Rosy Dawn

[Guest]

Mike, this is still a $300 repair. It was quoted before uncovering all the wood. Hopefully the fellow will offer up some more.

The repaired canoe will still be stored outside. I will topcoat with Epifanes varnish.

Good learning experience and I have my reputation to uphold here. We get these repair jobs through Wilderness Supply. They have clients ask who they recommend for repairs and we get the call.

Stripping done, came out decent enough and is primarily flat. Ready for glass... oh darn, I need to go buy epoxy and hardener tomorrow. Pooh.

Karin, I understand labors of love, and the allure of opportunity to learn new things and try new techniques in the shop.

If you have a nearby place to buy epoxy resin never move. It is an hour and change drive one way for me, there is at least 3 hours shot. Or order online, twiddle my thumbs and wait.

Hopefully. . . . .that is not a three bill repair.

Blue Mountain Outfitters has trained and experienced shop repair and outfitting staff, and have a reputation as one of the best boat repair and outfitting shops around. They are the only folks in the US trained in Twin-tex repairs among other things. Their hourly shop rate starts fifty buck an hour, and is cheap at that.

http://www.bluemountainoutfitters.net/repair.html

It is not just shop labor time. The little shop consumables add up startlingly quickly.

My brother in law wanted to leave me money for the outfitting on his Freedom Solo. I told him he dare not do so. He left me an envelope of cash, I mailed it back in the form of two dollar bills, with a cautionary note about betting win, place and show, and a threat to send him an invoice if he tried to pay me again.

Just in case he insisted I totaled up every rivet, machine screw, pad eye, paint brush and length of rope we used. A hundred bucks just in shop consumables, just in wee bits and pieces.

And dang, tell them they need to store that canoe inside, or at least under cover.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Be easier to build a new one. Sentimentality is highly over-rated. Ba humbug!

I know nothing about strip canoe building or repair, but I'm reminded of my grandfather's axe. He left it to me, I cherish it, I would never sell it or throw it away, and I would never use any other axe. Over the years I've had to replace the head three times and the handle twice, but goldarnit, I still have my grandfather's axe.

 

[Mihun09]

Mike, I know what others charge per hour, but I could never bring myself to charge like that. I'm not that good. I'm very good at what I do at work but they think I'm only worth $20 an hour after 7 years of doing it.

Perhaps that is why I do my own vehicle repairs and such, because I won't pay what I see as exorbitant hourly fees.

 

[Iskweo]

This repair is going much better than we had hoped. The pictures of the replacement strips dont really do them justice. Other than being white cedar, and thus a bit lighter, they look really great. It will have battle scars but so be it.
Part of what we do with these few customer boats is to help those who otherwise would not be able to afford repairs, get their boats back on the water. We have a local artisan, Doug Ingram, who makes his living doing this. He has to charge real money. These people dont have that.so we do the odd repair. We dont have any desire to cut into Dougs business as he has been really good to us. This is a job that he would turn away. So, we have a look, quote what seems reasonable, and tackle it as best we can.There is very little that Karin cannot fix. It is a good hobby that we enjoy and people get to know us. In turn we move a few of our own canoes this way.

In the end, its all about challenge, and a great hobby that pays its own way. You cant beat that.

Christine

 

[Guest]

Part of what we do with these few customer boats is to help those who otherwise would not be able to afford repairs, get their boats back on the water.

In the end, its all about challenge, and a great hobby that pays its own way. You cant beat that.

Much the same here, although the boats usually belong to paddling friends and acquaintances, and we work on them together. That adds so much shop enjoyment that is well worth the cost in consumables and little parts and pieces.

Some of them know almost nothing about repairs and outfitting, and I hope they leave with a well repaired or well appointed boat, and maybe learn something. Some have skills and techniques beyond mine, and I learn from them.

In either case I garner something new or refine some technique with every boat that comes through the shop, and get to play with friends while doing so.

I know what others charge per hour, but I could never bring myself to charge like that. I'm not that good.

You look pretty skilled from here. I might have tackled that if it was a friends canoe, but the repairs would not have been pretty. It is all friends boats that come through the shop here, and I am either charging them nothing, or fifty bucks an hour. Sixty if they just watch and do not help. Sixty five if they try to help and smear epoxy on all of the shop door handles.


