Two more wood canvas canoes

[Robin]

I got a lead that there was two wood canvas canoes in metro Boston free for the taking. I called the person and he said yes, he had two canoes and wanted to find a good home for them.

Fast forward, I'm heading out of Boston yesterday afternoon with two wood canvas canoes on my truck.

Granted, there is no such thing as a free lunch, but these two old timers might have some life left in them.

The big one up front is a 1924 Kenebec 18' "Maine Guide" model. Unfortunately, someone not only fiber-glassed it, almost a kiss a death for a wood canvas canoe, they also painted the interior. So up in the barn loft on the rack it will go for a while till I figure out what to do with it. The good news is it has no rot, only a few broken ribs and it's straight. I think it would be fun to pole this canoe up an easy current.

The other is a 17' Penobscot canoe, I'm not sure of the model. It needs alot of work, 1/2 dozen ribs, some plank and canvas, but it also has no rot, stems and inwales good, and for a 1917 it's in great shape, straight and true. This one will also wait for other projects to get done.

That makes 9 wood canvas canoes, my wife wonders how many more the barn will hold.

 

[yellowcanoe]

I looked over at WCHA and found some You Tube links to fiberglass removal. Maybe the kiss was not fatal.

http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?8528-Old-canoe-found-in-barn&highlight=fiberglass+removal

We can only hope the fiberglass was not applied with epoxy.. I remember Bill Miller de fiberglassing a wood canoe with epoxy and another with polyester resin. The former was a porcupine. The latter quite nice! He used a flat axe.

I am just waiting for fifty degrees so I can varnish lots of canoe parts. Sigh.

 

[Mihun09]

Once you move that Morris out there will be room for one more new one. Or of course, you could always add on to the barn. The one I'm working on now was glassed and I will have to deal with the remnants of that soon enough. Still have some rib tips to do and replace 5 ribs.

What the heck is 50 degrees? It is going to be in the minuses here all week and it snowed yesterday and today. My first paddle in my Chestnut might just be in a flooded ditch.

 

[yellowcanoe]

Once you move that Morris out there will be room for one more new one. Or of course, you could always add on to the barn. The one I'm working on now was glassed and I will have to deal with the remnants of that soon enough. Still have some rib tips to do and replace 5 ribs.

What the heck is 50 degrees? It is going to be in the minuses here all week and it snowed yesterday and today. My first paddle in my Chestnut might just be in a flooded ditch.

Oh the OTHER 50 degrees. Its the number printed on the varnish can. Its also a pipe dream. Yup.. its 10 for you. And while its not snowing here..the ice prevails and we went snowshoeing yesterday. South facing slopes are bare. North facing are either a sheet of ice or up to a meter of snow.

this isn't too far from my house, where I have bare ground Picture 7

http://slideshow.nbcnews.com/slideshow/news/the-week-in-pictures-march-28-april-4-51429500/

 

[Seeker]

Nice finds Robin. Free is good. They look nice. There's always room for one more.

It was about 75 here today... soon will be too hot to do much except come North for a couple weeks. (actually, it's good canoeing weather... just jump out and back in when you're too hot.)

 

[yellowcanoe]

Nice finds Robin. Free is good. They look nice. There's always room for one more.

It was about 75 here today... soon will be too hot to do much except come North for a couple weeks. (actually, it's good canoeing weather... just jump out and back in when you're too hot.)

Can I send down someone to smack you? You ought to be in the Adirondacks now.. with your axe and paddle! Seriously, I always was a bit amused when I went to La Lou (a canoeing event) in March at Fontainebleu State Park just east of Mandeville. Local paddlers would lament that they had to hang up the paddles soon. Us fly in Northerners were going "woohoo...open water finally". Southerners, being gracious folk would run to the ice machine and dump buckets of ice cubes to make the water feel more homey for us.

 

[Seeker]

sorry... I am a natural born smart-a$$... I really try to temper it, but 48 years has not been enough... I will be up in June, I think.

 

[yellowcanoe]

sorry... I am a natural born smart-a$$... I really try to temper it, but 48 years has not been enough... I will be up in June, I think.

Our trained blackfly greeters will be on the job. I think that this year is exceptional. They will no doubt be late and ought to be hungry in June. Nice snowpack and a relatively late melt means appetite!

The last time we made 70 degrees per our local TV channel was Sept 6. 2012.

 

[Wanderlustjake]

Wow, nice score! At least you have the space for them to wait their turn. Just be patient when it comes to fiberglass removal, it is a pain. I have a Rushton Indian Girl that I am de-glassing very slowly, we won't go into details of how slowly ��. Congratulations on expanding your collection.

 

[Robin]

I'm wondering if it would be better to just replace all the plank since it's painted. I have some plank, probably enough to do this canoe. It wouldn't be original, but to remove fiberglass correctly can be labor intensive, then I still have the painted plank. Big job either way, and I realized last night that the canoe is too heavy for me to get up in the loft for storage as is, the fiberglass has to be off soon just to store the canoe....

 

[Mihun09]

Robin, wouldn't you strip the old varnish anyway, so paint shouldn't matter much, it just adds more time. The CCC I'm working on, someone along the line painted the interior with deck stain instead of varnish and I did manage to get it off, although it has bled into the wood where the varnish was cracked. I figure most will be carefully sanded out and the bleaching process should take care of the rest. It mostly depends if you wish to spend the time doing it. The easy way would be to sell it as is.

YC, I know what 50f is, just have no idea when it will arrive here. Winter is hanging on tough and I'm beginning to wonder if we will see open water for our first long weekend May 18.

 

[Shearwater]

Nice find.
My find was also "fixed up" with fiberglass at one point.
It wasn't all that difficult to remove with a scraper and electric paint stripper to heat the resin up a little. It took about 5 hours.
Getting the old resin out of the plank gaps was time consuming - I used a broken hack saw blade made into a hook. This one took 2 days.
Is there any difference removing oil based paint and old varnish? I used a good quality paint remover, scrapers and OSHA rated mask.
Does it have to be a varnished interior? What about repainting in a color more suitable to a canvas canoe?
Lots of fun to refurb but should not take away from time on the water

Cheers Ted

 

[Robin]

Thanks YC,Mihun 09 and Shearwater, I stated work on the fiberglassed Kennebec, see the new thread.Thanks for the input, very helpful.