Monthly Archives: July 2015

26' North Canoe

Unconventional Adventure–Building North Canoes

…For an Unconventional Adventure

by Ron Frenette

Epoxyworks 37

Cover Photo: Modern voyagers traverse the water in a 26′ North Canoe.

Canadian Canoes has been building wood strip epoxy canoes for some 35 years. We’ve produced many thousands of western red cedar canoe strips from clear planks which originated in British Columbia. Eventually, we realized that ripping the strips one at a time then adding on the bead and cove profiles was terribly inefficient. With valuable input from Peter Feindel from Taurus Craco Woodworking Machinery, we used a milling machine to produce consistently accurate canoe strips. What once consumed five hours of monotonous work producing the strips for one canoe now takes about four minutes on the milling Continue reading →

SLIVER Project

By Don Gutzmer – GBI Technical Advisor

After attending the 2012 Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, I visited the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building in Port Hadlock, Washington. School instructor Bruce Blatchley was excited to show off their one-of-a-kind boat project, Sliver. The 62-foot double-ended daysailer was designed by well-known yacht designer Robert Perry and commissioned by Kim Bottles of Bainbridge Island, Washington. The Northwest School students of the 2011 and 2012 contemporary boatbuilding classes worked on the project. For a school that teaches traditional wooden boat building, learning to build a hybrid of wood/composite construction using epoxy was a unique challenge. Continue reading →

Advantages of 879 Release Fabric

Mike Barnard

When most epoxies are exposed to the atmosphere (especially cold and damp conditions) a secondary chemical reaction can occur at the surface of the epoxy, leaving a waxy looking by-product called amine blush. This water-soluble film appears only at the end of the cure cycle, and never at all when WEST SYSTEM® 207 Special Clear Hardener is used.

Much ado is sometimes made regarding blush, but the reality is, it’s easily avoided and easy to remove. Continue reading →

Replacing a Small Boat Cabin Sole

By Jeff Wright — Vice President of Technical Services

The amount of wood used in a production fiberglass boat is significant; it is used for many things such as stringers, bulkheads, floors, and backers. Higher quality production boats often use marine grade plywood for these applications but it can still be damaged by long-term exposure to water. Continue reading →

Improve Wooden Paddles with G/flex

By Tom Pawlak — Retired GBI Technical Advisor

Wooden paddles and boat oars are known for getting dented in service. While G/flex 650 is not optimized for use as a coating, we found it was worth the extra effort it takes to apply to wooden canoe paddles and boat oars to deflect impact and prevent cracking the wood beneath.

G/flex epoxies weren’t developed with coating in mind, but early on in applications testing, we discovered they were excellent at dealing with impact. This became evident when we used G/flex 650 (the unthickened version) as a coating and when we used G/flex 655 (the thickened version) as a protective buildup. Continue reading →

Small Projects and Repairs

By Jeff Wright — Vice President of Technical Services

Many of our EPOXYWORKS articles feature projects that our customers have spent years building and represent major personal accomplishments. I also believe we have many customers who, like me, use WEST SYSTEM Epoxy simply to keep an older boat in good repair.

The following are examples of repairs and small projects that I have completed on my personal boat over the last ten years. These would apply to many production fiberglass boats. Since WEST SYSTEM Epoxy has a shelf life measured in years, it is easy to keep it on your shelf and tackle these tasks when it’s convenient. Continue reading →

Smaller Can Be Better

Tips for mixing small batches of epoxy

By Tom Pawlak — GBI Technical Advisor

My favorite way to mix small batches of WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy, when less than full pump strokes on the mini pumps are required, is by metering resin and hardener into a graduated cylinder made with a plastic syringe. The 807 Plastic Syringes, in our product line, can be modified for this by cutting off the end of the syringe body so it looks like the end of a clear piece of plastic tubing. Continue reading →

Time is Everything

A last-minute ski repair

By Grant Hilger

The evening of March 19, 2013 I inspected my 217cm Atomic™ downhill race skis in preparation for race day. Because of the early ending to winter in 2012, these skis have not seen the light of day in almost two years. The only real chance I get to ski with them is at the annual Boyne Highlands Downhill Race in Harbor Springs, Michigan. This late March tradition is usually the grand finale of Michigan’s ski racing season. This year the weather was shaping up perfectly for outstanding conditions, and I was chomping at the bit to ski fast! Much to my surprise, when I picked up one ski I found that a section near the tail was delaminating. On the inside edge of the left Continue reading →

Kitchen after remodel

Kitchen Remodel with WEST SYSTEM Epoxy

By Don Gutzmer – GBI Technical Advisor

I told my wife that I planned to remodel the kitchen because we were replacing our appliances. The first thing she said was, “Not another project!” She has learned over the years that I will always be working on something.

Once I started the project, I learned quickly that you should never paint a wood surface that you will eventually want to strip the paint off. Think twice before painting Continue reading →

What’s New at Staudacher’s Shop

By Don Gutzmer – GBI Technical Advisor

Aircraft designer and builder Jon’s Staudacher’s newest project is a wooden enclosed trailer for his new race car. Jon designed a trailer to be suitable for hauling his race car and living in over a weekend at the race track. The trailer was built by scarfing and gluing together individual pieces of wood to form a beautiful natural wood finished race car trailer. Jon always surprises me with how innovative he is with projects. After Jon built an open-wheel race car he had a design in mind for a new plywood trailer. Continue reading →