Welcome to the new Bear Mountain Builders Forum - an interactive internet service we provide to encourage communication between canoe and kayak builders
Just wanted to thank everyone here for all the helpful information contained in this site. I have learned a lot in the past 18 months building this Prospector Canoe.
I paddles beautifully, but need plenty of ballast to track well when solo on a windy lake.
Beautiful canoe! Looks like a graphite finish on the bottom? If so, interested to know how that has worked for you. Also looks like no decks - were you going for weight savings?
Thanks Jim. Means a lot coming from someone with your experience.
Clay, Yes, that is a graphite bottom. The recipe is straight from CanoeCraft. It was very easy to do. I taped following the strips instead of marking the 4" waterline. We have shallow gravelly bottoms where I plan to use this boat, so I wanted the protection. So far so good. You almost have to try to scratch it. I put on two thin coats so far, and plan a third this winter, but I wanted to use the boat this year.
The canoe has no decks. I put small replaceable skid plates on top of the stems. These should take most of the stem abuse, and be easy to cut off and replace. I also like the look with no decks, and besides it drains completely with the bevelled gunwales (no need to worry about trapped water when upside down).
If it looks odd to some in the car top pic it is because I changed some of the lines a bit.
Great to hear re the graphite - I plan to use mine in the Boundary Waters which is very rocky. We just got back and put a few scratches on a Kevlar canoe, so good to know! And great thought re the decks - hadn't thought of drainage, I was thinking of weight savings. Beautiful work.
Also like the idea of skid plates - was actually thinking of this due to flipping the canoe and resting it on the rocky terrain in the BWCA, definitely an area of the canoe that will take some abuse if not protected.