The Bear Mountain Boat Shop

I had the same problem glassing the inside of my boat. I used WEST 105/207 and, although the temperature was at the low end of the curing range when I applied it, the temp dropped during the night and some of the epoxy got really sticky but didn't cure. The temperature rose a couple of days later, w...

The Prospector has a very large load carrying capacity (it use to be used by prospectors carrying bags of ore samples on trips through the Canadian Shield). If not well loaded it can sit fairly high out of the water and catch more wind than you might expect, especially on windy lakes and open crossi...

Thanks for the note Randy, I checked with my friend and his website was recently revamped - the canoe file (not really related to his business) got deleted. I called him and the file was restored. I think the pictures are working now. BTW - I may have missed some posts - is your Redbird in the water...

I put solid walnut gunnels on my Redbird. It was necessary to steam bend the ends of the outer gunnels to make the recurve profile of the stem. The gunnnels were put together with several shorter pieces or walnut, scarfed and glued with epoxy. One of the scarfed joints was in the section I steamed a...

The boatbuilding forum on the myccr website ( http://www.myccr.com ) has a discussion about a 15' Freedom hull compare to a Mattawa (I believe). I don't recall the details and I'm not sure I've seen the plans for a 15' Freedom discussed anywhere. However, they are two other hull options you might wa...

I don't think there is a royalty fee or other payment required - although I could be wrong. I bought the Canoecraft book and built my Redbird forms from the offsets table provided in the book. It didn't mention anywhere in the book that a royalty was owed to BMB for building a single boat. It does m...

You might also consider the Storm LT or Storm SLT from oneoceankayaks.
http://www.oneoceankayaks.com/kayakpro/ ... tm#SLTanch.
They seem specifically designed as performance kayaks for lighter paddlers.

You might try plotting both stems. Then overlay the Ranger on top of the Redbird (or vice versa). If you can maintain the Ranger profile from the six or seven inch waterline down and flow it into the Redbird profile above the waterline you may achieve a good result, especially if you don't change th...

Hi Mitchell The Station 8 of the Redbird is a bit confusing as it doesn't actually have a flat portion that touches the strongback. Not every builder uses it. I did because it seemed to accentuate the concavity of the entry line a bit - I figured it would make the entry line a little smoother. I pos...

You might find this approach from One Ocean Kayaks useful. It's described for a kayak hull but it would probably work equally well for a canoe
http://www.oneoceankayaks.com/Wshophtm/Shop6.htm

Cheers,
Jeff

Hi Ed,

I used birds eye maple for my decks with black walnut for the gunnels and coaming. There are some pictures posted in the Project Directory in the Redbird section.
I'm pleased with the way they turned out.

Cheers,

Jeff

Hi Chris, I second Hoz's advice. Try using either a metal band or a piece of webbing strap on the outside of the strips as you bend them. It is helpful to attach small blocks to the metal or webbing. spaced the same length as the strips. This way, when you bend the wood, the fibers on the inside sur...

Hi Patrick's Dad, I think your steambox might work better that you think. On my Redbird I steamed the last 3' - 4' of the ends of my outer gunnels - the bow end of the port (left) gunnel and the stern end of the starboard (right) gunnel initially. The other ends I didn't steam. When the wood was fle...

Hi Erik, I used a fine wood rasp about 1" (30 cm) long to shape my outer stems. I marked the 3/8" width on the outside of the stem first. I found the length of the rasp worked very well to fair the stem into the hull and get a clean line. I used the rasp perpendicular to the stem using the...

Hi David,

Check out this site for a good discussion of different types of fiberglass and other fabrics.
http://www.johnrsweet.com/Fabric.html

Cheers,
Jeff