: I'm definitely going to put a brass stem on the bow of the S&G canoe I'm
: building. The way the panels come together, it's really a natural thing to
: do since they come together with a gap in the front that needs to be
: filled with thickened epoxy. But I'm wondering about the stern. Do people
: put brass stems on the stern or should I just fill with thickened epoxy
: and sand it rounded?

: This is a good sign. I'm looking ahead again, anticipating what's coming up
: around the bend.

: Patsy

Hmm,

recalling the data in Canoe Craft by Ted Moores, The brass stem is usually screwed (and expoxied?) to the ends. However The building process in that book for the cedar strip canoes, has wood stems both on the inside, and outside of each end. These stems give something to screw into.

Without seeing the canoe, assuming you do not have these stems, I might try somthing like putting screws into the stem prior to placing into the epoxy. Giving the epoxy somthing to bite on to. However, I'm not sure I'd be confident this would provide enough holding power (I'm not sure of the bond strength of epoxy to the Brass).

I seem to recall the stems are pre shaped, with a cross secton like a 1/2 moon so you should not need to sand them, provided the end of your canoe is the same thickness as the 1/2 moon? I seem to recall it is 2/3ths of an inch, but please verify that.

Is there an easy way to get the inside stems into the canoe. Sounds hard to do to me, but probably not.

Perhaps you should consider trying a wooden protection, this would be applied simillar to the way Nick describes in his book on building kayaks. Basically thin strips of a hard wood (say ash) are taped in place while the epoxy dries. This would be easier to shape to a good fit on the end of the canoe, but may not provide as much protection. On top of this you could put an extra layer (or more) of fiber glass for rub protection

Finally (in my opinion the best way, but most work) Provide a outside wood stem to screw the brass to to by using Nicks method, and then screw into that to hold the brass. To do this if the end or the canoe is to thin to allow for the taper down to the width of the stem you may have to cut away the edge of the canoe, and build up with the outter stem. Now this is starting to sound like alot of (scary) work.

I'm not sure if that was any help, but gives somthings to think on.

good luck

Myrl