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Red's Tremblay

Pretty much all of our boats are for sale if the price is right. We have two of these, I can't see us keeping them both. What I am looking for is a 15 foot Bastien Bros Huron. One of the narrow ones, not the 16 footer. I have a 14 but its in pretty nasty condition.

The Tremblays were a challenge. One I had to buy as part of a package to get my Huron, and yours, well, who can turn down a free canoe? Neither one was on my short list. I do want to paddle it though to see if I like it before I commit to unloading them both.

Christy
 
Red, will there still be open water come Thanksgiving weekend? I have the boat back in the shop, trimmed the excess canvas and will start sanding the filler next weekend after our first of September trip. I have the stem bands and hardware, seat frames will get webbing tomorrow, then it is just sanding, paint and finish her up.
 
heck ya. I'm working that weekend but on the wednesday I start two weeks vacation. Supposed to be dedicated to putting a moose in the freezer but as with all my plans nothing is ever carved in stone.
 
Seats are done but not mounted yet. I'm not sure I like them, but that could change once the hull is painted. The last two boats I did cane seats but Tremblays came with Babiche seats, which I could make but they are not very comfortable to sit on all day. These are Cherry and Mahogany laminates with nylon webbing.

 
First coat of colour...

If this were going to be yellow I would call it the "Ugly Duckling" considering how much planking is going to show.



 
Looking very nice! The last Tremblay I stripped had very substandard planking. Looked like they had only sanded the inside of the planks, and some of the planking looked like white pine. I think it was because the verolite covering was so thick, it didn't show anything through it. Anyway, your's looks great!
 
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Very nice. I like the red. I'm not sure anyone will notice the planking (I don't see it. Here, let me take my sunglasses off. No-still don't see the planking) with this beauty in the water.
 
Looks good, how many coats do you plan on giving the canoe, and will it all be Home Hardware paint? I use mixed leftover I buy from Schuyler for the first 2 coats at least, usually Interlux but it gets sanded down pretty good, just enough left on to fill/cover the flaws.
 
I will sand off most of that coat before putting the second on tomorrow, which is not fully red like that, but darkened to a brown to help with coverage since the primer coats were white. I figure at least 4 coats but more like 5 or 6 since it is red. Once I get two good clean coats on, I will install the outwales, stain them, mask them off with a slight overlap at the bottom, then put on the remaining coats. With each additional coat and sanding I'm hoping to improve the finish somewhat, my filler didn't come out smooth again so I'm fighting with it. Seems the more boats I do the worse I am getting.

The reason I am staining the outwales.. the inwales are mahogany and came out a darkish brown with the varnish, the outwales are red oak and will be stained with Bombay Mahogany colour to bring it closer to the inwale colour, hopefully.

So, after the finish paint will be varnishing the outwales, installing the seats and stem bands and we should be good to go. I've mostly used a polyurethane spar varnish on this, partly as an experiment and because Epifanes is so darned expensive, but I'm finding it scuffs really easy, so when I go to put the last coat on the outwales I intend to lightly sand the inwales and decks and finish it all with a coat of Epifanes.

I have primarily switched to the Rust paints since they are readily available and much less expensive than Interlux. They seem to wear just as well considering our boats are stored out of the sun anyway. I know of a whole bunch of Y-Sterns at a Reserve in Northern Ontario that are all painted with Tremclad.
 
Looks fantastic Mihun. I'd be proud to own it. You are very talented, not to mention patient.

I didn't realize you could use common household paints like that. I always assumed that they had to be specifically marine grade.

Have you ever used analine dyes for staining wood? They take a little time to get used to but are quite forgiving, and you can usually dial in a colour pretty closely. I used them quite extensively with my furniture business.

Keep up the great work, and keep the posts coming. We all love to see it progress.

Momentum
 
Mihun has plans to sell this to a rusty paddler. A rusty paddler. Okay, that was the bad joke of the day.
 
Looks fantastic Mihun. I'd be proud to own it. You are very talented, not to mention patient.

