Robin, that is likely the most fun video I’ll watch today. Thanks.
Our canoe restoration techniques are nearly identical, down to no-rabbet gunwales and top mounted deck plates.
It did make me want to bring my boats in one at a time and buff them. Did you use a paste wax or what?
One quick and easy trick you might appreciate. When I’m working on a canoe I want the hull to be a stable work platform. Flat bottomed hulls are OK, but having the vee bottom of a Mad River wobble from side to side is maddening, and rounded hull bottoms are no easier.
There are a variety of cradles and slings that folks use, but the easiest things I have found are these:
Chunks of scrap rigid ethafoam packing material, with a slot cut to fit tightly on the sawhorse crossbar, angled so the foam blocks are canted inwards (the arrows are so I stick them on the horses facing in the right direction).
Cheap (free), easy to adjust for different size hulls and chine curves, easy to put on a sawhorse and just as easy to take off, and they do a fine job of keeping the hull stationary while I drill or sand.
I gave a foursome to friend Willie at Slacker Boatworks and it may be the nicest thing I’ve given him yet. Not that there was a lot of competition.