Mad River Revelation Refurbishment

[Guest]

I like the bow utility/sail thwart in the Revelation, but now that it is installed I’d much rather give the boat, with a sail, to an in-law couple that does some tripping, rather than sell it on Craigslist. That being the case I feel I should outfit and refurbish it with the full bag of tricks.

Staring with refurbishing the old cane seats with new varnish and webbing. The never refinished 14 year old seat frames are badly in need of attention.

MRC used plastic truss hangers. Not the prettiest things, but zero end rot, and zero need to sand and refinish. I’m OK with that for a low maintenance canoe with vinyl gunwales.

Although I am certain that each molded plastic drop is identical I marked them bow and stern, left and right. With DIY’ed wood trusses I have found that very useful on re-fit, and old habits die hard.

A few demerits on MRC’s seat hardware; the machine screws are 6” long, which is a half inch longer than needed for the drops. They were installed with a lock washer and a Nylock snugged all the way up, with the ½ inch of shank end exposed. The only ones that had thread protectors were the ones on which I had previously taken off the nut to installed webbing loops and flat washers (rear machine screws on both seats).

I will be more attentive to all of those anal finishing touches when I re-install the seats.

One close inspection, with the seats removed from the Revelation and laid on the bench under the LED’s, one seat had a couple crisscross pieces of webbing that were broken through. The seats had still held my fat arse in test sits, but when I poked my finger at that little crack I felt like Warden Norton discovering Andy Dufresne’s tunnel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlKZujGZi0I

I did not go all the way through to my shoulder, but I think I could have. So yeah, catastrophic cane seat failure was pending, and at least on 14 year old cane a tiny split may mean worse is not far off.

Speaking of which, I have never had the webbing part of a canoe seat fail. Cane yes, seat dowel joints yes, even seat hangers (other people’s, the flimsy drill dowel type with some age on them) yes. The webbing itself, never, and some canoe seats I webbed 20+ year ago are still in action. Even if one webbing strap did somehow fail the remaining 10 crisscross straps should keep your arse securely off the bottom of the canoe.

With the seats out I proceeded to a new experiment; spline removal. I usually just leave the spline in place and flip the seat over for webbing, but what the hell, survey says “boiling water”

Hmmm, the JetBoil stove would also be a good way to use up the (several) Iso-Butane canisters with mere minutes of fuel left in each; I’m never carrying those on a trip and they are permanently orphaned on a gear room shelf.

Then, a brain storm. Thinking I could skip the messy boiling water step, I tried using a wall paper steamer first. That was actually a brain fart. Even left laid steaming atop the seat frame for 5 minutes it was little help with spline removal.

PC251456 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

On to some rolling bubble Jetboil water poured over the spline groove. I kept the seat horizontal on the drainage bin and gave it several good boiling water soaks. I was not thrilled with that spline removal action either, even after repeated dousings and soakings with boiling water.

OK, Plan C; boiling water followed by a longer chuffing of steamer. A little better, but still a PITA, even using a narrow spline-groove width chisel to dig underneath.

PC251457 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I was not enamored of either attempt, even combining the boiling water & steam techniques. The spline removal seems unnecessary nonsense unless I wanted to replace the old cane with new cane. I plan to reuse these seats, but web them flipped upside down to hide the spline groove.

OK, Plan D; back to my usual lazyman technique. Just slice the cane at the inner edge of spline goove with a razor knife and pull it out, leaving the spline still neatly intact in the groove.

PC261461 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Removing the cane with a razor knife and leaving the spline in place took all of 60 seconds per seat. It was harder to cleanly cut out the wet cane on the seat I had doused with boiling water and steam, and I couldn’t progress any further on that seat ‘til it dried out. Lesson learned.

PC261463 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I think the spline removal is only necessary, or even advisable, if you want to re-cane, or cannot flip the seat over to use webbing (contour seat, etc). A couple minutes with the RO sanders (100 in one, 220 in the other) and the flat tops and bottoms of the seat frames are well sanded.

