- Larry Bleiberg
Right: Cedar ribs give Ambrose's canoes their shape.
Bernard Troncale
William Dickey
aircraft hangar that once held former
HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy's
planes. His techniques are surprising, too.
Take the cedar canoe ribs, which give the
boat its curved shape. They're softened
in an Ambrose-designed wood steamer
powered by a converted turkey fryer. "It's
about as redneck as you can get," he says.
Still, there's no arguing with the results.
Alicia Huey, of Birmingham, displays
her honey-brown canoe in her Lake Martin
home. "It's a work of art," she says, noting
that it was just the second boat Ambrose
had made. "This is something Steve
crafted with his hands by scratch, and a
lot of things you see today are not."
Ambrose says he doesn't mind that
the boat doesn't touch water. "She said,
'You're not going to be mad at me if I put
it on the wall?' And I said, 'No, as long as
you don't put screws through it.'"
He made sure by providing brackets
when he delivered the boat.
Huey couldn't be happier with her
nautical conversation piece. "You can
really see the beauty of it," she says.
"Steve is such a perfectionist."
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