for your input!

[madtinner]

Might Not be exactly what your looking for. But it has some good weathering. Would look good on your canoe

lockeduprc team driver

[2kind]

This is looking nice! Really like the unbeaten path you're going down with this =) The model itself is very legit though I do agree with wanting it a touch larger.

I've used the Hammered paints before. They produce a slightly different texture than what I see in the pictures. More of an uneven flattened look (randomly hammered metal). As if one had been running into a bunch of rocks.... Not sure I'd use it on the whole canoe but a combination of the two different paints used in specific areas may lead to some interesting effects...

Having never attepted a weathering project, I know little to nothing about doing so, but there's a neat salt trick a lot of guys use, seemingly to great effect. Creating what I find to be very realistic looking rust. May also be worth checking into.

Very interested in how this turns out!

Having a thing for wood projects, I would really like to see your other vision come to life as well....

[Gimpdiggity]

Okay, I contacted my mom who I was pretty sure was still friends with the people from our cottage.

Turns out that canoe was in fact steel. The guy that built it was a body shop guy, and he decided to give it a try just to see if it worked or not. It was thin gauge steel built in a way that seems similar to a "stitch and glue" canoe kit, but with welds instead.

Apparently it's still at the lake somewhere, and she said it's gotten pretty beat up and rusty over the last 20 years, but it apparently still floats!!

[Gimpdiggity]

I've got the 250% sized print halfway done now, and I think it's going to ultimately be a much better size for a canoe...the Hilux pickup that the TF2 is were 14.5 and 15.5' long, roughly, all by themselves...and most canoes are about that size in and of themselves...so having one that is nearly as long as the truck itself gets you into much more "realistic" canoe sizes, particularly for a two seat canoe.

It's hard to gauge exactly how much larger the bigger one will be, because I'm way too lazy to do the math and I keep forgetting to actually mark down the measurements at 225 vs 250% on the parts.


Okay, I did the math. It looks like the bigger one will be about 12% larger overall than the one I have now. This means that instead of being about 13.2" long, it will be roughly 14.7" long. This will get it to the point where I think it will be pretty good. If it gets too much bigger than that, the dimensions of the model start to skew a bit on the wide size, in my opinion. Like the 300% part that I built looked like the length wouldn't be terrible, but the height of it and the width were a bit much to handle. I think at the point this one is at it will be what I would consider "good enough" and I probably won't worry too much about it.

I will, however, eventually finish the 300% one that I started, just because I don't really want to waste the materials that I used making it. I'll probably try some other stuff to that...most likely a wood finish...and then give it to my parents to display at their lakefront house that they just purchased. It will look good on a mantle there.

[Gimpdiggity]

There's the size difference between the one at 225% and the one at 250%.

The 300% seemed way too big, but I could always try 275% somewhere down the road.

I think this 250% is s pretty decent size for a solo canoe, though.

I've got it covered with the filler and should be able to sand it down tomorrow night, then touch up anything that needs touching up.

I've got a plan in mind for the complete truck, so I'll end up ordering some graphics to put on the canoe pretty soon, too.

[Gimpdiggity]

Okay, so the larger canoe scales out to 12.5', which I think is a much more acceptable size for a solo canoe...considering most of the "everyday" two person ones are 14-15.5'.

I'm laying the primer on the bigger one as I type this...doing a few coats then sanding it down smooth. I'll then get to laying that old metal paint again...going with lighter coats all around this time to see what kind of finish I can achieve.

[ADlBOO]

The bigger size does look better, any pictures of it with the intended truck?

[Gimpdiggity]

Originally Posted by ADlBOO

The bigger size does look better, any pictures of it with the intended truck?

The metal paint is still curing, so this is the best I can do.

[Cali_Lightning]

size looks good on that one! Are you going to detail the inside with benches and tie kleets?

[Gimpdiggity]

Originally Posted by Cali_Lightning

size looks good on that one! Are you going to detail the inside with benches and tie kleets?

Yes, I'll be trying my hand at a few things.

I will probably coat the inside with PlastiDip to give it some texture. I tried sanding the inside and the angles make it virtually impossible to do well, so the PD will do a good job of covering the print lines.

A seat and some other things will be added. I've got some ideas for the seat so I've got to try a few things before settling on the final design.

I also added some "wear" to the canoe this time BEFORE painting...so it's got a couple of areas that look dented or beat up, which is what I was hoping for. I'm going to try to do some weathering with paint as well to get it even better looking.

[Gimpdiggity]

Haven't had much time to work on the canoe lately. I did get the supports that go on the inside printed, so I can get those cleaned up and mounted in a few days.

I've got some stuff coming to finish the inside of it. I'm going to use white Plasti Dip to give it some texture and hopefully hide some of the print lines in there, then I'll paint over it with just some acrylic paint. I've also got one of the ideas for the seat pretty much all set to go, and I've got a paddle printed. I'll probably end up using the print for the paddle as a pattern to actually cut one out of some thin bass wood. Then I can finish it with a real wood finish and hopefully end up with a really solid looking final piece.

I'm still kind of wishing I'd gone bigger...but if I go much bigger the overall thing starts to look overpowering. I guess part of the problem is you don't see too many people actually taking canoes anywhere anymore...everyone's got a kayak on top of their vehicle...so I'm having a hard time judging whether or not this canoe looks too small or not.

It would probably also help if I'd get around to ordering my bed/roof rack for the TF2 so that I could actually set the canoe on top of it and see how it looks.


***EDIT***

I don't have anything better to do, so I'm trying to print one at 275% scale...which should scale it out to roughly 13.5' long compared to the truck, which is getting really close to what I seem to find as standard lengths for normal canoes.

I MAY try to finish the exterior of this one with wood strips...we'll see, though. If the size ends up looking the best, I may just go ahead and do it up with the aluminum look again.

[Gimpdiggity]

Alright everyone...I need your input.

I believe the TF2 to be a Hilux with a long bed, because it certainly doesn't look like the short bed. That means that it works out to being about 15.5' long, as it's length is listed as 186.2."

Most canoes that I can find are in the 14.5' to 16' length...which means that, realistically, a canoe is basically as long as the Hilux itself is...which isn't really surprising considering how long canoes look when they are mounted on the roof of a vehicle.

So, my question is this...should I go for an extremely realistic length to the canoe, even if it will end up basically being on top of almost the entire truck? The 275% sized canoe comes out to 16.5" long, which scales out to ROUGHLY 13.5' long. I am in the process of printing another piece that could go in the middle that would make it roughly 18" long, which would scale out to pretty much exactly 15.'

The 18" long canoe, however, is nearly as long as the TF2 is itself, as it measures out to 19" long from front of the bumper (not brush guard) to the rear of the tailgate.

I would prefer to go as realistic as possible with this setup, as I've put quite a bit of time into measuring, sizing, printing, and building the canoes. So, I'm leaning towards going for the full on 18" long canoe because it will end up looking the most scale.

Of course, it doesn't HAVE to be on the truck at all times...I could easily take it off whenever I wanted to.

I'm just looking for opinions...if I'm going for scale looks, should I go all out and make sure the canoe is as realistically sized as possible? Or should I make it slightly smaller to have it not take up so much real estate on top of the truck?

Thanks.
Jeff