It took only another couple or three minutes on each seat using two 1” belt sanders (one with 100, one with 220 grit) and most of the rounded sides were sanded bare wood smooth. Including the “rails” and (looking to refresh my memory of Conk terminology) “struts”.

I could get to everything except the inner edge of the rectangle with the little belt sanders, and the RO and pad sanders fit inside that rectangle.

PC261471 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Upside down I don’t care that the spine is epoxied in the groove, I wanted to fill that groove void using some epoxy over (?) filler cord anyway, and the existing spline is already well OEM wedge driven and glued in place.

PC261466 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Of course the butt ends of the seat frame got sanded smooth for multiple costs of spar urethane. On that close sanding inspection I discovered some odd construction props to Mad River Canoe; not only are all of the machine screw holes precisely and evenly spaced in from the ends of the rails, and the ends of the rails perfectly cut for the sheerline angles, but the butt ends are also angle tapered vertically to match the \ / sides of the hull, most noticeably on the bow seat.

Well, shiiiit, those end cuts on the seat rails are not going to work well installed upside down. The bow seat at least needs to go back in right side up, maybe both seats; I will have to check the stern seat before I web one side or the other.

Sanded as smooth it was almost time to walk away for the day. Since at least one seat needs to go back in right-side up I really wanted to seal the existing spline with a little bead of G/flex to prevent any water weep rot in the spline & groove.

PC261473 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Some wait time coming for epoxy curing (G/flex is slow) before a couple coats of spar urethane, then some webbing cut and stapled.

 

[Zac]

Looking good! Do you prefer the webbing over cane for comfort, durability, or ease of installation? My mother has done caning for years so I rely on her expertise when something like this comes along.

I appreciate your use of your slightly used fuel canisters in the shop. I don't like to take canisters that have been used at all on trips either, always bringing known-full ones instead. I did something similar last year when I whipped together a PVC steamer for bending paddle shafts.

 

[Guest]

Do you prefer the webbing over cane for comfort, durability, or ease of installation? My mother has done caning for years so I rely on her expertise when something like this comes along.

I appreciate your use of your slightly used fuel canisters in the shop. I don't like to take canisters that have been used at all on trips either, always bringing known-full ones instead. I did something similar last year when I whipped together a PVC steamer for bending paddle shafts.

If I was replacing the cane on a Bauhaus chair using webbing would look stupid. I am most often rebuilding Royalex or composite canoes, not Miles van der Rohe furniture, so there are already a lot of synthetics involved. With a more traditional WC or stripper canoe I might feel differently, and prefer some (synthetic?) rawhide or cord in a complex lacing pattern (which I would surely screw up and not notice until too late).

I don’t know that I see (feel) much comfort difference between cane and webbing. There are different schools of thought about which is drier, or dries faster (especially using poly webbing), but if it is wet out I’m wearing rain pants anyway, and if I am paddling while it is raining my wide arse covers all of the seat, and may be the driest part of me.

Plus I install two loose webbing straps over the finished webbed seat before installation, so I can tuck in a piece of Ridgerest or a Therma-rest stadium cushion, with the pad is held in place and wrapped a bit around the front edge of the wood frame. And lots of other comfort stuff.

P2160535 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

For durability and ease of installation I would prefer webbing, but then I’ve never done any re-caning work. And don’t plan to.

I think the major seat comfort factors are more a matter of the actual seat frame design, flat or contoured, beveled front edge for thigh comfort or kneeling, cant angle (I want a little, even though I rarely kneel), seat height and fore/aft placement in the canoe to best fit the paddlers physique and trim preferences.

Provided that is all well considered cane or webbing is inconsequential.

