The Bear Mountain Boat Shop

Hi there, I wet the hull this morning to raise the grain and I noticed maybe a dozen spots where the wood was blotching and lighter in color. My guess is that there is glue residue on these spots, which doesn't let the wood get wet and darken. Any other ideas on what it is from? http://www.dryfly.ca...

Without a doubt, one of my handiest and most used tools is a small Bahco carbide scraper

I've used this extensively on scraping glue, epoxy, wood (for example, removing a saw groove from hardwood), etc. My scraper is a bit bigger because it's an older model, but the blade is the same. Get one.

s

RTC, a lot of people use syringes with thickened epoxy. I have too, but I don't think I would use a syringe for a bead smaller then 1/16" wide. If I were you I would mask around the cracks with tape and just try to squish thickened epoxy with a putty knife. All you have to worry about is if the...

Looks awesome Larry! Well obviously it can be done then eh. I have a few questions for you... Did you put two layers of cloth on each side of the hull and have them overlap to the opposite side up to the feature strips? Did you have to cut and remove a bunch of the material at the stems or did you c...

When I built first boat, a Pygmy Tern 14, I precoated with epoxy. On the Freedom I wasn't going to, opting to go the CanoeCraft route. However, based on the fiberglass I'm going to use (see http://bearmountainboats.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=1838 ), and due to the small gaps I have on the hull, I th...

I did my first test with Style 1678 fiberglass this weekend. The glass was purchased from Thayercraft Industries , it is very inexpensive at just over $1/yard! The details of the cloth are: 3.2oz, 0.1mm thick, 60x58 thread count, 210x200 lb/in breaking strength. In comparison, style 7533 (typical 6o...

My general impression is that the majority of wooden kayak builders pre-coat the wood just prior to laminating the fiberglass. If I'm not mistaken, many of the manuals for kayak building from Guillemot, Laughing Loon, Pygmy and probably others endorse this concept. On the other hand, CanoeCraft does...

Another vote for the ideas above. I don't have any direct experience but that's what I'm planning on doing. I'm building a Freedom 15 stretched to 16' that will be in the water this summer with me, my wife, and my two kids (5 and 3). No dog. When the kids get bigger and if we all want to be on the w...

I'm wondering... after shaping/sanding your hull, how round is it when you run your hand from the keel to the sheer? Is it one continuous nice curve? Or is there the odd place where it is smooth but not quite tangential? I have a couple of spots like that, where maybe my strip was too wide at the bi...

How was the maple for planing? I did some planing on some black walnut, it certainly was trickier than cedar. I had to be very careful of the swirly grain. Did you use a bench plane to produce the mating surfaces? I'm very tempted to try this with my yoke, mixing ash and walnut. I used a angle grind...

The yoke looks pretty sweet Randy. It looks like you glued the two types of wood together back to back? Is it maple and cherry?

Some photos of flat grain...

I just finished the intial sanding of my Freedom 15 which has a mix of flat grain and edge grain. I did the initial sanding with my ROS and 60 grit. So far it seems to be working out very well. The 60 grit takes down high spots really fast so I don't need to use a plane or spokeshave for anything on...

FWIW, I'm 1/2 through sanding my hull. I used 60grit on the random orbital sander. I found this quickly faired the hull and knocked down glue and/or epoxy. On the more tricky spots (for example, where there are saw blade swirls at flatter portions of the hull) I didn't spend much time with the ROS b...

Pacific Fastenters (www.pacificfastenters.com) carries naval bronze cap bolts up to 7" in length. Maybe call them to see if they have a bolt that will work for you.

Doug