Repair of RedBird Cedar Strip Canoe

[shawnkielty]

Four years ago I built this canoe and over time the fiberglass has delaminated at the stems (I didn’t wrap the stems with the glass). Additionally, there was a spot near the stems that was damaged.

My intention is to remove all the loose delaminated glass and varnish, restore the damaged wood, and glass both stems with about 4” overlapping the existing glass and patch, then revarnish. Lots of sanding.

My original question was: is it imperative to remove the varnish prior to applying new epoxy and glass? The varnish is sound. ITT seems a moot question at this point, as it’s pretty easy to tell when it’s removed.

The materials are ash stems, cedar strips, West System 105 and Epiphanes varnish.

 

[Boatman53]

Yes, sand off the varnish.
Jim

 

[shawnkielty]

Thanks Jim!

 

[Gamma1214]

I'd say the safe bet is to sand off the varnish, and sanding through the glass closest to the repair site will probably help you feather the repair to be least noticeable. (think: old bare wood against new bare wood and layers of glass / varnish gradually becoming thicker until you're past the repair site if that visualization makes sense)

I'm curious about your 4th picture: is there a double layer of wood strips or is that just some wood stuck to the inner glass layer? (good adhesion if, as I suspect, it's the latter)

 

[shawnkielty]

When I started the repair my idea was to rout the material and inlay the new piece. The material was thinner than I expected, and I broke through. Although it looks messy the first parts remaining after routing were still intact so I left them after breaking open the hole. It provided some support for clamping. Once the inlay was epoxied in I brought it down to fair.

I’ll probably need to put a patch of glass on the inside as well. That should be a pretty sophisticated bit of gymnastics.

Wrt feathering the edge of the patch. That’s great advice. I am going to wrap the stems with glass and onto the hull, overlapping the original glass on the hull, so the edge will be a bit further towards the center of the hull. I think I’ll be able to sand the new edge to feather. Both stems have delaminated so I’ll have two chances to screw it up.

I did do a small glass patch previously on the bottom … and I can’t find it. If I can hide it as well as that, I’ll be pretty happy.

I won’t be able to hide that fix in the strips, but it should be a lot less noticeable.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Shawn, I'm not one of the builders or repairers, but I do want to welcome you to site membership! Feel free to ask any questions and to post messages, photos and videos, and to start threads, in our many forums. Please read Welcome to CanoeTripping and Site Rules! Many of the site's technical features are explained in Features: Help and How-To Running Thread. We look forward to your participation in our canoe community.

I've canoed a lot around Sacramento in both white and flat water many years ago, and remember it all very fondly.