Love the JetBoil steamer. The boiling water cane removal attempts didn’t even use up the dregs on one fuel canister, and I need to find some other task to empty them. Might be time to make another Fire-in-a-can soon. I still have lots of wax, scrap cardboard and a couple empty Goodwill-store pots with lids of various sizes.

http://www.canoetripping.net/forums...ussions/diy/23273-​fire-in-a-can-no-5-and-6

 

[Guest]

Revelation Skid Plates

Some months ago I noticed that “I need to buy more release treated peel ply soon”. I did not, and I want to put skid plates on the Revelation today, not a week from now when a fresh order comes in. Shortsighted idiot I yam.

The usual Dynel fabric, West 105/206 mixed fifty-fifty with G/flex, half teaspoon on graphite powder and dab of black pigment. I have plenty of all of that, except the peel ply. Well, I’m almost out of graphite powder too. I never imagined that I would use up almost a full can or graphite powder.

Jamestown Distributors to the rescue for release treated peel ply and Graphite Powder, ordered and on the way.

Screw waiting, I have a single odd sized and shaped piece of peel ply left, and that will dictate the size and shape of the two Dynel skid plates. Actually a couple inches larger all around with the peel ply than the Dynel; that couple inches overlap on each side is important if my peel ply covering aim is not true. Trying to pull the peel ply back off the epoxy saturated Dynel to reorient is NOT a good idea.

PC271482 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Alcohol clean the hull, lay out the Dynel, tape the hull a bit away from the fabric and sand inside the tape.

PC271484 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Sanded just enough (100 grit) to take the shine off, with special attention at the edges. I know there is a Royalex skid plate train of thought that says chisel off the vinyl to expose the ABS layer, but with proper cleaning, sanding and the epoxy & G/flex mix that seems unnecessary.

Pull the tape, alcohol the sanded area and re-tape at the now distinct sanded perimeter.

PC271487 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I can be drippy sloppy, and use a couple little pieces of Scotch tape to stick sheets of newspaper half way down that perimeter of painter’s tape

PC271488 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

And then tape over the transition edge, so nothing runs down in between onto the hull.

PC271490 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

With that prep work done lay out all of the materials; pre-cut Dynel and peel ply, gloves, 105/206, G/flex, Graphite powder and plastic measuring spoon, black pigment, mixing cup, stir sticks, brushes. Acetone in case I make a mess (seriously better to have acetone at the ready than go looking for it with epoxied gloves).

PC271491 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I always have a laugh at how little time it actually takes to paint on a coat of epoxy mix, lay the Dynel on that and fill the weave with more epoxy mix. An hour of prep work, 10 minutes of laying cloth and epoxy.

PC271494 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

(Note the wood rasp rough Dynel finish before peel ply application. If the epoxy is allowed to set up un-peel ply’ed it gets even worse)

Now the patience game commences, have a beer and wait until any drips have stopped running down the newsprint (I mark the ends of the drips a couple times). Once the drips stop running pull the newspaper and outer layer of tape. Is anything still creeping down further onto the 1[SUP]st[/SUP] tape layer?

PC271495 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

If not pull the last of the tape, lay the release treated peel ply on top atop the still soft resin and smush down the peel ply with gloved hand. 20 minutes later smush it down again, and repeat for an hour. A squeegee or tongue depressor helps as the epoxy gets increasingly stiff.

BTW, many (most) of those drips on the paper are from extracting the loaded brush from the pot and not from overly excessive epoxy use. Hence the newsprint barrier. And the ready acetone. Sloppy am I.

PC271500 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Even with a generous 2 inch edge overlap on the peel ply I dang near laid it in place incorrectly, and I had someone holding the other end of the peel ply and helping me aim while I guided it down into place.

Next morning I pulled the peel ply for reveal. And cleaned up the left-ugly bench. Not in that order.

PC271502 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I knew I would have wrinkles where the scrap of peel ply had been folded, and those would have been less bad had I remembered to lay the peel ply with the fold creases face up V, so they better disappeared flush as I smushed down the peel ply. That crease will sand off largely flush, and the topcoat of black enamel paint will help hide the mark, and sharpen up indistinct peel ply smushed black epoxy edges.

