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




Wednesday, 20 January 2010

Here is the progress made on the old Peterborough. I have the planking opened up for the broken ribs, recesses chiseled out, and splines made to rebuild the broken wood.

Once the splines are glued in with epoxy I flip the canoe and start working on the topsides...

...because this needs to be attended to. While this looks pretty drastic as far as damage goes, its actually pretty common. Over the years condensation collects on the canoe. Even though the canoe is stored upside down, this condensation collects and stays longest where there is the least drainage and air flow for the wood to dry. Slowly, slowly, over the years, the rots sets in and this is where it usually does its worst.

So I remove the decks and open up the planking to allow me access to work here.

And I prepare new wood to match the existing wood and use epoxy to bond it in place. Four gunnel ends, two stem ends, and five rib ends. Could have been worse. While the decks are out I repaired them as well. Next step is to clean up the new wood and match it to the existing structure, put the planking back on, and close up the ends.

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