QUOTE=Mihun09;n75256] Perhaps that is why I do my own vehicle repairs and such, because I won't pay what I see as exorbitant hourly fees. [/QUOTE]

I never cared for greasy knuckle busting, was never very good at it, and then 40 years ago vehicle stuff started getting all electronic and WTF not just points and plugs.

We have a local mechanic shop a few miles away that only fixes what needs fixing, sometimes, maddeningly, things like one caliper at a time. Part of their gig is keeping folks 250,000 mile hoopties running as inexpensively as possible, and that pays the bills for their personal antiques and motorcycles.

One son has started working occasionally in another friends auto repair shop. We have three high mileage vehicles, including one pushing 300,000 miles and one dating from 2001.

A family Christmas present this year was a vehicle fault code scanner reader.

https://www.amazon.com/ANCEL-AD310-...=1514315158&ref=plSrch&ref_=mp_s_a_1_3&sr=8-3

I will still drive or drag it two miles to the local mechanic, but I might at least know what is wrong for a change.

 

[Mihun09]

I have one of those scanners, keep it in the glove box. In the winter I throw a code or two weekly, always the O2 sensor. I just reset them and wait for the next time it goes off. My vehicle has 2 catalytic converters and 4 sensors, would be about 2k to replace them all since I don't know which 2 of the 4 are throwing codes.

 

[Mihun09]

Here's hoping the wax paper doesn't stick to the resin. No sand here, I got small bags of ice melter. I can use it after the glass is done.

 

[Iskweo]

Mike, I am getting tired of fixing cars and mechanical things too. I have been at it waaaaaay too long now.Sometimes, if I pay them enough, I can get one of my starving young Corporals to do longer or heavier jobs for me. I am still pretty quick, but its hard to get motivated. Plus its good experience for them.

Peplexingly, the new strips did not take very much colour when wetted out. Bugger. So now we have to look for some colour matching stain to try to do a better job on the outside. The inside will darken up as time goes on but will always be there as a reminder. So far so good though.

If I can get my poop together this week and fix the transfer case for my tractor, which lives in pieces all over the garage, we may just do some tractor whispering before starting on the Langford.I have another tractor to bring home too once the snowblower is working. I keep that one at work as a project for the young guys to mess about with. They are all googley eyed over it...lol.

Christy

 

[Guest]

Here's hoping the wax paper doesn't stick to the resin. No sand here, I got small bags of ice melter. I can use it after the glass is done.

The wax paper should work fine. You may have a little wax film left atop the epoxy, which will need to be lightly sanded and washed off before any further epoxy or top coat.

I have a collection of sand bags in the shop in a plastic tub. Sand in 1 gallon and 2 gallon Zip lock bags, probably 50 or 60 lbs worth all together. A four buck bag of paver sand and a dozen old Ziplocks. Well, maybe two dozen Ziplocks, I reuse old Ziplocks to double bag the sand, having imagined horrific images of a Ziplock breaking open and pouring sand onto some still tacky epoxy surface.

I use and reuse those sandbags frequently, they are excellent for weighting down minicel and D ring pads and other stuff that cannot be clamped in place.

 

[Mihun09]

It did stick but I managed to pull the little pieces out before they became permanent.

 

[Mihun09]

Moving along...

We took the time to find a stain close to the original strip colour and it worked well until I put on the resin seal coat and all the exposed original strips went really dark. Oh well they will fade in time.

Never did actually find any leak area unless it was either under the keel near the original repair, or, under the stem bands, neither of which I was going to even attempt to remove the screws for considering the history in those bands. Well used or overly loved. The screw heads are well worn and I'm not going to break a screw trying to remove any. So, I used Brasso and steel wool to shine them up and then laid on copious amounts of varnish into the seams in the hopes that if they leak is there I got it.



So, full sand and a lovely coat of Epifanes finishes it off nice. Once we flip it back over next week I'll throw in a inside finished photo.

History of the boat. It was built in 1992, single layer of 6oz on the inside, full layer and football second layer of 6oz on the outside. All sorts of fancy woods used, which explains how heavy it is, it was done with West System Epoxy. Only thing I can think of for the lack of adhesion would be they did not do a seal coat and scrimped on resin. Thus it never penetrated enough to stick well.

 

[Guest]

Looking good.

The repaired canoe will still be stored outside.

I would struggle with the decision to store a family heirloom outside, even with proper repairs and new varnish coats.

 

[memaquay]

Looks good, ready for another beat'n!