That single layer of Dynel, hand compressed under peel ply, is almost imperceptibly flush with the hull. Those flush Dynel skid plates always make me want to chisel off the gawd awful kevlar felt pads on our old canoes and start over, but I want to try that rebuilding a junker canoe with really crappy kevlar skid plates first to see how that goes.

That “chisel off” would be made worse on the kev felt skid plate on our canoes. As the (really stanky) epoxy with those skid plate kits set up I beveled down the edges of the felt to hull transition with a tongue depressor. All of those (sadly several) are still firmly adhered, with no raised or lifting edge to start getting a chisel under.

 

[BWCA66]

Looks great, I think I need to get myself dynel and try that out.

 

[Guest]

Looks great, I think I need to get myself dynel and try that out.

The abrasion resistance of Dynel is pretty well known and I have found it easy to work with. It will swell up, as someone once described “like an old sweatshirt” if not compressed under peel ply, the surface texture will be rough as a rasp.

Sanding and painting day. The G/flex on the seat spline is dry enough to sand down, as is the epoxy mix on the Dynel skid plates.

When RO sanding the skid plates and creases (using the cushioned pad for the sander – Thanks Alan, much more surface kindly on a curved hull surface) I did not want to run out onto naked hull too far and leave scratches that would be left uncovered by the black enamel topcoat. Taping the perimeter with cheap low-stickum duct tape helps prevent accidental sandover, and uses up the end rolls of some crap tape.

PC281507 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Sanded, tape removed, acetoned, retaped (twice, with newspaper) and painted. I usually make the Dynel skid plate shape more rounded at the ends, but left these angular straight. MUCH easier to tape and re-tape straight lines, so much easier that when the first coat of black enamel has cured for a few days I will lightly sand, tape and repaint with a second coat of enamel.

PC291508 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

PC311511 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I have ample wait time; I want to put at least 3 coats of spar urethane on the seat frames before webbing.

I am kinda laughing at this whole refurbishment process. If I were selling the canoe I would have called it good before doing much of anything, maybe not even the bow utility sail thwart. But since I am giving it to someone I like, who I know will use and enjoy it, I’m all in to make it as good as I can.

The second enamel coat on skid plates was a good idea. Despite having RO sanded the slight pattern left on the epoxy and Dynel from the fine weave peel ply. even the first drippy thick coat of black enamel paint didn’t fully fill the weave in some places. The second coat of paint hid that weave, but gloss black paint is the worst color to hide any underlying drips or sags or blems. If this were a white pigmented skid plate on a white canoe it would be invisible. But, with black vinyl gunwales and deck plates, and at least some black in the future seat webbing, black skid plates look good to my eye.

 

[Guest]

Revelation seats webbed

Three coats of spar urethane on the seat frames was enough, mostly because I wanted to move on to webbing the seats.

First a test fit with the naked seats. OK, the (correction, not bow) stern seat, with the rail ends taper cut precisely in two dimensions, absolutely needs to go back in right side up, with the old spline groove face up visible. The bow seat not so much, but even it fits better in that orientation. Really glad I G/flex the spline grooves before urethane coating.

Time to cut some webbing. Webbing I got. Near 300 yards of 1 ½” black, red and blue (never used much of the blue), and 100 yards of 1” black. Sometimes a narrower webbing piece helps fill the middle with consistent spacing gaps.

It’s a red canoe, with black trim. I (again) don’t need the blue, but a simple red & black checkerboard might look distinctive.

PC311522 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

21 ½” for the long strips, leaving a half inch at each end to fold under and staple. The gap spacing is fine with four each 1 ½” wide lengths of webbing perseat, and I didn’t need to lay in a 1” strip to fill some middle spacing void.

