Convert canvas covered canoe to clear glass?

[monkitoucher]

I'm working on a later old town now that they glassed from the factory. I don't think they started doing glass on canoes for any other reason that it was cheaper to produce. The boat I'm working on had stapled ribs and the hull wasn't very fair. You can see every plank through the fiberglass. Saying that Old Town started doing it so it must be OK isn't really a great argument. At that point, they weren't making them to last. They were cutting corners like the rest of American production.

 

[Todd Bradshaw]

Having been an Old Town dealer, I'd say the reason was far more a matter of doing it because they were much easier to sell. The natural (clear) finished 15' Trappers in particular would far outsell the canvas-covered models, especially among folks who were new to the sport and not what you would consider hard-core canoeists. When we had them, prices for wooden Old Towns of any type were in the $600-$800 range. Many of the folks we sold them to were reasonably wealthy and some even lived in fancy subdivisions built around man-made ponds. I doubt some of those boats ever went anywhere else. If you wanted to stock one model of canoe that was most likely to get impulse bought, just because of its cosmetic appeal, it was a clear-finished Trapper. Other than that model, our other sales of wooden canoes were dead. People wanted fiberglass, Royalex and later when the Discovery series came out, polyethylene boats.

 

[ppine]

Old Town produced clear fiberglass covered canoes because they were beautiful and they could sell them. They cost around $6,000 at the end of the run and seemed to appeal to wealthy people without much knowledge about canoes.

After years of discussion, the group here has finally helped me understand why using fiberglass cloth is so difficult and not recommended. I get all the prep work needed to take care of the seams, dents and hammer blossoms. Canvas would be a lot less work and traditional. Now I am leaning in the direction, so thanks for all the comments.

I just say though, that this group has plenty of attitude. Not a lot of tact, empathy or encouragement. But we don't have to be friends.

 

[pklonowski]

Sometimes a lot of communication gets lost in written formats; there's certainly no vocal inflection or body language to read, and it can cause written words to get interpreted in ways that are unintended; I think that has happened here.

Todd has a world of experience building and repairing strip & glass boats, and is simply trying to help you avoid a nasty pitfall that many people, including me, have tripped into, over the decades. He's trying to help you, as best he can. In person, you'd find him both knowledgeable and friendly. And like the rest of the folks here, he's happy to share his extensive experiences with anyone who cares to ask.

 

[Dan Lindberg]

This is about the "softest" site I have seen, nothing but "tact, empathy and encouragement."

I just say though, that this group has plenty of attitude. Not a lot of tact, empathy or encouragement.

 

[MGC]

This is about the "softest" site I have seen, nothing but "tact, empathy and encouragement."

That is a fact with the possible exception of my jabs at the board to open up and communicate more often and more transparently and the resulting repartees to push back.
There are regulars on this forum who are sharing many years of canoe and boatbuilding experiences. What is not immediately apparent is when advice is being offered by one of the "resident" professional builders/restorers or a casual hobbyist. Some of the participants here are true subject matter experts, the best in the business. Many of us have been working/collecting/restoring/building canoes for 40 or 50 years. If you hang out here for a few dozen years you'll figure out who's who. If you come to this forum looking for a sounding board, you will definitely find it.

 

[Todd Bradshaw]

Gee, look what I got in my private messages.

 

[pklonowski]

A case of "No good deed goes unpunished?"

 

[ppine]

Only a jerk puts a private message in public.
so long.

 

[pklonowski]

Looks like this thread may be a candidate for deletion?

 

[ppine]

I am voluntarily gone.
thanks to Norm and some other people.
Bradshaw pushed me over the edge.
Delete everything.
Bye

 

[ppine]

Let me apologize to all members of WCHA.
I am having 3 surgeries for melanoma on my face and I am not happy about it.
I came here for some help and was told I was going to fail and my ideas were wrong.
Not what I needed to hear.
I will go somewhere else.
Stay safe.
Ppine

 

[Larry Meyer]

At the risk of further obscuring this thread, I would suggest that ppine misinterprets Todd’s motive in publicly posting ppine’s missive. I know Todd to appreciate literature and I’m sure he saw in it, as I do, pure eloquence, even in the form of insult. It is Shakespearean, Churchillian, even, in form, breadth, imagination, creativity, and completeness. It pleads for publication. I would be proud to be the subject of such malevolence so expressed.