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Canoe restoration question...

Submitted by Ars Natura - Thu, 10/2/14 » 10:49 PM

Thanks

I have a cedar strip canoe with fiberglass/epoxy on the outside, varnish on the inside. The outside is getting a very light milky quality to it - would the steps in refinishing the canoe be to sand it down to the cedar and then re-glass/epoxy the hull? Here are two shots - one of the hull and one of the inside.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Gero

6 replies:

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RE: Canoe restoration question...

» Submitted by splinterz25 - Fri, 10/3/14 » 9:54 AM

If it were me I would sand the section that was in the worst shape just enough to rough up the epoxy then in a that small section add another coat of epoxy and see if it will change back to clear; but don't or try not to sand through the cloth.

Then if the worst place goes clear again then just repeat over the entire canoe.

Good luck,

Bruce

RE: Canoe restoration question...

» Submitted by Ars Natura - Fri, 10/3/14 » 10:22 AM

Thanks Bruce, I'll give that a try.

RE: Canoe restoration question...

» Submitted by George Kaiser - Fri, 10/3/14 » 10:48 AM

After you fix the glass be sure to varnish it so the epoxy is protected from UV and other oxidizing agents.

RE: Canoe restoration question...

» Submitted by Ars Natura - Fri, 10/3/14 » 11:05 AM

George,

Thanks - that will certainly be part of the process. The importance of varnish was made abundantly clear in the instruction booklet for my S&G kayak...

RE: Canoe restoration question...

» Submitted by - Sat, 10/4/14 » 11:10 AM

hi all,

looks like some interesting ideas out here.

a couple thoughts i would throw in here....which may be a different perspective than what is seen above.

first....very interesting boat. i would avoid sanding until you get comfortable how you have sorted out the situation.

on removing old glass/epoxy. the best way to do this is a heat gun which softens the epoxy and then allows you to peel it off. you then sand the remaining bits aftewords. there is a good video of this on the guillemot site on refinishing a petrel. i would just say that trying to sand it all off is incredibly labor intensive if you are trying to strip a whole boat. fine for a patch repair....but does not scale well.

on the inside which is varnish only....you again may want an approach that is more like stripping furniture. again, a heat gun or chemical stripper. i just really don't see sanding as a great option for the whole process.

i would potentially play around in a small area to sort out your technique. it's a big project to strip a boat like that with all the creases.....so you will need to be patient

on refinishing.....i would wait until you have it 'stripped'. depending on how it came out may influence how you decide to refinish. so send us some pictures when you are at that phase.

best of luck

howard

RE: Canoe restoration question...

» Submitted by Ars Natura - Sat, 10/4/14 » 6:35 PM

ProBro,

Thanks for your comments, to the best of my knowledge, this canoe was never covered in fiberglass, as the previous owner had both this 12' and a 14' that both had the glass over cedar finish. These were bought in this finish from the builder up in Quebec about 40 years ago.

Unfortunately, the builder is no longer in business, so it would be difficult to confirm.

Gero