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It's killing me that I won't be able to ski this year... due to a torn rotator cuff from lifting my ancient heavy canoe this past summer. Surgery next month, hopefully I'll be good to paddle by next summer. I haven't downhill skied in years; it just got too expensive and crowded, that great...

Wow! I remember paddling the Current River, has to be 48 years ago... it was an annual "float trip" for the students, put on by the head of the aerospace engineering department of Parks College of St. Louis University. Don't remember much of the trip except there was a cave we wanted to paddle...

The old mountain men said that cougar meat was the best of all. Then there's this: https://cpw.state.co.us/news/01022026/cpw-investigating-suspected-fatal-mountain-lion-attack-larimer-county

For years, our family had a summer cabin at what was then the "Masonic Camp", a family group camp in NY's Harriman State Park. Most people had canoes there, there were racks for about 40 canoes on the beach. Mostly wooden boats but a few aluminum ones, too. Dad got a deal on two early...

My first canoe was the family canoe that I first paddled when I was 5. It was a very early fiberglass canoe that weighed over 100 lbs. It stayed at the lake where we had a cabin. When my parents moved to New Hampshire Dad bought a new Kevlar canoe so he gave the old fiberglass monster to me...

Or who sees it.

Years ago I was camping in Harriman S.P (NY). I was bivouacking about halfway up the side of the mountain, off trail, all alone. There was a hiking trail and designated campsite up on the ridge, but not too close to where I was. Late spring, it was a very hot evening but not buggy, I was hot...

Ultra High Density Polyethylene (UHMW) might work, but as you said it might be too slippery. Polyurethane is (or can be) a bit softer, allowing it to grip better, and it's as good as or better than UHMW for abrasion resistance. But the hammer faces are cheap and easily swapped; one could buy...

Polyurethane is one of the most abrasion resistant materials out there. It comes in formulations from super soft (think pencil eraser) to verye hard. Obviously the harder formulations will be more durable. For a pole you'd probably want medium or medium-hard. Yes, it's sacrificial, but...

How about boring the end of the pole and epoxying in a threaded insert, then screw in a polyurethane hammer face? Perhaps a metal band around the outside to reinforce where it's bored for the insert.

What is the reason to use varnish over epoxy?

Exactly. What I meant was, if there is some amount of mean camber (front face different from the back face), then it becomes a one sided paddle (like the bent shaft paddles you mentioned). You wouldn't palm roll such a paddle and it wouldn't behave well during slicing, but it could give you...

This is an interesting discussion, coming from an aerodynamics background with my first ever homemade paddle roughed out and waiting for my return to the cabin to finish it. In aircraft wing design, "camber" usually refers to the mean line curvature, which is the average of the upper and lower...

Those old sliding globe lanterns were much improved with the optional oil burning insert which replaces the candle, dunno if they're still available? I have three similar lamps: An Early Winters brass lamp like the above but with the oil insert, a similar aluminum one with the candle, and (the...

YouTube is if you want to share your video with the world, anybody can find it (unless you make it private). Google drive and OneDrive are for when you want a personal backup, or sharing only with those you send a link to.

After getting frustrated with GoPro's awful software I got a couple of Akaso cameras for flying videos, I'm pretty happy with them.

TLDR: With a temperature drop from 70°F to 20°, a 16' Royalex hull wants to shrink over 3/8" but a wood gunwale only wants to shrink less than 1/32". This mismatch causes a lot of stress between the two. As @gumpus said it's the difference in the coefficients of thermal expansion, not the...

When I did my ash gunwales I approached it a bit differently. Our sawmill can only handle boards up to about 9' or so, so that's what I had to work with (I needed 16'). I started by picking a straight grained piece from a stack of stickered planks that had been milled the previous year, it...

This is not correct; a starter solenoid is simply a high current relay, used because the keyed starter switch is too small to handle the starting current. It also means the heavy cables don't have to go back into the passenger compartment where the key switch is. The solenoid simply connects...

FWIW, some wood airplane propellers (yes, they're still made and used) have cast in place polyurethane leading edges for abrasion protection. I don't know the exact process used; depending on the hardness used urethane is very difficult to shape after it's cured but it's much more abrasion...