Finally, day 9 arrived. My vacation being over, it was difficult to carve out time to continue the project. I managed to schedule an afternoon, arriving just after 1pm and anxious to work. It was good seeing the canoe again.
Today started with light sanding the canvas hardener. It was very smooth, thanks to Doug’s work on day 8, so this job didn’t take a lot of effort or time. Then came the primer coat. If you think this is your common paint primer (as I did), think again. This stuff is really thick, and dries really quickly. I don’t know what’s in it but it feels more like glue than paint. Because it dries so fast, Roger did one side while I did the other.
Once we got going it was too late to ask if Doug could do my part (as he wasn’t here today), but then again, I’m in for the long haul aren’t I? When finished, Roger’s side look a whole lot smoother than mine. Hopefully some intense sanding and a couple of finishing coats of paint will blend everything together.
For the rest of the time I worked on the seats and thwarts. I removed the old caning, sanded, and then put two coats of sealer on the seats.
I only sanded the thwarts and supports, as we needed to epoxy them before sealing.
So, the last job today was to epoxy the thwarts to the supports. This needed to be done in the canoe, to get the right angle for when we finally install them. That’s when we discovered just how much the canoe started to lose its shape. To correct this problem, Roger used cords tightened between the inner gunwales to bring it back into shape before we fitted the thwarts and applied the epoxy.
That was all that could be done today, as everything now had to dry. With great sadness I scheduled my next visit — a full week before I would return. Between mine and Roger’s schedules I know I’m going to succumb to CRWS a lot over these coming weeks. To be continued (when I can).
Crux Books 