Traditional Snowshoe Care - Spar Varnish & Lampwick Bindings - Winter Gear Maintenance

In this video from the workshop, I restore a pair of hardwood and rawhide snowshoes I had recently gotten to replace the pair I destroyed last year. I started off by using 80 grit sandpaper to remove all of the old and flaky spar varnish and open up the pores of the wood for the new coats. After two hours of sanding, I dusted the shoes off and began painting on the new marine spar varnish. I laid it on heavily to ensure it would soak into all the cracks, especially in the areas that get hard use. I applied two coats over 4 days, letting cure for 48 hours each. Once the snowshoes were dry, I added the lampwick webbing off my old ones, and headed out to the bush with my dog, Naomi, to give them a try in the deep snow. Although the snow wasn't the best for snowshoeing, the shoes worked great, and the varnish easily flexed with the rawhide webbing and wood frame, keeping it's seal without any cracks or noticiable wear. I'm looking forward to getting some real use out of them in coming videos, and hopefully they won't blow apart like the last pair.

Thanks for watching,
Nicholas

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