13' 50#er

ticonderoga

ticonderoga

"Just one more"
I am just about to begin the next restoration of the winter and I need some help, please. The canoe is a 13' 50 #er AA grade that is in need of a lot of work. For starters it needs the usual stem ends, a few ribs, some planking and repairs of some previous repairs. The biggest part of the repairs will be inner and outer gunwales, which currently are a mess. They are not original for the most part so I can't get the location of the thwarts. This canoe had no seats just thwarts, so the placement is crucial to set the overall shape of this little tub. It does have the original decks, so I have that width. Does anyone out there have a similar canoe that can let me know the placement of the 3 thwarts along the centerline and the length of each hole to hole. Thanks in advance, Joe
 
Most of these came with seats as shown in the catalog image below. Mike Elliott shows one at https://canoeguybc.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/img_5473_sm.jpg but it isn't clear how long the canoe is. You may be able to count ribs to determine the locations. Good luck,

Benson



PAGE-13.JPG
 
Thanks for the info Benson. From the photos I can get the approximate seat location, but that won't give me the width at each of the thwarts. Also where are the thwarts located: at the front of the seat or the back? Thanks
 
Bad timing: just 2 weeks ago I sold my 13' 50 Pounder. I'll contact the fella who bought it & see if he'll measure the distance between the bolts.
 
ticonderoga said:
the width at each of the thwarts
Click to expand...

Howie may be able to offer the best information if he can get it. The catalogs listed both the 11 and 13 foot long versions of this model as being 36 inches wide. The 11 foot one in my garage is a bit narrower as shown at https://www.wcha.org/forums/index.php?attachments/22600/ for example. The center thwart is about 33.25 inches wide and the overall width at the rails is about 35.25 inches. I suspect that you could set the middle thwart width and then guess the other thwart lengths necessary to make a 'fair curve' to each end.

Mike Elliott's picture appears to show a 15 foot long example with the thwarts mounted near the middle of where the seats would have been. Good luck with your restoration and let me know if you want more details from my 11 foot one.

Benson
 
From all the info given, I will be able to set the thwarts and shape the gunwales. Thanks for all the advice
 
Ok... Here are the dimensions for my 'old' 50 Pounder. These are measured from the centers of each pair (left & right) of seat & thwart bolts.
Front seat: 27-1/2 and 30-3/4
Rear seat: 20-3/8 and 14
Now FYI, the 50 Pounder came with just one thwart which was located dead center. To make this canoe easier to handle by one person I made it with two thwarts, which are spaced 32-3/4" apart, or 16-3/8 fore & aft of the canoe's center.
For both thwarts the bolt span is 32-3/4.
 
Crap... I knew I was too tired when I wrote the above! The thwarts are really 34-1/2 apart. The bolt-to-bolt is 32-3/4.
 
I can give you one more measurement off my 13'er. It has a center thwart, as Howie says, that's dead center. The thwart length (max) is 33 1/2 inches with center line hole to hole of 32 5/16.
 
Jim's thwart info above is different than mine, and caused me to review my pictures from when I first got the canoe. I remember now that, while the canoe did have a rear seat and fragments of the front, it didn't have the center thwart and that the canoe was pretty well splayed open. I remember cinching the canoe in the center to get its overall width to match the published specs, but this caused the inner rails to have a 'pinched' look. So I used two thwarts and sized them to get rid of the 'pinched ' look. Which is a long winded way of saying that I'd trust Jim's thwart info instead of mine!
 
Hope you don't mind me rambling; it is sorta' related. I'm considering playing around with the seats and thwart configuration. I definitely want to be able to set it back to the original configuration (seat, thwart, seat). And, I haven't paddled this canoe yet, but I'm most interested in it as a solo tripper. For the solo setup, I have a carrying yoke to mount in the same inwale holes as the original center thwart. I might use a kneeling thwart that could fit in the holes for the aft beam of the front seat (with seat removed, of course). If that's not exactly in the right location, will try my homemade pedestal seat for kneeling - a surprisingly comfortable prototype of rigid foam with soft pads added for my seat and tops of feet. (Should make a wooden and cane pedestal someday, somehow.) Then, I probably should install another thwart, just to maintain the shape, hopefully in the forward holes of the stern seat (seat removed). So, that becomes the alter ego - pack style - of this fine old wood and canvas canoe.
 
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