Howdy all,

I am trying to catch up with my boating blog after a ridiculous river season. I just put up some shots of our new aluminum/wood hybrid boat (what?!?!), the Betty Boop's return to Grand Canyon, and a few other shots from along the way.

AlumiWoodie

Betty…

So... I may or may not have split a crack in the rocker during my last private, in Unkar. I guess it depends on who is telling the story. But, a hard hit and a 24 inch X 1/2 inch wide crack was the end result.

The question I posted to our wooden boat community was how should I go about fixing it? Would it be ok to simply sand it down, patch it with glass and…

Just posted an album of a few photos of the boat I just completed. Having access to this site helped enormously. Thanks everyone!

i  just had the pleasure of taking my first trip down the Rogue with a great group of guys, here is the link to a neat little video i put together of our trip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGFQlV-eHno

www.orvis.com/driftboat…

Hello folks,

I promised in an earlier post to update you on my re-bottoming project.

I purchased this 17' Tatman and it's in excellent shape, except it was 18 years old and the UHMW plastic on bottom was getting very brittle.  The screws were working loose and the plastic had to go.  There was even a slow leak along one row of the screw holes where they missed the framing member.

I decided that instead of replacing the UHMW sheeting on bottom, I would instead try a slick…

I have Gull Ash (?) oars. I damaged two of them: one split down the blade breaking off a 1" to 2" wide piece the length of the blade, the other oar cracked mid-shaft and has a wide flake that followed the grain but didn't break off or in two. The latter will require that I inject a non-viscous glue into the crack so that it can penetrate deep before I clamp it. I can't get the flake to open very wide, but could get a syringe in there if I knew what glue would be thin enough to…

I'd like to invite all previous builders on this site to post a picture of their boat's rear anchor support, method of routing the line and clinching device.

phil w.

The book that covers all the back story behind the 1950's Grand Canyon dory GEM has just been released!

It's called Big Water, Little Boats and included boat dimensions and almost 200 photos of historic Grand Canyon watercraft and river runners. The story included a recounting of a river trip on the highest water ever run in Grand Canyon, 126,000 second…

Caught me a shooting star! 

How lucky is that?

Tequila Beach. Tiki Torch Party after a successful run of…

I am trying to figure out what it might take to fix this boat up and maybe use it for a couple of year.  It has what appears to be a 1/4 " thick sheet of plastic on the bottom and a 1/2 wide plastic strip around the bottom edge  it is all attached with glue and SS screws.   It is all ¼ marine plywood with oak spares and hand rail with a ½ “plywood bottom.  The inside was vanished I would assume with some type of marine product and a solid color paint on the outside. 

I thinking I need…

I am making a one man boat. I am using design aspects from a lot of different styles and contours. My question is, How do you determine where the oar locks to be, and how does that relate to the seat location?

Dear friends! This photo was done in in Saint-Petersburg at the beginning of the 20th century. The boat is called "GATCHINKA" after the name of town near Saint-Petersbutg.  This boat is not very typical for Russia. May be someone know the similar types...…

Nearing completion of this 16'9'' X 48" Hutchinson-design Briggs boat for the Grand Canyon. We have a launch in October to look forward to, hoping to get this out on soon for some water time. Here I am dry fitting the hatch lid pieces. Just finished the gunwales. …

Finally got pictures uploaded from a canyon trip last month. Perhaps it's cheating to put it here as there's only one wood boat on the trip, but she's a real beauty. A Derald Stewart (sp?) built dory from Grand Junction named the Canyon Wren. She recently got a full re-fit from Andy Hutchinson, and looks great. The other dory is my alumaweld, Chinook, although I hope to have a wood boat finished by my next trip down there!

Here's one picture- Canyon Wren in Upset, and there…

It was Spring low flows but this Grand Canyon dory lives to tell another tale.  Check out the Zizumara's run of Lava Falls. April 2012, 7-11,000 cfs. Enjoy!

 http://vimeo.com/kneu/2012lava

-Kelly

Well I went ahead and skipped some of the boring pictures (I took a bunch) and went right in to the good pictures with noticable progress.  I got all the bulkheads cut then went to work sanding the inside of the hull down so I could epoxy them all in place.  Once the bulkheads were in solid I took out the original seats. I left them in to help hold the hulls shape throughout the work. I also got to work fitting the rear deck and starting to work on the most forward edge of it's connection to…

Lat week I was able to get the rest of this infernal green paint sanded off. The best thing that I found were Gator Black Zirconium Sanding disks.  They lasted way longer that than the other 2 or 3 brands I tried. 

Here she is without her makeup

After…