The Bear Mountain Boat Shop

Photos look great so far !

I'm woefully behind on my own build log as well. Perhaps I'll get inspired and bring it up to date.

Unfortunately that is pretty much unavoidable in some situations with a thickness planer. A helical cutting head can help but with wild grain it's always going to be against the grain somehow. A thickness planer is a great machine but I tend to regard it as a 'rough' tool which doesn't produce a fin...

Rocker is curve below the water line.

The height and shape of the ends of the canoe above the water line is called the stems recurve. A boat like the Redbird has high stems with lots of recurve, whereas the Freedom and most modern asymetrical designs have low stems with no recurve.

I don't know if you've already solved this problem but if not, here's how I did it. I cut the molds exactly as the dimensions stated in Canoecraft. Then I made up riser blocks that elevated each mold 2". The canoe fits on the strongback with just enough room to work the ends of the stems. I kne...

I'm currently building Huron Cruiser using mostly flat grain strips. Almost done stripping and I've done some fairing as I went while waiting for strips to dry. With a very sharp spokeshave and a quick short skewed action diagonally across the strips I've had no problem fairing. Very minor tearout n...