"It took me longer to convert my worm drive saw over to my handmade jig (had to remove the base shoe to get 1/2" deeper cut) than it did to cut 10 scarfs!!a big 7" grinder with 60-grit will also hog a lot more material faster than the belt…"

"How did you fix the notches--pull saw?I'm at a similar stage on a 1:6 model Woodie Hindman 16' double-ender and made the notches backwards on a couple of my frames *duh!*...but the model frames are ~10" wide at most and are easy to…"

"That's a MASSIVE amount of weight and pressure in the boat. You could as easily rip the bow eye out as recover the boat. Maybe float bags?"

"Don, check out Brad Dimock’s Fretwaterlines blog. He predrills the sides and has a lot of other time saving ideas for framed boats."

"I have 300-ish hours in my decked S&G Grand Canyon dory. I had previous experience building wood/fiberglass kayaks (both S&G and stripper) so S&G was an obvious choice for me. Both construction types have pros and cons, but I would…"

"Consider more taper perpendicular to the oar blades. You don’t need much more strength in that axis than to lift the blade from the water. I cheat and don’t use a spar gauge or spokeshave: a big 1” roundover bit in my router table…"

"Don, $100 for a used copy and it's out of print. I called the Mystic Seaport Museum and the fellow I spoke to said they get a request a week.  He always passes it on to Publications.  Nothing yet.  I'm this week's…"

"I had some enormous tulip poplars in my yard.  I hated them, messy trees, roots got into my irrigation system, they sucked all the water out of the grass, sucker shoots everywhere, and after we cut them down, they refused to die and sent up…"

"I've heard of sassafras for paddles.  Could you laminate it of 3-4 pieces to avoid knots or at least minimize the effects of grain runout, Don? What does it smell like?  File?"

"Has anyone ever read Andrew Steever's 'Oars for Pleasure Rowing'?It's out of print and $$$ used!"

"If and when I build another with a composite floor, I will strongly consider laminating two pieces of quarter inch together to make the bend. 1/2” fir ply has 5 plies. 1/4” x 2 will give me 6 plies and an easier bend."

"I agree with Rick, and I think he even posted similar advice when I was planning my own build. I had a hard time bending half-inch plywood on my floor and glassed after it was in place. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to bend with one…"

"To the second part of your question: "it would be interesting to know how much strength is added by glassing the top and bottom of the floor vs just the bottom."Well, it's actually a LOT!  If you have a glass/ply/glass composite,…"

"If you have a fully glassed/epoxied/varnished boat, you don't need oil.  It won't absorb into the epoxy/varnish. If you have a ply-on-frame boat that isn't epoxied, then oil is your friend.  It will let the wood get wet,…"

"I'll take a slightly different tack.  As David Witton mentioned, there are two schools of thought: 1. Wooden Boat 2. Wood-composite boat. If it's a wooden boat, you want to oil it, and you also want it to be able to breathe. Water…"

"You can stack them on top of each other for even more force in a small area!"