I have heard from Peter and he has had a great week of catching fish along the Allagash River.  He was able to try out his new 20 ft canoe with a side mounted 3 hp. motor. He said he hardly touched his paddle until he ran out of gas!  Guess what he's doing this week.. that right, hes going back for another week of fishing, but with more gas! Elsia will only be in the shop for a couple more weeks and then she is off to Camp Darrow to guide their 6 week Canadian canoe trip.  I'm beginning to think there is something wrong in my shop schedule!
In the above picture Elisa and I are removing the paper and tape that protected Baxter's canoe when we painted the gold strip between the black and dark red.  

 No matter how good the paint line between the colors, there is always some touch up that needs to be done by hand.  Here I am using a fine artist brush to smooth out areas where the paint may of leaked around the edges of the tape. There is a fine line between smoothing the paint edge and making the edge worse with a unsteady hand! At least with this job it is easy to wipe off the mistake as it happens and retouch the area again!
Shipping the canoes for long distances is alwasy hard to arrange and can be expensive.  Right now I have a canoe to ship to Kansas and one to southern CA. and one to pick up in Sounthern CA and bring to the shop. If anyone is going east to west or west to east and can carry a canoe, let me know and maybe we can work something out.