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




Friday, 12 February 2010

Now that all that old resin is off of the Bob's Special, it is time to get the new ribs bent. I'm nearing the end of my current White Cedar stock, I have stock left for narrow ribs and have some planking milled, but not much left that is suitable for 2 1/4" wide 65" long ribs. So I have to be careful with these ones!

Into the steambox they go.

After about 20 minutes of generous steaming they are ready to bend around the canoe to take the correct shape. They get bent at a section of the canoe that is just slightly smaller than where they will be installed to ensure a proper fit.

After they cool, the old broken ribs are removed and the new ones put in their place. At this point they are just clamped in place.

There is a lot of open space here where the planking is busted out, so a batten is clamped to cover a number of ribs to keep them all lined up.

Now I have two broken ribs to repair, the ribs to fasten with canoe tacks, and all that busted out planking to replace.

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