First picture:  On just about every restoration job the all the canoe tacks have to be retighten  so that the heads of the canoe tacks are tight  and just below the surface of the planking.  This operation is called clinching the nails.  On smaller boats one person can hold the steel clinching iron on the inside of the canoe and hit the head of the tack on the outside of the hull with small canoe hammer.  On larger boats such as this war canoe, it's a two person operation.  Elsia is holding the clinching iron on the inside while I hammer the canoe tacks from the outside.  For the person in Elisa's position its a lot like hiving your head in a wood drum while doing weight lifting exercises with the 4lb steel clinching iron.  The person in my position can hammer with one hand, hold a coffee cup with the other and listen to the radio as they hammer down the row of tacks!  Its always nice to have a good helper in the shop!

Second Picture:  Working in the paint room can be a nice quite change of pace from working in the building room.  Here Elsia is removing the paint tape from Baxter's canoe. The paint line is cleaned up after the tape is removed.  There is still a 1/2" gold paint line that will go between the black and red so there  still a lot more taping off  to do.  This picture is for Elisa's mother who commented that she never got to see Elisa's face in the pictures: an error that we would like to correct!