: I have an old canvas-covered canoe with interior ribs. The canvas is rotting.
: I'd like to replace it with epoxy. Any recommended techniques for this?

: Concern: difficult to glass the inside of the boat because the ribs are
: constantly in the way--could I get away with glassing the ribs, then
: adding glass to the sections between when the first lay-up was still
: green? After all, the boat was built originally with nothing more than
: canvas on the outside.

What you want ot do is recover the outside of the canoe with a layer of glass cloth and epoxy resin. That's it. Don't worry about putting glass cloth on the inside of the boat. When the boat was built it was designed to be strong enough with just those ribs that you are concerned about working around. You certainly won't get any more strength from adding glass and resin to the inside.

For that matter, since the sides of the boat are probably pretty well attached to those ribs, the glass cloth on the outside is not for strength, either. All you are doing is putting on a waterproof layer. In the original construction a layer of painted canvas kept out the water. When you rebuild it, a layer of glass-reinforced epoxy resin will do the same thing.

A strip built boat requires glass on the inside as there are no ribs. With ribs, no glass is needed, and it would be a pain to install anyhow. If you want to, you might put a coat of epoxy resin on the interior, but I'm not sure it would do much for you. Ideally epoxy resin would be put over bare wood and it would soak in. The interior of your boat would be a pain to sand down to bare wood, and even if you got it that far, the pores of the wood are probably sealed by whatever finish material was applied years ago -- proably thinned varnish -- and the epoxy resin would not soak in. So, consider a nice polyurethane finish for the inside.

A heatgun and a scraper will help get the old canvas off the outside. Remove the outer gunwales if you can find where they are screwed on. The edges of the canvas are probably secured under them. If you are careful you can reuse them. otherwise, you will have to get a few new strips of wood for new gunwales. Then sand off all the old finish and get down to bare wood. You probably won't have to seal the wood with a first coat of epoxy. Just roll on a thin coat and lay your glass cloth over it. Use a squeegee to get out any air bubbles and force the fabric tight to the hull. When it hardens you put on a few more coats with a roller to fill the weave, and sand lightly to smooth things off.

After the paint is on, screw the outer gunwales back on. This will cover any little defects at the edges. You can give these a thin coat or two of epoxy resin to seal them before you install them with screws. Don't glue them onto the boat. think of them as replaceable rub strips. You want to be able to replace them when they get beat up. Put a couple coats of UV blocking varnish on them and they'll look gorgeous.

Probably the wood underneath that canvas cover is discolored. If so, paint the outside of your canoe with a polyurethane based boat paint. Green is a traditional color, so is red, but there are lots of other colors to chose from.

This opaque coating will protect the epoxy from any UV degradation over the years. If the wood happens to look nice, though, cover the epoxy with a clear polyurethane or a marine varnish. Either of these should have UV blocking agents. Read the can -- if it blocks UV it will say so. If it doesn't say it blocks UV, get another brand.

Of course you could just put on another layer of canvas. It would be cheaper, faster and would probably get you a dozen years of service or more. put a coat of paint on the boat and lay on the canvas while the paint is still wet. remove the gunwales, Staple the edges of the canvas in the space where the gunwales will be reattached, so the gunwales cover the staples. Put another coat of paint on the outside of the canvas and let the thing dry. Then put on a couple more coats of paint, sanding lightly between coats. Finally reattach the gunwales and give them a few coats of varnish.

When you cover with canvas it is ususal to use a brass band at each end to reinforce the area where the ends of the fabric lap over each other. this is held on with short brass screws. Clark Craft has this material, (under $10 I believe) as well as canvas and the brass tack you can use instead of staples to hold the canvvas on. These are listed in their free price list. Check their website www.clarkcraft.com for info on getting their free price list. You don't need their $5 catalog -- so save your money.

Hope this helps

Paul G. Jacobson