I didn't realize you could use common household paints like that. I always assumed that they had to be specifically marine grade.

Have you ever used analine dyes for staining wood? They take a little time to get used to but are quite forgiving, and you can usually dial in a colour pretty closely. I used them quite extensively with my furniture business.

Keep up the great work, and keep the posts coming. We all love to see it progress.

Momentum

Are those stains the same as they sell at Lee Valley? Powdered, which you can mix together to closely match older woods? I do plan to get some in the near future so I can try to match new cedar to the old so the difference isn't so glaring.
 
Now we are at the point of actually "watching paint dry".

Sanding is much like when doing a fine finish on a car. Put the colour on, then sand most of it off, paint, repeat. It helps to rid oneself of the inevitable boo boo's from the filler. The second coat has flat black mixed into the same red and it has less sheen so shows less of the crummy finish. As much as I like this colour, it will go back to the original red like the first coat. I'm hoping to hand sand this coat Sunday morning and paint again that day, then I can start fitting outwales next Thursday after work. This work today was sanded with the haunted Dewalt RO sander with 220 discs.





The other Tremblay in the background is again being worked upon, still need to put in 4 ribs and put all the planking back on, the usual routine.
 
Are those stains the same as they sell at Lee Valley? Powdered, which you can mix together to closely match older woods? I do plan to get some in the near future so I can try to match new cedar to the old so the difference isn't so glaring.

Yep, I have used those stains. Lots of experimenting to figure out what works to match certain species of wood.

Great work.
 
Looks fantastic Mihun. I'd be proud to own it. You are very talented, not to mention patient.

I didn't realize you could use common household paints like that. I always assumed that they had to be specifically marine grade.

Have you ever used analine dyes for staining wood? They take a little time to get used to but are quite forgiving, and you can usually dial in a colour pretty closely. I used them quite extensively with my furniture business.

Keep up the great work, and keep the posts coming. We all love to see it progress.

Momentum

Considering I failed to win the lottery again I will have to stay using the rust paints, although the modern ones are urethane enhanced so likely much better. We won't really know how well they will resist fading or wear until one of these boats gets a lot of exposure and use, which we hope this one will. Many amateur restorers are using the porch and floor enamels since they are epoxy enforced and you can have the store colour match it to anything you want. Haven't tried that yet. If I could afford the marine paints like Interlux, I would likely use them, although they are super high gloss. The Interlux primer/filler is almost a must have for coating the filler before paint, but it is still $50 a litre. It has like a fairing substance in it, so it fills imperfections like a spot putty would, and sands out nice and smooth. What I tried this time was to add wood flour to a heavy body latex paint and that seemed to work well enough. The one advantage paint wise is, canoes don't generally sit in the water all the time like a boat would. A rust paint would eventually absorb water and delaminate if left in the water long term.

I doubt I have the patience for furniture building. I see the wood working as a partnership between myself and the wood. It won't allow me to force it to do what I want, I need to work with it, since it will comply if treated correctly. (That sounds a bit weird). Just like humankind cannot control nature or the weather, we cannot force wood to do something it doesn't want to do.

Anyway, next coat of red is on, if we can get the outwales on next weekend, then more paint, mount the seats and the new brass stem bands, we might just have it done for Thanksgiving...
 
Now the outwales. We already had a 16 foot length or red oak from doing the CCC so we utilized that for this build. A few weeks ago we cut and did the rabbet, then I put a coat of varnish on the inside and finally tonight it was time to start fitting. They are smaller and thinner than usual but still needed some coercion to take the curves at bow and stern. The bow turn is much steeper than the stern so it got more soaking. Pour boiling water on it then wrap it in a towel and soak the towel with boiling water. Let it sit and soak. Keep adding as needed. Steaming works too, but this is easier.

I know Glenn is clamp challenged so he might appreciate the stern curve took 11 C clamps and one 12" bar clamp to achieve. I had to turn the radio down to listen for cracking, if I heard that I would know it had not soaked long enough.






 
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