The Bear Mountain Boat Shop

I use a slot-cutter bit on my router table to cut biscuit slots. It makes slots approximately (but not exactly) the right shape, so there's not much void space for glue to pool.

Well, considering I've since carried the finished 17' kayak on the same racks many times at highway speeds (+++), it does seem a little chicken in hindsight. At that point in my boatbuilding career, I had never put anything longer than a windsurfer on the roof, but I've expanded my horizons since th...

I used the exact method Rod describes for fitting each end of the mitered strips, without destroying the other end. Works beautifully. I agree its easier to do than to describe. I flew through the bottom of my hull once I got this method down. One thing I'll add. Rather than plane the miter freehand...

band - add me to the list of builders satisfied with using shorter boards. In fact, the supplier I bought my wood from had 20' clear cedar, but I opted for 10' lengths so I could carry them on the roof of my Honda Accord. Glen - are those scarf joints or butt joints in your pic? I used all scarf joi...

I built my kayak entirely staple-less. The hull was mostly bead & cove, but a little bit of rolling bevel around the accent strips, and the deck was all rolling bevel. There is no problem keeping the strips aligned, and I was happier with the results. Doug - its not terribly finicky. I wasn't pa...

No problem, Charlie. The next boat to emerge from my garage will be a hybrid - a hard-chine S&G hull with a stripped deck. I am somewhat a rookie paddler compared to your 30 years on the water, but my thinking is that a rudder will be even less necessary with the hard-chine hull than my current ...

I paddled Joan's Enterprise at the August Rendesvous, though only for a short time, and the water was dead calm, as shown in Glen's picture above. I don't know how it would handle in rougher water. My usual ride is an Endeavour, the strip-built design that Enterprise was modelled after. Both designs...

The Thule and Yakima systems are expensive, but I think "ripoff" is a little harsh. They are very good systems. You get what you pay for.

That said, I've seen various home-made rigs that work fine as well. Don't know of any plans, though.

I use clear plastic disposable cups. I never mix by counting pump strokes - always by volume. I nest one cup inside another, and mark the outer cup with permanent gradation marks (by pouring in various "test" volumes of water). Then I pour and mix in the inner cup, while the marked cup sta...

I laminated my inner and outer stems with ordinary yellow glue, instead of epoxy. I still let it dry thoroughly before gluing, although it supposedly would be a little more forgiving toward a bit of residual moisture. It worked well. Of course, the outer was attached using epoxy. The inner is well c...

I guess you're better at standing perfectly still than I am. Maybe I should have skipped the coffee that morning.

I don't know how you guys did it. When I was there three weeks ago, very few of my photos turned out, without using a flash.

I don't know about bird's-eye, but I have a piece of quilted maple in the garage, which I would never use for anything requiring structural strength. This piece, anyway, would never hold up.

Yep, a very good weekend. If I try to start naming names, I’m sure to inadvertently leave someone out, but a couple builders in particular stood out above the crowd. The usual suspects, I suppose -- Ted’s boats, as well as Skip Izon’s, were inspirational in their quality of craftsmanship, and degree...

I also had RAKA delivered to my door. Even with the customs brokerage charge, it was still quite a bit less expensive than West System from anywhere in Ontario. And that was before the Cdn $$ started trouncing the US$$. I haven't tried any other epoxy brand, but Raka produced good results for me and...