The Bear Mountain Boat Shop

Tools should be sharpened very well every so often; however, they need to be sharpened often during use too. Don't just sharpen once and figure that you will be okay for a project. You may have to touch up the edge on the cabinet scraper or the plane a few to many times during the fairing of your hu...

One tip I have read but not tried yet is for setting the blade depth. The article suggested retracting the blade fully, then setting the plane on a sheet of paper set on a flat hard surface. The lower the blade until it just touches the surface. This will get you a thin wispy strip. It probably does...

Thanks everyone... I didn't think it would be too big of an issue, but hey... I've never built a canoe before so what do I know.

I still haven't decided if I am going to do it or not, but I have a few months before I start my planking to decide.

Thanks again,

Yup... I was hoping that perhaps people might have more time to answer now since I did not get any replies to my last posting... At least I now know someone read it... :smile

I need to plumb the pool of wisdom that this forum provides... I had an idea for a feature strip that would run vertically. I was figuring on doing something to increase the strength of the joint, such as use a finger joint to increase the gluing surface. I'm not really interested in doing an in-lay...

I would avoid using white glue for any wood working. It's much thiner (e.g. more water) than wood glues and may have more of a tendancy to drip and/or absorb into the wood rather than bonding the wood.

Elmers does make a yellow wood glue.

Well... Noah's cannot ship rough sawn soft woods into the US without a large tarrif (or something similar). If I drive to Toronto I could avoid it... The very nice gentleman there did say that he could ship pre machined planks into the US with no problem.

Hrmmm..

Weyerhaeuser in Buffalo NY tells me that they are wholesale only and do not sell to individuals... Looks like I am going to have to keep looking... Perhaps I will give Noah's a try...

Have a Bubba Burger for me while you are in Hanalei and don't worry...

Everything will be OK.


...still trying to find a source of affordable Koa wood...

-Andrew

Well, if part of makng the canoe cost 'less' is hiding the true expense from your spouse... Try collecting change fro a while. It's amazing how much you can acquire in a few months. Also, if your state has a bottle return, try collecting bottles. It's not as fast as collecting change but you can get...

The difference between a scraper and sanding is that a scraper is actually cutting the wood fibers whereas sanding tears, rips and bends the wood fibers. You could think of a cabinet scraper as a miniature block plane. As far as my understanding goes, a scraper will leave a better (smoother) surface...

There are reverse threaded screw extracts made for just such an event. The heat would probably still be necessary to get the epoxy to debond. What I've seen is a reverse threaded screw. You take a drill bit and drill a starter hole in the middle of the screw. You then chuck the reverse threaded scre...

This month's Wood magazine has an article on how to make a book matched panel. Here is the easy way to make a book matched panel. 1) Get a piece of wood with interesting grain that is twice as thick (plus a little) as your final panel 2) Use a band saw, table saw or hand saw to cut the board in half...

I've been fortunate to find a guy who sells clamps that have been returned by stores as unsellable. He sells them out of his garage at a significant discount. For the woodworkers amoung you, I've been getting Bessy K-Body 40" clamps for $8 (MSRP $45). Check out Harbor Freight. I heard our local...

I had an idea for using shorter planks to build a longer boat. I was thinking that I could start at the front stem with a short WRC strip. Then insert a EWC strip then finish the strip with WRC. On the next strip 'down', make the first WRC strip a little longer. Maintain the length of the EWC then f...