The Bear Mountain Boat Shop

Raised grain actually has more surface area than smoothed or sanded-down grain, as well as more tooth. It's the epoxy which sticks to the wood, not the cloth. The cloth is merely sitting on a very thin layer of epoxy and basically suspended in it. If you'll do a little peel testing I think that you'...

Just curious about what you guys think you are gaining by wetting the hull to raise the grain on a surface that's soon going to be covered with fiberglass? If you have sanded the hull fair and removed any sanding marks, then the appearance of the grain-raised version isn't going to be any better or ...

There is a pretty big difference in finish clarity between the 207 mix and the 205 or 206. I used them back in the days before they brought out 207, but it was certainly a welcome addition to the product line when it came out. I still use a lot of 205 for glassing, but only on things which will be p...

The frosty look is because the abrasive pad is just like a very fine piece of sandpaper and covers the hull with a network of tiny scratches. The next coat of resin or varnish will eliminate them and the boat will turn back to it's clear state. The advantage of using the abrasive pad for removing am...

I've built several boats from sitka spruce and really like it. There is more color variation than you might think, but a few dark cedar or redwood strips (or half-width strips) added as accents generally make for a more interesting boat. You'll find it slightly harder to plane bevels and to sand tha...

The length of the scarf has much to do with it's strength. If you can get up into the 10:1 to 12:1 range, you lose virtually no strength and such scarfs are even allowed on critical joints in things like wooden aircraft wing spars (where a failure can certainly spoil your whole day...) You'll probab...

I wouldn't get silicone anywhere near a stripper at any time or for any reason. Those who have ever tried to paint or varnish over a boat with silicone residue will understand why. You can sand it, wash it with solvents, sand it again and still get fisheyes where the varnish won't stick and parts li...

From an in-use, practical standpoint, nothing sticks better to epoxy resin (old or new) than more epoxy resin. If your surface is properly prepared (sanded and free of stray chemical contaminates) you should get a mechanical bond that will last as long as the boat does. I have never seen delaminatio...

Redwood works fine and I'm not really sure my redwood boats turned out much heavier than cedar ones. It doesn't have as much color variation, but looks pretty good with lighter accents. http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid28/pcbf6cbd81094f185f6a9f1d16d394250/fd6819ac.jpg http://www.imagestation...

Rotation is the key to getting them even, so it's a matter of finding or making a bit that will chamfer or round-over the corners. Dremel bits sound like a good place to start the search, but anything you can chuck in a drill to create a little abrasion should work. Really seal the holes well and ma...

Gary, I e-mailed Rollie and asked about the final fiberglassing layup schedule and finished resin clarity and this was his reply: Todd, Glad you like them! We had them all out on the lake Sat. & Sunday for training and they looked and performed so well. So neat to see them out on the lake. They ...

Where on earth is this "assymetrical hulls don't make good solo boats" nonsense coming from? It would certainly be news to all the folks paddling marathon C-1's, most modern solo canoes and sea kayaks.....

I don't know and wondered the same thing. That one is the only photo I've seen of the completed boats, so I don't know much more. When I did my 22' Voyageur canoe I used 10 oz. with an double layer over the bottom and a build-up to about six layers in the lower stem area in case I ever hit a rock wi...

How about four of them? http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid129/p1844d79596f6fa0d30b0962b45ae4187/f7c92e1c.jpg You can read about the project here: http://media5.hypernet.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=009894 Here is a case where scaling a design worked quite well. Historic lines fo...

The straight strip method has one huge advantage and that is speed of construction with minimal fitting and trimming, but you're probably already too far along to use it. The idea is that you strip the football first. Before starting, you bend a couple temporary strips along the forms to simulate th...