Chestnut seats

[Robin]

I took a ride up to Atkinson, Maine this morning to visit Roland Thurlow of Northwoods Canoe, an earlier call confirmed he had some old canoe seats and there should be some Chestnut seats in the pile. Chestnuts are hand woven vs. the pressed in cane you see in Old Town canoes. Putting pressed in cane seats in a Chestnut is like me putting Ford hubcaps on my old Chevy truck, just ain’t gonna happen?
I found 3 good seats, I’m jonesing to take that 16’ Chestnut Cruiser up to the North Maine Woods with my wall tent in a few weeks and finding these seats puts me closer to my trip.
The third seat is for that 14’ Chestnut Fox replica I’m also finishing.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

It may sound like an old chestnut, but it good to find Chestnut seats to finish off a traditional Chestnut canoe. I never knew that Chestnut wove their cane seats while Old Town didn't. Maybe that's a general rule in later times, as I don't know when pressed cane came into use. I've also seen Chestnut seats made of babiche, slats and even planks -- the latter two being quite ugly, in my opinion.

 

[paddler123]

Old Town used hand-caned seats until the late 1930's, then switched to machine-woven (pressed) cane. More info at the link below.

http://forums.wcha.org/index.php?threads/old-town-cane-seats.17104/

 

[Robin]

When the new minimum wage laws came in to play, (1938) the folks who where doing hand caining previously where being paid by piece work and a good hand cainer could do well.
From what I have heard from an Old Town historian, Old Town decided that they could build cheaper seats paying lesser skilled workers an hourly rate to build pressed in Cain seats vs. paying skilled workers to make hand chained seats at a piece rate.

 

[Robin]

I managed to trim some excess canvas and place the seats for what I feel will be good positions on the Chestnut Cruiser today, but some new gutters for the house took most of my attention...yes dear, no dear, whatever you say dear.

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