Contact me at: rrcp@mts.net or by phone 204.878.2524

Join in the conversation on our
Facebook page

Lots of stuff goes on in this shop, located in Lorette, Manitoba.

Primarily it's the building and repair of classic wood & canvas canoes, and the making of premium canoe paddles. I also do custom boat building, composite fabrication, and special projects. A growing passion of mine is the making of classical guitars, I'll post about that, too.


I want to be able to share with my clients the progress of their commissioned work. Later I started thinking that there might be other people who are interested in what goes on inside a wooden canoe shop operated by an artist and a recovering teacher.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me by email, phone, or by post. My mailing address is:

Red River Canoe & Paddle
24249 River Rd
Lorette, Manitoba
Canada
R5K 0Z6




Tuesday 27 January 2009

Canvassing day!

Sometimes it feels like it never comes. This is one of my favourite steps in the canoe repair/building process. After all that taking apart and dusty, noisy work, finally some relaxing, clean work where you feel like you've really gotten something done.

I've got two canoes to canvas today: the 100 year old Chestnut and the 30 year old Chestnut PAL that I just finished doing the repair work on.

After I get the shop arranged for the canvassing, the canvas clamps are hung, and the canvas is pre-stretched. You can't see it from this photo, but the canvas is folded lengthwise with the open side on top, then, after the tension is released, the canoe is placed inside.

The blue pole is used to press the ends down into the bottom of the canvas fold. I wish that I had these extending poles years ago! They are really great to have. Notice the foam triangle in the end that the poles press against. There is also a plywood plate on the ceiling.


Two canoes done today! Tomorrow the get the filler applied. Then they wait for the filler to cure. I don't get a break, though. While the filler cures I will be making a new canoe seat for the old chestnut, caning it, sanding the trim, getting it on, starting the varnish for the trim...


My Telecaster project is moving along, too. I managed to get the necks routed to finish profile and routed for the reinforcement. I also played around with stain, trying to get just the right look for the wood that I'm using.

The photo doesn't show the colour very faithfully, but I'm after a deep wine red which shows the grain of the curly maple that I'm using on the guitar body face. This sample of three variations on red, is just one of the samples that I tried.

No comments: