The Bear Mountain Boat Shop

I think Moonman's yoke that hooks over the seat could meet all your requirements with minor modifications. You could add magnets so that it would stay in place while unsupported upside down. To make it convert to a back rest, you could make notches in the bottom of the yoke supports, and place a bar...

Unvarnished plastic cane looks more like natural cane than does natural cane that has been varnished, in my opinion.

One idea for keeping weight down is to use a light wood like cedar for the gunwales, with only a 1/8" thick strip of harder wood (ash) outside for abrasion resistance. Designed properly, thwarts and seats could also be of cedar, perhaps, in the case of seats, thicker than usual, and with a laye...

Cleats epoxied into the hull to support the seats work well. I have a canoe I built that way about 35 years ago. Seats hanging from the gunwale don't tend to sway if they are fitted well. Some wooden hangers prevent any forward and back deviation by being one piece on each side. This link has descri...

The test panel will answer the biggest question, of how well the 9 oz cloth wets out. You might want to do part with a seal coat of epoxy to see how much difference there is in the amount of epoxy you need to get to soak in. Slow setting low viscosity epoxy seems like the right approach. Extra glass...

Redwood can splinter if it's damaged, so it's not just the softness. If they wear, watch out for painful splinters. But if you can get ash or something to add a 1/8" thick outside face to the gunwales they would become more durable. I would give the redwood a try, and later perhaps add a thin l...

Precoating buys you a bit of time in the glass wetout stage because you don't need to apply as much epoxy. If your epoxy cures quickly, it can help keep things under control. But once you've got the glass on, you'll have used the same amount of epoxy whether you did it in one shot, or precoated firs...

When did you put the strips on? Is it more humid now? That could be the difference.

Back when people used polyester resin rather than epoxy, the most common failure was delamination of the glass from the wood surface in spots. It's more common on the inside of the hull where flexing can tend to pull the glass away from the wood. This severely weakens the hull, and if it's not repai...

I have a canoe I made with seats attached to cleats that are epoxied to the hull. One of the cleats did detach, but it took 35 years to happen, and it was easily reattached with epoxy after sanding the surfaces clean.

If you are using staples, you don't need to wait for the glue. You can just keep going, and get all the strips on rather quickly. It's hard for me to estimate how long it takes though, since I never have more than a couple of hours in a row to work. It might take two days to put the strips on, but t...

I'm not really sure what to do with the info, but I would suspect that if you tried various sized and shaped paddles, you would find that each had a different feel, that might be well represented by your graph. Paddles with different curves might differ in their behavior in turning: some like long n...

Since you have the spreadsheet and seem to enjoy the math, you might want to consider making the spreadsheet give you more than a single number for the area. As you put the paddle into the water, the effective area increases until the blade is fully submerged. You could make your spreadsheet graph t...

I agree that scarfed gunwales are strong. There is one situation where a lamination makes sense: when you are trying to save as much weight as possible. Then only the outer layer needs to be ash or other hardwood, and inner layers can be lighter. But I would scarf join the ash outer laminate layer.

I've done it both ways. Both work. The differences have to do with how well your hull is prepared before glassing, and how viscous (thick) your epoxy is. If you are in a big hurry, go for the one step route. If you are particularly cautions, coat the hull with epoxy before the glass. The total amoun...