The Bear Mountain Boat Shop

Tim, I have not used Epifanes, but when I varnished my Freedom 17, it required 2 quarts of Captain's. BTW, since you really can't store opened varnish very long, you probably want to use all the varnish you have. For instance, maybe you have enough left over for another coat or two in the outside. G...

So far, I have built 3 boats. I have used Petit Captain's on each of them. The first time, I used it because the Kayak Forum members recommended it. Therafter, I have used it becuase it goes on easily (for a varnish), has a great gloss, and has vrey high UV inhibitors. For me, I recommend it without...

One of the benefits of building strippers is the acquisition of clamps--lots of clamps. I have a boatload (pun intended) of C clamps (1 1/2", 2", 3", and several big ones), I have a bunch of the 4" Bessey clamps, I have a dozen or so of the 9" and 12" bar clamps, and th...

I love my Wee Lassie II. It is my primary fishing platform. My buddy and I fish out of kayaks in some wonderful places that the motorized boat guys can't get to. :smile For 80% of my fishing, the WL is just fine. However, I fish in a few places where the strong tracking characteristic of the WL work...

I would not recommend a rail and stile joint for your gunnels. The gunnels are fairly stressed as you bend the gunnels to conform to the shear line of the canoe. The rail and stile joints won't be able to handle this stress. I have used 8:1 scarf joints for the gunnels on two canoes so far. These jo...

My shop floor has an epoxy coating on the concrete. I build the strongback and then used silicone glue to glue down 4 x 4 blocks adjacent to the strongback legs. I used shims to level the strongback. Once it was level, I screwed the legs to the blocks that were glued to the floor. When I finished, I...

I like WRC. However, living in Alabama, finding good WRC can be a challenge. I made my first boat using cypress. I drove 4 hours to Memphis to get clear, rough cut boards. They were beautiful. The color was a medium yellow tan. The wood worked well, but I had to be careful of splinters. It sanded an...

Oh, OK. I can tell you what I did, and it worked for me. I set up a board about 3 feet long. In the middle of the board, I used 5/8 x 5/8 x 12 inch spacers to align the scarfed boards while drying. Assume that the board is laid down running left-right in front of you. I screwed one of the spacers ru...

I am sure the the owner of this sled design will chime in. But just in case, here are pics of one that worked real fine for me.

scarf sled

Chuck

I caned my seats because I am old and foolish. I wanted the traditional look. I even chose fine cane to get a finer mesh in the weave. Man! Those seats took forever to cane. I spent an entire weekend caning 3 seats! When I was looking around at seats to get an idea about how I wanted to do mine, I n...

Mark, I have been following your progress with interest. I have fantasized about making an AGB for some time. I had looked at the plans offered by Nick Schade (Guillemot Kayaks), and the example of that boat built by Newfound. Your boat, following a more traditional approach, is the ribbed version. ...

mtpocket,
you said "That would make it the opposite of the hybrid kayaks."

Would that then make it a DIRBYH kayak?

When I built my Wee Lassie II, I carved a thwart that was shaped much like Glen's in the picture. I positioned it so that I could put one of those rectangular boat cushions behind my seat and leaning against the thwart. It works very well.
Chuck

I used 12-foot 2x10 lumber. After running it through my jointer and planer, I sliced off 1/4 slices. I then ripped each slice to get my strips. BTW, since ripping the wider strips always results in one strip a hair wider than the other, I kept the two sorted. One pile of strips came from one side of...

The afterglow of finishing the baot is slowly passing. Before my memories of the build fade, I wanted to share a few of my observations with the group. 1. In my previous builds, I used MAS and then Silvertip epoxies. Both behaved well and I enjoyed using them. This time, I used Raka with the 350 har...