Recent content by bark-eater

I though he said that the 18 ft has a rounder bottom than the smaller boats. I'll get a 17ft with a lake keel next to this one to compare. This particular 18 ft Grumman lived on a farm pond, and in later years spent time filled with water as a frog pond, so the bottom had a bit of hog. I did...

A ways back I read some of Calvin Rutstrum's books, and as I remember he thought the 18 ft Grumman canoe was superior to the more common 17 ft model. I brought a gently beaten 18 footer home last night, and can't find the milk crate with Rutstrum's books. Anyone here familiar with his thoughts...

If it's tough weave, I'd feel a bit better about adding external patches.

Yea..free is probably too much. The guys asking $150. His original picture only showed one bad patch. If it's actually Kevlar there's not grinding to do. The boat is pretty clean, so the jell coat loss might be from power washing. Again if Kevlar and not to soft from being crushed, I...

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More.

This is a "please talk me out of it" This has been offered to me for probably a bit to much money, and it's a 4 hour round trip. The owner thinks it's a Kevlar Solo Plus, but I won't be able to confirm with out the drive over. The pictures show stress cracks and patches of gellcoat missing...

I was thinking about this, and it seems like it would be possible to leave sections of the gunwale sleeve when first attached to the boat. That way a sleeved thwart could be butted up to the gunwale and the sleeve braid could be opened up to a fan and slid under the gunwale sleeve. If the...

I was thinking about using dowels drilled through from the outside and then composite over the joint. I haven't worked with sleaving before. I figure that If I sleaved a thwart I could make the ends long and cut them open to wrap over the joint. I have a bit of boat yard epoxy...

The initial disaster was the first year or so with the canoes on low saw horses out side. The boat that really went from useable to unusable was a Mad River, and the wood work immediately grew mushrooms. The Pea Pod had some decay from sitting out side in a cooler state, but again the wood...

How would you go about attaching thwarts, handles and seats? Would adding pads to the inner edge of the gunnel work? I can visualize how to make it strong, but not how to make it look good.

The PT wood I see is Yellow Pine. They use a low grade of Yellow Pine with wide rings so that the chemicals will penetrate better. Pre covid there was a local lumber that specialized in Yellow Pine, and you could get clear tight grained dimensional lumber that is naturally durable with out...

My first thought when I checked out Swift's composite gunnels was how are they going to hold up to abrasion. I didn't think to ask about it though.

Cedar seems like it would have some stiffness to help keep the hull fair. I assume that I would have to be more careful with the hull shape using foam. At this point I have 3 composite hulls and one Royalex hull that need gunnels. At least one of the composite hulls is earmarked to be a...

Thanks for the replies. I would prefer wood, but since moving south, every boat with exposed wood started growing mushrooms. I've improved the storage situation a bit, but at this point replacing wood with wood seems like pissing into to the wind.