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




Saturday, 6 April 2013

With the Chestnut guide out the door, time to turn my attention to the next project, which in this case is a 16' Evergreen "Willow" needing the rotting gunnels replaced.

So, make some new ones, take notes of the trim locations, remove the old ones, and start fitting.  You have to be careful when fitting gunnels to a composite hull to avoid any buckling of the laminate or changing the "width".  I put the centre thwart in position as the gunnels were being positioned, then worked slowly to the ends.  Fitting the ends of the inner gunnels was the most challenging part due to how they come together and the fact that the joint is fully exposed leaving all to see any poor workmanship. (What looks like a gap here is actually a shadow line)

 
 
 
 
 
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2 comments:

flatland family said...

Is this another case of winter storage damage? I watch the snow melt down to the gunnel tips every year. I guess all the rain follows that line, too.

Doug Ingram said...

Not so much winter storage damage as year round storage damage. Storage is THE biggest challenge that a canoe has to deal with. I get more work from damage from poor storage than anything else, including hard usage!