The weather has been mighty fine here last week, so I grabbed the "opportunity" to strip the varnish out of three canoes. Varnish stripped is might stinky and the fumes hurt my head, so working with the big shop door open made the task less unpleasant. Stripping varnish is tedious, and any efficiencies that I have developed over the years has not made the job go faster, I just end up doing a better job in the same amount of time. This is a Peterborough Minetta half done.

In case you couldn't tell, the stripped out side is on the right!

After the first session of stripping. Not perfect, but the second session got rid of most of the remainder.

So, while the fine weather was holding out, I decided to work ahead and strip out some more canoes. Working out of doors and using the pressure washer made this task almost pleasant.

These are the "before" shots.

So I stripped out this old Peterborough high end Champlain. This is a special canoe, the planking is perfect, you rarely see that.

And this Peterborough low end Champlain. This one is from Pioneer camp, and is my next project.

And this rare Peterborough Dart. This one is mine, and its a wreck, but its so rare that it is worth the effort. Three different colour coats of paint over the varnish to get off before I can do anything else, but if I don't at least start now it is too easy to keep putting off.

I wasn't going to strip the interior of this canoe. When I starting the varnish it came off too easily for just a surface preparation, but not so easily that I could clean it out thoroughly just by sanding.

So, the weather being nice, I got out the stripper and worked outside-the fumes are far less nasty that way! This also gave me the opportunity to use a little pressure washer that I have now. In the past when I have used high pressure water to clean out the active stripper, the pressure was too great and it could rip out softer wood. This little one works better, but it could use more power so that the pressure point is larger.

Its still a nasty job, but with the fine weather it was almost pleasant.

Before and after, but just the one end.

The finished result, sanded and ready for varnish

Finish varnish and onto the gunnel repair. Its important to clamp a sturdy piece of wood to the outside and fit in a straight piece of gunnel replacement wood for the interior repair. This allows the gunnel to take its proper bend. If you try and fit in the repair to the gunnel unsupported, you risk making an unfair curve, and it will be permanent.

This is what I am working on now. It is an old Peterborough "Lake Queen" dating from a long time ago. There were some repairs done on it in the '40's, so that's a clue.

The gunnels are shot, and the finish is done for, but the woodwork is pretty good, in general.

The interior will be the most work. Lots of varnish stripping, scraping, and sanding. Three days worth, at least. Lots of fun.

Coming along.

Its looking better, but there is still lots of varnish residue that I will have to go and reapply stripper to. Smelly chemicals and I'll have to use a respirator.

A little reminder about how far this canoe has come. Here is the before and after of old varnish stripping, sanding, and first coat of varnish.

While it may seem that work has been going slowly, I've been busy. I had to take a few days off to continue work on my basement. I had gutted and rebuilt the entire basement, mostly to deal with some mould problems that were the result of less than great original construction. The last major portion of the rebuild was to remove and replace the stairs. The original builders did not leave me much headroom, so it took some clever figuring to get the best fit for good headroom and tread/riser size.

The old stairs were not well built, and on top of that, they were built right up to the cement wall, leaving no room for the insulted new wall to be built. So, to build the new stairs, I had to move them about 8" over, which meant that the floor/ceiling had to be cut. and on and on it went.

Now that that portion of work is under control, I am bale to get back to work in the shop. As the NRC is finished, I was able to put up some shelving to help deal with the eternal storage crisis that plagues every small shop. I also built a room air filter which cleans airborne dust by circulating the room air through a stack of furnace filter. I'll post photos of that when Its completed. Its close now...

I pulled the old Chestnut back into the shop to start stripping the old varnish. This is a task that you need to steel yourself up to. Wearing the vapour mask to deal with the fumes, and the gloves, and the tedium. There is no way around it, just do it.

Here is the before shot. Tools all at the ready: stripper, putty knife, brush, tin cans, mask, gloves, and plenty of coarse steel wool. I'd rather be doing this outside, but its December in Manitoba. I might be crazy, but I'm not stupid.

You can see how dark the old varnish is compared to the stripped portion

And finally a shot looking along the canoe showing all that remains to be done tomorrow. At some point, even with a vapour mask, you've just had enough and have to call it quits. I've stripped out plenty of canoes, If I never do another one, my life will not be lacking. I'm sure that there will be more...there always are.