Planking patterns?

[Benson Gray]

I have been collecting some pictures of planking patterns from canoes recently and it appears that this could be another good identification clue. Many other people have suggested this in the past so it might be helpful to have several known examples in one place for comparison and discussion. Dan Miller's work at http://dragonflycanoe.com/id/thompson.html is an excellent summary of the Thompson style. Clearly a given builder might use slightly different patterns over time but my guess is that their overall style might be fairly consistent. I have attached a few examples below drawn from various sources. The file names indicate the builder. The one with just a number is a serial number for an Old Town canoe and the one with a "C" prefix and a serial number is a Carleton canoe. Does anyone have some good pictures of known White patterns to add, especially early ones? Thanks,

Benson

 

[mccloud]

Benson, No doubt you will get better images than this, but for what it is worth, here is a 1948 White.

 

[Benson Gray]

here is a 1948 White.

This is excellent. It confirms my assumption that the White style shares many similarities with the Old Town style. A. E. Wickett worked at White in 1895 before he started at Old Town as described in the newspaper article below. Can you also share the full serial number? Thanks,

Benson

 

[mccloud]

My best guess is that it is 16-48-920, but the 920 is faint. You will see this now-rebuilt canoe at Assembly. Tom McCloud

 

[David Darwin]

Benson:
If I may add to your collection of photos, here is the style for OL Hicks, a Toronto, ON builder. The photo is part of the history of the canoe included on my website.
http://web.ncf.ca/aa686/photos/canoe/canoe-15.jpg

 

[Benson Gray]

If I may add to your collection of photos, here is the style for OL Hicks, a Toronto, ON builder.

Hi David,

You are welcome to add and your web site looks great. My original concept was focused on the more common wood and canvas canoes but all wood canoes have interesting patterns as well. Thanks,

Benson

 

[MGC]

My original concept was focused on the more common wood and canvas canoesQUOTE]

This is a Rushton Inc. IG I happen to have in my garage.......note the distinctive wide last boards and also the stagger at the gore.

Note that the gore on the opposite side and end of the canoe (image 072) is done slightly differently than the one shown in image 069.....

 

[mccloud]

Benson, Here' another for your collection. Attached is a shot of a 12 foot probably Huron. The individual planks are 3" wide except for the second one down, the banana shaped plank, which is 4" in the center. Those are NOT multiple small pieces of planking - rather, those are gores cut down 80% thru the plank. Planking this way leaves several small triangular gaps at the gunwale, which then have to be filled. Tom McCloud

 

[Benson Gray]

Hi Tom,

This is interesting. Do you have a higher resolution version so we can see this all in more detail? Thanks,

Benson

 

[mccloud]

I can take a shot with higher resolution. Because it is difficult to tell the difference between the gaps between the ends of planks, and those gores, I have thought of shading some places with a pencil. Any thoughts, or a better idea? Tom McCloud

 

[Benson Gray]

That sounds good.

Benson

 

[KAT]

1917 Penobscot Canoe Co.

Amidships is pretty ordinary, the ends where they tapered all the planking tightly seems to be what strikes me as different from most.

 

[mccloud]

12' Huron? planking pattern

Second try, at higher resolution and contrast enhanced. Notice the 4 small red planks where small triangles of planking have been added as space fillers. Some planks have been darkened with pencil. The long planks begin at both stems, and if not long enough, a filler board is added near the center. All those vertical dark lines are gores cut into a long plank so it will bend around the curvature. All the planking is 3" except for the 'banana shaped plank' which is 4" in the center. There are 7 planks on each side of the keel line. Another build feature I found interesting in this canoe is that a piece of 4" wide red cedar planking was used as the first 'cant rib' on both ends. When you think about it, this makes a lot of sense, as it provides a wider area of support, and as you are trying to taper down to the stem. Do any of these construction features point more specifically to one of the Huron builders?

OK, so I uploaded the photo, and am told it is 248kb, and adobe elements says it is 1.4 meg. Some knowledgeable person has to explain to me how to upload a bigger file. Tom McCloud

 

[Benson Gray]

This is much better. The difference between 248kb and 1.4 meg is usually the compressed size on disk versus the uncompressed size in memory. Thanks,

Benson