FWIW I did four pieces of webbing on the long side first because it is easier to fit in a 1” spacer piece, if necessary, on the fore and aft runs that need twice that number of webbing pieces.

Set up a cutting board marked at 21 ½” length, flame the putty knife and cut four black and four red, enough for both seats in that orientation. Eight lengths of webbing.

PC311524 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Two stainless staples (offset) on the seat bottom all the way around and tap those bottom staples flush into the webbing with a hammer, leaving the foldover tabs still loose

PC311525 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Then fold under and staple the tabs on the inner edge of the seat, and tap those staples down. Having the bitter ends of the webbing folded under prevents the cut ends from ever fraying.

PC311527 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

PC311529 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Cut the lateral pieces to weave under and over and staple. On this MRC seat, 16 pieces, each 16 inches long. Cut and laid out to check the spacing was fine, without need for any 1” filler pieces of webbing.

PC311531 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

The tautness on those first installed dry-installed lateral pieces was ok, and the fore/aft pieces will help tighten up the weave, but I tried a PBlanc trick. I don’t remember if the rolls of 1 ½” webbing are nylon or poly. Doesn’t matter, I soaked the cut strips in a bucket of water before stretching and stapling.

PC311534 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Once dried, nice and taut, but not bust-a-dowel-joint stressed. Those seats get covered with a cushion anyway.

For comparison sake, the bottom staples and webbing cuts on a manufactured seat (I think that is a flat bench from Wenonah, that I immediately replaced with a contour seat from Eds). The end cuts on the webbing are sloppy uneven, and I much prefer those ends tucked ever unfrayable and stapled under.

PC311535 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

My plaid strip orientation is confused between bow and stern. It doesn’t matter because A, an arse is usually planted on that plaid webbing seat when anyone might comment, and B, I still need to cut four more extra long pieces of webbing to serve as restraints to hold a Therma-rest pad or rectangle of sleeping pad in place

P1011538 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

P1011539 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

And C, with the butt cushion in place the webbing plaid is hidden anyway. I’m not giving them our inflatable Therma-rest stadium pads, we have four for four and I love those inflatables for the ability to let a little air out and change pressure points over the course of a couple hours, before reinflating and starting butt comfort over. But I’ll spring for a couple rectangles of waffle RidgeRest, reversible dark or sunny side up as weather appropriate.

P1011547 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

FWIW, 428 inches of 1.5” webbing to do the two seats, plus another 86 inches for loose pad restraints. And two 9x16 pieces of blessed waffle pattern RidgeRest will fully cover most seat frames.

 

[Guest]

Seats reinstalled there isn’t a lot lefty to do on this canoe. It has the bow utility/sail thwart, Dynel and graphite powder skid plates, four strategically placed D-rings, knee bumpers at both seats, and a (padded) stern foot brace

P1011548 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

P1011549 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Ample webbing loops (14 total) at the ends of machine screws (might as well try something new, nylon D-rings on a couple of the webbing loops), thwart bungees, “new” webbed seats, with top cushions, attachment loops for back bands (I’m not giving our Surf-to-Summit back bands away, but I know they already own one used for a solo canoe we outfitted).

P1011551 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

P1011545 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

And all the other familiar shop touches, Shop Gogetch (times two), Duckhead sticker (times two), red High Intensity reflective tape bow and stern. I long ago stripped of most logos and lettering; the only thing left is a single “CANOE” amidships, in case people didn’t recognize it as such.

P1011552 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Still needs some high quality floating painter line bow and stern. Having known my favorite Bro-in-law for 50+ years now I have little doubt he would use crap rope as painters. 16’ of floating Blue Water 5/16 River Rescue rope at each stem. No crapty Home Depot rope on this puppy.

P1011559 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

A zippered IQ belly cover, properly sized for the hull, and a sail for the bow.

P1011562 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Nice freaking canoe. All it needs is a good soapy wash, and maybe a farewell 303, before I deliver it.