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 14 December 2011

The Boreal is now in canvas.

One down, one to go...



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The new Cuiser was being planked up this last week. The first number of runs go pretty quickly, the three bilge planks take a little longer because each one requires some complex fitting.

But once the canoe comes off of the mold there is a lot of detail work required. The decks and cant ribs need to be made and fitted, The last three ribs at each end need to be tapered to allow for the outside gunnels to have a clean run to the stem, the ring nails holding the ribs to the gunnels all have to be set and the ribs ends need to be trimmed down, all the takcs need to be checked for tight clinching, etc, etc...

So now she's all planked up and ready for the interior to be sanded and cleaned up for varnishing.

But wait, I have the Boreal to canvas and fill...





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Tuesday 13 December 2011

A last vacum out of the dust prior to varnishing the interior.

As this canoe is being presented to Bob as a retirement gift from the congregation of St. John's Cathedral in Winnipeg, I thought that it might be a nice thing to bring it over to the church for them to see it, and for them to sign the hull prior to the canoe being canvassed.

The signatures and blessings imbue this canoe with plenty of mojo!



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Monday 12 December 2011

Planking, planking, planking...







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I had some trouble taking the mold off of its pattern. I tried, off and on, for about a week to pry it off with no success. One day I just said "This thing is coming off today!" A dremel with a cu off whell made a cut across and and I peeled it off. A lot of the filler came off with it. No wonder it was sticking. It is scraping off quite well with a hardwood "chisel". All is not lost, but its more work than I wanted to do.



The pattern with filler as it looks now. It used to look so nice...


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