The Bear Mountain Boat Shop

Tim Eastman: Thanks for the kind words. Keep in mind as you try things that a strip is pretty long and can be unwieldy, and the thickness of wood you are trying to plane off is very small. For it to be as large as 1/16", you'd need a radius of curvature of about 3". For a radius of 10"...

If you use that approach, rather than marking and planing separately, why not rig a fence on your plane that rides on the lower strip, spacing it up 3/4", and simply plane the strip to fit? Then turn it over into place. What I'd worry about is how well the strip is held in position for marking ...

If you use staples and pull them, this procedure can pretty much close up the holes left.

To plane the bevel, I made a support tray to hold the strip on top of the hull. A small square block of wood at each station showed whether and how much the strip should be out of square at that point. A spring clamp clipped to the form divided regions of the strip that need to be square, a bit off,...

I bevelled and used staples on most of the boat, but some of the strips were hard maple that the staples wouldn't go through. They worked well stapleless. So well, in fact, that I may go stapeless next time. Bevelling was quick, easy, and satisfying: I'll definitely do that next time.

Sys 3 clear coat really should be warmer than that to cure, and might remain sticky until it does get warmer. The technical data sheet lists 60F (15C) as the minimum cure temperature. If it's in an unheated garage, a space heater or two will make a big difference. I did the inside of mine with Sys 3...

You may find there is a difference if you change the attack angle for the scraper, press less hard, or turn a smaller burr on the edge. This link http://www.brendlers.net/oldtools/scraping/scraper.htm describes some of the things to try. Try every angle from 0 to 90 degrees to see what happens. The ...

Erik: Good points. You might be right that thickening epoxy makes it weaker, but I wouldn't simply assume that. It does seem reasonable that too much is bad, but how much is too much? Depending on what it needs to stand up to, the right filler can increase performance, sometimes dramatically. The si...

The seats I mounted on blocks simply epoxied to the hull of my first canoe are still plenty strong after more than 30 years. The advantage of using fasteners is not additional strength so much as that you can remove them easily. This is not true of all construction, but it seems a safe statement wit...

The most important thing to do if you can't get epoxy on both the inside and outside before a cold winter is to be sure you leave it on the forms. They will prevent warping. If you are going to work on it, heating it is fine. I heated my garage with electric oil filled heaters for the last epoxy coa...

If you want cedar, you can use 9' stock. Here is a link describing how to do it: http://www.michneboat.com/Working%20Wit ... Strips.htm
The rest of that site is also very helpful.

My experience has been good, but I have to admit that the canoe I used the plastic cane on hasn't been around too long yet. However, Gil Gilpatrick recommends it highly in his book "Building a Strip Canoe". He claims to have overseen the construction of many hundreds of canoes, and claims ...

Hoz: It's hard to be sure what caused the problem. It certainly could have been blush, or it could have been something in the laquer thinner that left the surface so that the new epoxy wouldn't wet it properly. Or something from the air, if there was a wait after sanding. The fresher the surface, th...

The plastic cane sold here http://www.hhperkins.com/hhperkins/serv ... t&parent=8 looks and weaves like cane, but should hold up well. It actually looks very nice, much better than the picture in their catalog.

I disagree with the use of vinegar alone for blush, but explain below why it sounds like part of a very careful approach, where the rest of the process might have been lost in communication. Yes, I am an organic chemist. Blush is formed by reaction between amine groups (in the hardener) with CO2 and...