The Bear Mountain Boat Shop

I asked about the strength of football patterns because I do believe that the pattern and the wood makes a difference to the strength of the canoe. The I beam analogy doesn’t quite do it for me but I will accept it. I think of a strip canoe more like a cars windshield. The glass in a windshield prov...

I’m not sure that wood adds strength as much as rigidity of form and flexibility. Glass by itself is brittle. Adding any cushioning material between two layers of glass increases the puncture resistance by absorbing the impact and helping to retain shape. The fibers in the wood provide that. Think o...

Mac. Grumble!!!! Beautiful. Matthew

My old canoe had seats on cleats. It saw hard use but the seats were never a problem. I bought after it had been crashed hard and the areas from the seats to the stems were solid. All of the damage was between the seats. It is a 16 foot canoe with only a yoke in the center. The seats acted like thwa...

And double herringbone it is. My wife likes the look. :rolling eyes Thanks for your help. Matthew

Ben is right about bending around a thicker form. I cut two 1/2 inch stems and one 3/4 inch. Then I screwed the 1/2 inch ones together and used the 3/4 for one stem and the 1/2 ones for the other for bending the inner and outer stems. Works well if they are the same shape. I used 3/4 for the rest of...

Vann, how were they for weight? I like the look they give. I built cherry seats and have enough left over that I think I could make a set of similar hangers. This is my first canoe. I chose the scrappiest of the redwood (the only 20 foot boards here were old split up stock at the lumberyard but chea...

Yes, Canoe Craft is the bible. I think there is a lot of cutting and fitting no matter which method is used. I have also been looking at the double herringbone but a couple of people on a different forum say that it resulted in weak spots. I don’t know. Doubling the work isn’t an issue. I enjoy it f...

Vann, that is a beautiful canoe. Thank you for posting the pictures it is certainly food for thought. I’m not sure what to do yet but I will need to decide post haste. Now for a threadjack. I have read most of the books, and have read a what seems like thousands of web pages and threads about canoe ...

Thanks Cyril. I am more inclined to go straight because it looks easier. I only have about a 15 inch wide football and I think it should go quick. If someone can offer some reasons not to I think that will be where I am headed. If you are speaking of the Bow River in southern Alberta, I am very fami...

I am far enough along that I am about to start stripping the football of my canoe. I have been thinking about both methods of stripping the football; continuing the curve or laying the strips straight from end to end starting in the middle. I think the stem area would be stronger with the middle str...

Hopefully it'll help having full 20' strips, and 2 of everything :-) So, 160 it is! :laughing I cut 88 using a Freud Avanti (sp) 7 1/4 0.068 " thick blade. Good blade even after finding 2 nails in new boards. :confused I have learned that the number of strips depends on how much you want to co...

I like your jig Dave. After Glen enlarged the pictures I can see the benefits. (Thanks Glen.) Especially for making more than one canoe. Finish one and for the next canoe take it off the wall and it is already set up. I think if I was to copy your jig the thing I might add is a ¾ inch strip to run i...

David, If I tilt my sandpaper blade to one angle and run the angle just as you do with my jig fixed instead of sliding. My table saw tilts 50 degree one way and about 20 the other. It's a bit of fiddling but I can make it work for the limited # of strips it is needed. That should give me a double be...

Excellent David. Pictures could be larger but I can see exactly what you were doing. :wink It looks almost the same as a taper jig setup except it is clamped in position. If you are not familiar with a taper jig, it is set up almost the same but the piece you are cutting is loaded into the jig and r...