Need help!

I bought an old strip canoe,17 ' Wabnaki design,and since the bottom delaminated and held water,I decided I'd strip and re-glass it.
After removeing the 6 existing layers,patches,etc.,I found rot in the wood,poor workmanship,and have decided to do it all over since the basic hull is solid,just the top 2-3 inches have rotted,under the deck plates.
But the gunwales and inwales have been screwed in and epoxed/fiberglassed over and I've had problems removing the pre-existing fasteners.
Would a chemical stripper aide me in this undertakeing,and which should be prefered since I have no idea what was originally applied over the cloth?
Kinda new to this-always wanted to build one,but this one came to me cheaper than the wood needed to build a new one would cost,and repairs teach as much as construction,as Iam learning-but require more research!
Thanks for any help here!!

 

Surely there are others here more expert than I but I believe that heat is the answer to removing epoxy and whatever else might be there. The idea is to loosen the bond and peel the stuff off mechanically. If you're going to be replacing the wood in that area, you might be better off using a saw.

 

Good evening. I believe that Paul has a good answer for you. Heat and maybe consider using a thin blade saw to cut the screws . Also, acetone is good to remove wet epoxy. Of course you do not use acetone with an heat source near. Be careful. Good luck to you

 

Heat and peeling/scraping is the only thing that will really work to remove glass and resin (aside from a big disk sander, which is a very nasty, dusty, itchy job). My advice - dump this turkey, buy some wood and build one. Strippers aren't hard to build. With less work (and you'll probably find not much more cash outlay) you could build a new boat that's most likely going to be a much better one. There are very, very few old deteriorated strip canoes which are worth the effort and expense it takes to do a major rebuild. If you do that much work on this one and ever do build another, you're going to kick yourself for ever wasting the time and money on this one. Building one is also a much better way to learn the process as things go together in a logical order and there are plenty of books and internet forums which will guide you step by step.