Easdale or Old Town ??

[juanderin]

I just bought a very old wood and canvas canoe it seemed that it would be a fun project and i jumped on it.

There is a couple of things that I am not sure of. First.... I bought this beauty up in Forestville Ca.last Saturday and when I was loading it up, one of the neighbors walked by and said it was an Easdale canoe which made was about five miles away in Guerneville Ca. where the Easdale canoe company used to be till it burnt down in 1940. My confusion comes from the diamond head seat mounting hardware. It is the same as old town's. was this type of bolt commonly used by different builders??

Second... any other helpful advise on restoring this lovely old canoe would be greatly appricated.
thanks John

http://www.flicker.com/photos/53121847@N00/sets/72157627610955780/

 

[Greg Nolan]

In addition to the diamond-head bolts, the decks seem Old Town style, although some other builders used a similar style. If it is OT, there should be a serial number stamped on the end of each of the stems, as they run out onto the floor of the canoe. If you have an OT serial number, you can get the build record here. Others who know something about Easedale canoes (I know nothing) may be along to comment on that possibility.

As to advice on restoring the canoe, you would do well to get, or at least look at, "The Wood and Canvas Canoe: A Complete Guide to its History, Construction, Restoration, and Maintenance" by Rollin Thurlow and Jerry Stelmok, and/or "Building the Maine Guide Canoe" by Jerry Stelmok. If the canoe is an OT, you may find "The Old Town Canoe Company" by Susan Audette and David Baker of interest.

The first is often called the "bible" of canoe repair, restoration, and maintenance; the second is an excellent study of the wooden/canvas canoe and its construction, and the third is a great history of the company and its canoes. These are available from the WCHA store, are often on eBay, or from Amazon. Sue Audette also sells her book directly (http://www.thebaglady.tv/ ).

Having looked at the photos in your link, I have to say that the decks do not look like Old Town decks, with their "arrow head" shape where the inwales join the deck.

 

[Kathryn Klos]

St. Louis Meramac, perhaps, with the arrowhead deck?

 

[MGC]

That appears to be a Penobscot giving consideration to the deck shape and rails.
I don't recall if mine had OT bolts. I don't think it did but it was 40 years ago when I sold it.
OT bolts show up on everything.
I found them on a Morris a few weeks ago.
Often folks know about the diamondheads and assume that means their canoe is built by Old Town.
In this case, the canoe is likely built by a former OT employee.

 

[Dave Wermuth]

look closer at the deck. looks like the whole tip, inwale and deck was replaced with a triangle. I think it's old town.

 

[crosscuts]

Easdale Canoe Company

Guernevile, Ca. is in the heart of the redwood country. In the early 1900s John Easdale began building canoes for his livery and rental cottage business on the Russian River. The canoes were built with redwood planking, Port Orford cedar ribs and trimmed in Phillipine mahogany. A distinctive feature was a cast aluminum deck or breast hook with the company name Easdale either incised into the casting or later using stock foundry raised letters. There was no wooden deck. Often the canoes are found with diamond headed bolts either from the factory or with later repairs. A 1938 catalog lists the materials as conventional red cedar planking and white cedar ribs. The canoes were not marked with serial numbers and all production records were lost in the 1940's fire.

R.C.

 

[Greg Nolan]

decks

"look closer at the deck. looks like the whole tip, inwale and deck was replaced with a triangle. I think it's old town."

I've looked at the largest version of pictures 23-25 on the flikr site which focus closely on the bow deck, and they look to me to be one piece of wood.

I've copied those large version and cropped from them:




(After clicking on the thumbnail above, double-click on the image that appears in order to get a large image)

 

[MGC]

Hm..when you compare that to the canoe that Dan Id'd a few days back, this one is quite crude.
Once again I need to relinquish identification to those that get it right more often than not.

 

[Dave Wermuth]

That helped. It's arrowhead for sure. I was mistaken.

 

[juanderin]

wow!! thanks for all the input. This is my first canoe project, and am excited about it... This canoe came from the little resort community of Summerhome Park between Guerneville and Forrestville on the Russian river. Which could explain her sad state. Not to mention the weather but things there don't dry out all winter and in the summer everything turns into kindling. The gal I bought the canoe from told me that the canoe was eighty years old and had been in her garage untouched since she bought the house 25 years ago. The neighbor I mentioned in my initial post knew the former owner of the house and canoe. He was surprised to see the canoe still there, when I asked him about it he said with out hesitation it was an easdale. So I was inclined to believe it was an easdale until i saw the diamond head replacement bolts for sale at island falls canoe.

After reading all of your replys I went out to see if there were any numbers on the stem's..... none there. The fore and aft deck's are one piece.
I looked up the st. louis meramec the only photo i could find was at dragonfly canoe and the inwale's on this mystery canoe seem to run further up the deck and the detail on the lower portion of the deck is different.
The planking is redwood.... the ribs?? a blonder wood, a ceder of some sort ...the inwales?? I'll be able to tell when I clean it up a bit more.
And as they say
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"
oh yeah! the only photo of an easdale canoe i could find was on google. if you google easdale canoe then follow the russian river google book link there's a photo of some folks paddling adound and a bit of info.

 

[Kathryn Klos]

Chances are the planking is red cedar and the ribs white cedar, as this is a common combo for canoes... the other combo is white cedar all around. Wales are commonly spruce, unless the canoe is trimmed (decks, thwarts, seat frames) in mahogany and then the wales may be mahogany as well. If decks, thwarts, and seat frames are a hardwood other than mahogany, then gunwales are probably spruce. There is information on the St. Louis canoes in a back issue of Wooden Canoe-- issue 146 (April 2008) Back issues are available through the WCHA Online Store at http://store.wcha.org


Kathy

 

[juanderin]

good morning, i was just out back with a piece of sand paper trying to see what all the bits and bobs are made of, the deck seems to be oak, the thawrts and seat frames are oak. Then to my horror and amazement as I was sanding the stem to see what it was made of, I all most sanded off the numbers. 82200 16..... NO MORE SAND PAPER, scrub brush and steel wool from now on.

 

[Jan Bloom]

Old Redwood and old Red Cedar can be dificult to tell apart. Both oxidize and age to about the same color.

 

[juanderin]

Hi Jan, Boy! They sure are. I have a piece of red ceder left over from from the kayak paddle I made this spring and some old redwood fence boards out back.
I pulled a few small pieces off different damaged planks and cut into them for comparison. The first piece I pulled was from an early repair, you could see where the planks had been cut. It is thinner than all the other planking and I believe it to be redwood, a nice dark red. Looked like my fence. A piece from the bow, looked like my left over piece of ceder. A piece from the other side of the bow, could have been either. A piece from the back looked like redwood. Time to step back and order those two books that Greg recommended and hope that serial number search turns something up.