L.l. Bean Kit Canoe?

[Dave Osborn]

I received a call from a person that says they have a LL Bean canoe made from a kit in the early 1970’s.
Has anybody ever heard or or seen one?
Dave

 

[Benson Gray]

Old Town offered a "Canoe-in-a-Box" in their 1980 catalog as shown below which may have been sold through L. L. Bean.

Benson

 

[Dave Osborn]

Thanks for this and ALL you do for us on this site, Benson!

 

[Todd Bradshaw]

I remember seeing that original Old Town kit sample at a trade show and being very surprised that nobody sanded the resin on the outside smooth before varnishing it. It looked like hell up close. It was, however, well after the early 1970s. Other than Trailcraft selling their canvas over wooden stringer-framed kits and their two piece (front and back) fiberglass kit hulls I can't remember anybody selling canoe kits in the early 1970s. Moore Canoes sold a U-finish-it kit around 1974 with a fiberglass hull and pieces of hemlock they got from a ladder manufacturer for gunwales. They had taken a mold from an old 16' canoe called the "Ladybug" which was a nice looking traditional shape. Unfortunately, the bottom of their original had rounded out over time and the mold they made from it made fiberglass replicas which were very twitchy in the water. The hemlock gunwales worked, but were pretty soft, and hemlock tends to string out as you are attempting to smooth and sand it which gets rather annoying.