The Bear Mountain Boat Shop

I have done several stapless and use dozens of small spring clamps for stripping, a few f clamps and c clamps for the stems and everything I have for the gunnels. I also use electrical tape to hold strips together along with fishing line, light bungee chords, wedges and anything else that springs to...

Hi
I am with the Recreational Canoeing Association of B.C. and we are looking for a forum format that our members can use. Is there one you can recommend?
It is a confusing world out there with way too many choices for me to figure out.
thanks
don

The air bags are a decent idea which will give you good floatation. To prevent the water from getting in to start with, consider making a three piece spray deck. Use the bow piece all the time and the other pieces when you want to go out in rougher conditions or when the weather is cold or blowing. ...

Hi A further option would be to rout a groove on a contrasting piece of wood and use it as an inlay filling the gap between the round over and the deck. It would give more definition to the deck and increase your glueing surface. Regardless of what you do, if you tell people that was what you intend...

Hi I've used West Systems, system 3 and Raka. My preference is System 3 for clarity and speed of working -- their fast hardener matches my working speed quite nicely. Next would be Raka which is, for me, the best price, very good clarity and, now that I've gotten used to using it, easy to use. I use...

Hi with any luck, your wood will never be in water -- the glass will prevent that from happening so titebond II is adequate. In my area, Windsor Plywood also carries it and it is nice to use. I use it or epoxy for almost all of my glue projects. The epoxy is stronger and also is waterproof so it cov...

Hi In my last kayak I used a custom molded fiberglass seat. I got the idea from an old post on the Guillemot Kayaks building forum (post was by Shawn Baker). Basically I sat in a big puddle of plaster of Paris while wearing my wet suit and used the resulting form as a mold for a glass seat. The resu...

Hi
Thought that was likely where -- I have a nice view of the Bull River drainage from my place. Would like to see the boat in real life sometime if you are interested in showing it off. I also have a few strippers if a paddle interests you.
best
don

Hi
Nice job on the canoe. The backdrop looks familiar -- if you don't mind, which valley is it and, if it is where I think, where did you find liquid water?
enjoy
don

Hi I don't have any pictures but I have done 10 boats that way and it works quite well. There is a fair amount a fooling around to get both routers set up so they are cutting evenly but once that is done, it goes quite quickly. Both routers are set upside down so one is cutting backward but the amou...

Hi I originally bought 38 inch glass for kayaks and it worked fine -- six Panaches and two Kings. I covered the bottom and used the scrap for doing the deck joints and for extra bias cut on the bow and stern and doubling up on the football. For the canoes, I had to use two pieces and essentially all...

Hi I've done similar things a few times. It doesn't seem to make much difference strength wise but cosmetically it is a bummer when the light gets behind it. Trying to put strips in or coloring epoxy does not work well. What I have used with a fair amount of success is cutting out an interesting sha...

Hi When dealing with small repairs like this i have had good luck putting masking tape on either side of the scratch, filling it with epoxy and then, before the epoxy got hard, removing the tape. This leaves a very small area to sand down and reduces the chances of cutting through to cloth in other ...

Just a tip I hadn't seen before. While preparing to hang seats etc. I did the usual cursing and then went to dribble in some epoxy and deal with the mess. This time though I happened to see a piece of small doweling. I whipped a bit of thin twine around it, dipped that in the epoxy and used it like ...

Hi All woods that I use for the body of the canoe, other than cedar, are accent woods. All have a common disadvantage in that they sand differently than cedar or other surrounding woods so care has to be taken in thicknessing so sanding is at a minimum. I have used: maple -- hard, not a lot of contr...