The Bear Mountain Boat Shop

I use the bent shaft solo and tandem, but I use straight paddles too, it just depends on my mood and the conditions. You can learn to become adept at correction strokes with the bent-shaft. Having said that, I am somewhat more likely to use a straight paddle when going solo where I tend to paddle in...

Hi Brad, I built a Guillemot and used the 2x4 method an no, I had no problems. My 2x4 was actually a box-beam made of 3/4" shop-grade oak plywood. The 16' long 2x4 is actually 1 15/16" x 3 15/16". The slightly reduced size is so that the forms fit easily over the beam and so that you ...

Don't underestimate the effect of removing a small amount of material. What is the diameter of the shaft and could you handle the feel of something thinner? Using some math, if you reduce the diameter from say 4 cm to 3 cm (for example) then the cross section area is reduced from 50.24 cm2 to 28.26 ...

Good question, the easiest part to address is between the Green Valley canoes - the Winisk is a full foot longer than the Kipawa. Otherwise I think these two boats are pretty close (sister designs?). The increased length contributes to increased payload in the Winisk. Perhaps it would be better to c...

I'm sorry to hear about the difficulties. We used Gorilla glue for the first time when we did the stems.... What we did not know at the time was how messy it was to work with. The strips were sliding quite a bit and that was most of the mess. By time we had one stem done, I had gone through several...

I had my own issues in the hull - I used too aggressive a grit (36 grit disc on the drill) and left some pretty bad marks inside the hull. Of course, the epoxy soaks into the broken fibers and makes it look even worse. :embarassed Viewed here under a layer of fiberglass : http://photos1.blogger.com/...

If anybody has the audacity to stick their head in a hatch and point out an imperfection, hit them over the head with the hatch cover!
Bryan

A lot of folks do an inlay of some sort on their canoes and kayaks. Some searching here should surely turn up a few things. Here's one thread on the subject, but there are others (many others): http://www.bearmountainboats.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=1435&highlight=inlay I took a different approa...

Looks great, have fun with it! Very nice use of recycled wood.
Bryan

Looks great!

http://s182.photobucket.com/albums/x39/ ... ?start=all

No doubt the folks at West System would be able to give you the best advice. I think what I would do is to wet-sand (with 120 grit?) with a block to reomve all of the high spots so that the bottom of the dimples becomes the new surface of the boat. Obviously you don't want to oversand, but in theory...

It seems that no-one has mentioned it (though perhaps I missed it), but you can build from thinner strips, especially when building with the heavier (and usually stronger) woods. Reduce the thickness of your strips from 1/4" to perhaps 3/16". (Someone with experience in building from hardw...

Hi Glen, It won't be the same without you here! Have fun.
Cheers,
Bryan

How about planing off the cove/bead from the second-last strip. If you do, it gives a couple of options. First, the final piece would then be a bit more than a sliver so may eliminate your concern. Also, you could omit that last strip for now, then when you finish stripping the bottom fill in the po...

Bryan, I am curious to know how much you actually paid in Can. funds with exchange, shipping and duties. I also sell the foam and would like to compare pricing to stay competitive. That's a good question Rod. I tried to dig it up, but I can't find any documentation of what I actually paid with duti...