The Bear Mountain Boat Shop

The top end of that skinny station mold might have to be cut off so that the stem material can sit on top of it and the stem mold at the same time.... there should be smooth fair lines there so that the strips will fit over both when they're being glued onto the stem.. People have left those skinny ...

The Freedom is fine-ended and is designed for speed, while the Prospector has fuller ends and will be slower. Trade-off, still, Prospectors aren't immune to swamping. Maybe the best bet is to lash air bags in fore and aft, so that there's some insurance... if water does get in at least you'll have e...

Some use the deck plate to lift the canoe, so it'll need to be at least four fingers wide. If there's going to be a lifting thwart in that area instead, the plate can be made smaller. You can determine the approximate seat locations from the drawings in Canoecraft, I believe the Ranger is the same a...

Bending the gunnels was the most frustrating step for me as well (an inwale snapped). To steam-bend wood easily, it should be HOT and steamed like described above. Take it easy, you will get through this and your canoe will be fine... this step is part of the learning curve and after you've got it d...

Tom, There are two of these that I kinda disagree with. First, never wear gloves. I've imagined the blade catching on a loose glove and then pulling my hand in, but I really don't know. There is an old trapper near here that got a leather glove caught in a chain saw... the leather ended up ripping a...

Black walnut has dark brown heartwood and the sapwood can be much lighter in tone. One of the boards I bought recently has some areas of lighter sapwood in it which adds interest - for a gunwale you'll probably want uniform dark tone.

For the inwales, I an thinking about 3/4" X 3/4" with 3/8" deep scuppers. I used white pine inwales for lightness and they were strong enough, even though pine is softer and more brittle than cherry. The size was about 3/4" X 3/4" slightly wider than a bolt head. If you are...

Welcome Ales, sounds like the various woods you described will produce a great canoe... keep us informed!

East epoxy will cure hard at 10C like they describe at their website... at those low temps it may absorb water, turning it milky. This isn't amine blush which East is also said to have. Washing off the cured epoxy with warm water and a clean cloth should get rid of the blush after curing for several...

Hi, Glen, quite some time ago when Todd Bradshaw posted here (he wrote the book Canoe Rig) there was a discussion on problems silicone was causing in woodworking... he advised to not even have it in the workshop because of the problems it could cause. I know that silicone will soak into wood and the...

Try wetting down the spots with water and see if the weave is obviously visible... the water should act like varnish. If it is, applying more epoxy over the spots and spot-sanding might help. I don't think you'll need to re-epoxy the entire hull if you're careful with the sanding (use a sanding stic...

Glen. If you want to always have shiney stem bands you should not use an adhesive that has firm grip but a true bedding compound or perhaps silicone. Silicone will stick to the metal and still allow for a bond that can be broken away without too much trouble... using silicone might also mean that th...

Epoxy under the stem band might make it difficult to remove and replace if it gets damaged, although I think you'll be able to remove it and then sand the epoxy away. Bedding compound shouldn't result in as strong a bond between metal and epoxy, if a bond forms at all. I'm not familiar with all the ...

Just a note on glueing oak... I've used epoxy to glue both white oak and red oak and both bonded strongly. This was before I heard that epoxy would not. :thinking Using what you have, I'd go for the mahogany. I think most mahoganies bleach out over time w/sun exposure so you might consider that. As ...

If you are near a Novacraft canoe dealer you could test-paddle one to compare with their 16' Prospector. Although I've never tried a Pal, there have been others who have paddled both and settled on the Pal because of the smaller size, lighter weight, and an easier to paddle solo. IIRC, it has less r...