My Canoe will float again!

Here are the latest photos from my restoration project of a 1942 Old Town Yankee. So far, I've replaced both stems, the inside gunwales, 20 ribs and probably half of the planking. The hardest task by far was removing 50 years and 4 different paint jobs from the interior as well as the original varnish. I still need to replace the seats, the outside gunwales and of course the canvas, but she will float again.

Why bother you ask? Because I couldn't bear to throw it away -- too many fond memories.

Here are some early pictures:
My steam box. I used a wallpaper steamer for the steam source.
My form for bending the stems.
Stems finally meet gunwales.
The inside picture shows the layers of paint after hours of stripping in the cold. I eventually just waited for warm weather and had better luck.

Very inspirational! See what those wonderful memories can provide? Love these stories of a second life...

Very impressive!

What did you use for planking?

Thanks,
Paul

Paul,

I found that some of the nicer mountain houses here use western red cedar rough siding for fascia. When I told the lumber yard what I was doing, they were happy to let me sort through the piles looking for the clearest boards I could find.

After that, it was a matter of re-sawing them, planing them and working around the knots.

Exceptional. WOW. WEll done.

The Canvas is on and filled



Thanks to all who have contributed here about the canvasing process. A special thanks to Mike Elliott's tutorial and of course, my "bible" during this entire process, The Wood and Canvas Canoe.

My canvas stretching rig will remind the elders here of Rube Goldberg, but it worked. In fact, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. A helper would have been nice to help hold the 2x4 clamping as I tighten the whole thing.

Closing the ends required stretching the canvas with my right hand, holding the short stem tacks in my left hand and hammering with my other hand. Obviously, a helper would have made this process better and faster. (I could have easily recruited one and if I had thrown in a six pack, I'll bet he would have even held the tacks!)

I used filler I purchased from Rollin. It went on in three coats as described in the instruction sheet that came with the filler. No adventure there.

Now, I can go to work on making the seat frames and caning while the filler cures.

Launch Day finally arrived

Well, the moment of truth finally arrived. Thanks to all on this site who have offered tips and encouragement, my canoe does indeed float again. Here are some photos:

It looks great!

Pretty amazing, especially considering what you started with. A really nice job -- you should have lots of great paddling ahead with the new life you've given that canoe.