scraping ribs...

The seats need to be recaned, but the big (first) job was going to be scraping all that old varnish off the inside of the canoe to get back to bare wood...I only have a day or two per week in the studio during the academic year, so scraping varnish is not a high priority, but it had to be done. I found a so-called 'organic' varnish remover which didn't smell too bad, and got to work. The remover takes an hour or so to act, then it's just scrape, scrape, scrape. Usually two applications were required, as the original 'varnish' was probably actually shellac, over which there had been added several layers of new varnish over the years. I could scrape for about three hours, then needed to do some studio work. I had a new piece in mind, so the scraping process was a good way to mull over the idea while actually getting some other work accomplished, which is how I like to work.