The Bear Mountain Boat Shop

Cutting the wood into rough strips is a good way to get the wood to dry faster, but woods like pine will tend to warp a lot and they are quite heavy for a canoe. However, if you leave the strips full and then cut to size after they dry, you can get around your shrinkage worry. I realize you are like...

\When I hang seats, I leave about 1/4" clearance from the hull .... nothing moves much, loaded or not.



Brian

Always get a chuckle meeting folks on different forums. In a tandem, the seat placement (within reason) isn't that critical, I would follow the plans placements and only change that if you figure that won't work for you. Think about getting a couple of milk crates (or equivalent) and place them wher...

IMO (no experience with US Comp product). tacky is fine for subsequent coats, as long as it is mostly setup. One other point, don't just glass and walk away, babysit, checking at regular intervals for bubbles, bugs and runs, those can all be largely corrected by catching them before the set is locke...

This is a link to my last build, where I do the fiberglassing, you may find something of use there

https://www.canoetripping.net/threads/l ... ost-107377


Brian

Since you don't actually share the epoxy brand etc. any response is just guessing on my part ... but that won't stop me making suggestions. I routinely use East epoxy which has a similar setup time as whatever you are using (3-4 hours). I wouldn't do a "night before" coat .... and I don't ...

Love the Freedom 17 ....

Personally, I just built the 16' version, straight out of CanoeCraft. You don't really size the strongback to the canoe, if you can place the forms, you can build the canoe. The canoe can be shorter than the strongback or longer, the limit is only with longer and that is because you have to have rea...

Get Jim to come over if you can swing it, hands on help and guidance is gold

Brian

I did a little research before my first build and paid attention to the "helper" recommendation and really didn't have any issues. Did you watch any of the Bear Mountain Build series where they cover fiberglassing)? They are pretty good and give you the exact idea of what;s coming and how ...

I agree with Jim's approach, but would caution against following anyone else's suggested timing , always check and follow your manufacturers instructions .... pretty sure this was Jim's intention. You could do the seal coat, but it is an extra step, extra time to an already long day ... I might sugg...

Tom, if weight is part of your plan, you may find some ideas from my last build, the complete version can be found here: https://www.canoetripping.net/threads/light-weight-solo-tripper-build.105054/#post-105054 You may want to skip over the section that deals with copying the hull shape from another...

Welcome

Hi Tom, DF is a soft wood which isn't typically used as gunnel material, you can use softwoods, but they do dent and damage pretty easy ... which is why ... the exception to that is sitka spruce, but it is pretty hard to get. Ash is Ok, but it is heavy ... personally I use cherry, it is still strong...

Nice to see folks trying new stuff. I just bought some S glass for my next project and that is projected to be 40% stronger than e glass... I am curious as to the basis of the statement "but is also twice as strong (according to BGF)" as I couldn't find that on the website .... and like yo...