Canvas appearance in finished canoe

[geolang]

Take a peek at this image. It is a photo looking upwards into the gunwales (canoe is hanging above me). You can see the white canvas between the inwale and outwale, with what appears to be Red Cedar ribs in between.

It's technical, but thought I would share a view that I haven't seen in all my research!

Seems like a tight fit !!! Does yours look like this?

 

[Michael Grace]

Yep, looks perfectly normal... except the canvas is so white! Must be a fairly new canoe. When you say :"looking upwards into the gunwales," I'm assuming you have the canoe hanging upside down overhead.

 

[geolang]

Yes, that's right, looking upwards. Yes, I believe the canoe is more than 10 but less than 20 years old.

 

[MGC]

That appears to be nylon, not canvas. That would explain the "whiteness".
There have been occasional surges of interest in the use of ballistic nylon with alternative fillers. Your canoe may be constructed with BN.....

 

[Todd F]

Does anyone ever "treat" the edge of the canvas?

 

[geolang]

That appears to be nylon, not canvas. That would explain the "whiteness".
There have been occasional surges of interest in the use of ballistic nylon with alternative fillers. Your canoe may be constructed with BN.....

The canoe was handmade by Joe Ziemba (Carrying Place Canoe) in Ontario, Canada over 10 years ago (minimum). I cannot imagine BN being part of his layup. His website, which is still up, doesn't speak of BN.

 

[geolang]

"Does any treat the edge of canvas?" Great question!

 

[Dave Osborn]

If you remove the outer gunwale, you should be able to trim the top of the canvas down to the top of the plank and lose the sight of the canvas.

 

[geolang]

If you remove the outer gunwale, you should be able to trim the top of the canvas down to the top of the plank and lose the sight of the canvas.

This is a very up-close snapshot. That little bit of white is probably couple mm.

 

[Rob Stevens]

Does anyone ever "treat" the edge of the canvas?

Yup. Search "zinc naphthenate".

 

[Todd F]

Thanks Rob

 

[Dave Osborn]

This is a very up-close snapshot. That little bit of white is probably couple mm.

Then you should be able to remove a couple mm if you trim to the top of the planking.
Removing the gunwale is easy and will likely solve your issue

 

[David Satter]

When you restore a canoe, you look between the inwales and outwales and you can see the top edge of any planking you've replaced there.
That new cedar. Since that's also where you trim the canvas, I sometimes take a small brush with stain and run it along the edge of the new planking and it also may help to seal/treat the cut canvas edge. I'm sure that fresh canvas cut could wick up water so treating the edge may help.

 

[MGC]

Circling back, is the noted "problem" a problem? If it were my canoe, I'd just ignore that. It is what it is......