The Bear Mountain Boat Shop

Mineral spirits? I could be wrong, but I can't recall ever reading that mineral spirits was an effective solvent for epoxy or even something you want to get in contact with green epoxy. The idea of putting any petroleum-based solvent (or damned near any other chemical) on your boat between the cloth...

Find a copy of "Rushton and his Times in American Canoeing" by Atwood Manley (Adirondack Museum/Syracuse University Press) http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid146/p1b9dd5cf11fe6907d922a50ae1fe8a5c/f6434c73.jpg http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid146/p649f8a4e89657ab661a437aaaa2f7...

Agreed. First of all, the thinner wash probably isn't needed to get a clean surface. Secondly, fisheyes are almost always caused by chemical contamination. The fact that it is the proper THINNER for the varnish when correctly mixed-in doesn't always mean that it makes a good base coat for it. It cou...

Some claim that they have had good luck creating non-skid varnish by sprinkling sugar all over the final coat of varnish while it's still wet, letting it dry thoroughly and then washing the sugar away. Supposedly, it leaves a pretty nice and decent looking surface with tiny dimples all over it where...

A single extra layer gives so litle protection from abrasion that it's hardly worth the trouble to install it. If you want to use fiberglass bias strips, you're better off using several layers, graduated to put the full thickness of the stack on the bottom (below waterline) portion of the stem. Even...

"research indicates that epoxy deteriorates much less if as many as 5 coats are applied" Who's research??? Thickness or number of of epoxy filler coats applied has very little to do with limiting the epoxy's deterioration. It does deteriorate from the outside-in, but even five or six fille...

The obvious advantage to Dacron covering is the weight reduction created by the lighter weight of both the cover fabric and it's filler. You can probably save ten to fifteen pounds compared to cotton canvas. The drawbacks are that the thin new skin will show any irregularities in the hull much more ...

Depending upon your stem shape and how much of it gets serious abrasion from beaching, you might want to try a small strip of Kevlar felt there as a "grunch patch". Most of my tripping has been done in 18' Hazen Micmacs and there always seemed to be a small area on each stem that got almos...

It might not even be a defective strip, especially if it's redwood. I've built a few redwood strippers and had good luck with them, but between the three woods I've used (sitka spruce, WRC and redwood) the redwood strips always seemed to be the most brittle and fragile, especially those which were 3...

I have the utmost respect for Ted and what he's contributed to stripper building over many years...but that doesn't mean that I always agree with him. Easy Gord, don't blow a gasket buddy...It's only a canoe, and you're free to do anything you want to the boats you build. The mechanical bonds (as we...

There are much more efficient methods for preventing oilcaning on fiberglass or plastic hulls. Nearly every boat that has used such a system in the past, from the Hyperform "Familia" model of the 1970's, through the pogo-stick We-No-Nah boats to Coleman's rotomolds has had to brace the cen...

Sitka is light and stiff, which is good. On the other hand, it is neither very dent-resistant or weather/rot resistant. Spruce (either eastern or sitka) makes a pretty decent inwale and many wood/canvas canoe companies have used it for inwales for many years. For outwales, you're better off with som...

Puddles???? Voids???Just how high do you believe the little raised fibers are? If you've got either puddles or voids between the cloth and the wood, whether you raise the grain beforehand or not, you're doing something very wrong. There is no visible remaining sign showing whether you raised the gra...

uuuuhhhhhhhhh.....just in case it matters....Though the typical chief wearing an eagle feathered war bonnet is what most folks think of for Indian heads, there probably isn't a single instance in history of such a person being in a canoe. War bonnets were built and worn by plains Indians who rode ho...

Epoxy does raise the grain. Just dry-sand a chunk of 2x4 and roll on a single light coat of resin, let it cure and see for yourself. My point here is that cosmetically, it doesn't matter and structurally you're quite likely to get a better bond by allowing the resin on a stripper to raise the grain....