Work Starts

Cedar Strip

Luckily for me the canoe is old and so is the varnish that’s on it, dry and brittle, so with a flat chisel I am able to chip off the the varnish.

Starting is slow but the cedar wood under the varnish is a wonderful red colour and the varnish is just pinging off with every stroke of the chi
sel. It’s not long before I start to realise that this boat could be a beauty.

There are some symbols on the boat which I think I should keep a record of, though I do not know what they stand for. So I give the task of tracing them to my son George before I start to scrape away the varnish over them.

Once the tracing is done I can start chiseling away, the tracing did not have to be too accurate as long as it gave the scale of the symbol. I have enough photos and measurements and the idea would be to have the design made out of vinyl then replaced before revarnishing

So the having done the test chiseling and the tracing time to give it a real go: I’ll let the following photos let the story of the days progress.