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

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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 26 January 2010

After the epoxy bonding the new gunnel and stem wood cures it is time to shape it.

The ribs get cut down and cut to fit the underside of the gunnels. This is to allow the planking and outer gunnels to fit fair to the tip of the canoe. If it is not done then there will be a great big bump here.

The rib repairs are shaped fair to the curve of the canoe shape and then treated with some boiled linseed oil before the planking goes back on. Even though there remains some visible sign of the cracked rib from the inside, the rib is as strong as new, and still retains all the aura of the original canoe. The work should be nearly invisible - unless you know what you are looking for.

While I am putting the old planking back the planking, I take this opportunity to replace 4 pieces of planking that were too deteriorated to keep. These had to be matched for grain and then stained to match the old planking.

Here is the canoe's interior all back together and with two coats of varnish on. Each coat has to be sanded prior to the next, that means every rib and every span of planking between the ribs has to be sanded by hand, there really is no fast way to do this.

Two more coats of varnish should complete the job, then I can get the canvas and filler on.

The decks are still left out at this point in order to make it easier to varnish in the confined areas at the stem.

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