First project but no idea what the boat is

C

canoebzh

Curious about Wooden Canoes
Thanks for letting me join.
Lived and canoed in UK then sold up and moved to Brittany, France.

Mentioned to a french friend that I was missing canoeing and he produced the boat shown. It has been stored outside, upside down on its trailer, for more than 4 years. He thinks it was bought in Canada and brought to France quite a while ago.

Any help with identifying the boat would be greatly appreciated.

Any guidance, or links to guidance, on how best to replace the rotten outwales and reglue the floorboards would be wonderful.

Many thanks in anticipation.
Andy in France
 

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If you browse this forum, you'll find others repairing similar problems. There are also a couple of good books on canoe repair.
 
Hello Andy. Our Canadian Canoe identification experts seem to be on hiatus. Possibly they are lost in the smoke that is Canada this summer. I will take a crack at helping you to identify your canoe. Be advised that whatever I conclude will probably be proven wrong within literal minutes after I post this, but such is the power of my skill. You will get your answer, albeit more than likely from someone else. ;)
In all seriousness, you have what is without question a canoe of Canadian origin. Among the several identifiers are the lines of the hull and the babiche seats. The half ribs are not all that common on the Canadian boats I have owned but they do appear quite often in working canoes. A floor with half ribs is a better one for loading up and is certainly nicer to use for standing or poling. They also provide a bit of added strength that comes in handy when you drag it across beaver dams. They do add weight.
Based upon the way the seats are attached, I would probably guess this to be a Bastien Brothers canoe. This is the part where someone else will come along and say, no, Mike, that is built by some guy in his shed in Chicoutimi....so it goes.

It looks like the hull has been fiberglassed. If you plan to remove that and recanvas you will be able to sort out the half ribs properly. Half ribs are added to a planked up hull and tacked into place once the ribs are set and planked. Repairing lifted ribs requires removing the damaged tacks and retacking.
Believe it or not, I have seen this exact problem on an old canoe that I repaired. People tend to be very careless with fiberglassed hulls. They drop them. That continuous dropping pulls the tacks holding the half ribs right through the planking, as it appears to be the case in your boat.
If you do not plan to remove the glass, I am not sure what you will be able to do to make that repair?
A Bastien is a decent hull. You should enjoy paddling it however you decide to proceed. If you chose to recanvas it I urge you to paddle it while it is glassed so that you can appreciate the transformation.
Mike
 
Hi Mike, thank you for the in depth response. Yes the hull has an external layer of fibreglass but I have no intention of removing that.
I am assuming that the half ribs you refer to are what I was mistakenly calling floor boards? Circled in red in photo. You mention the ribs being tacked in place but I can see no evidence of tacks (assuming tacks are similar to small nails?) and the only ribs/boards that are mechanically attached are the ones where the keel strips are screwed underneath (circled in blue).
Looking under the lifted half ribs there is residual evidence of some kind of glue, and plenty of flaking old varnish.
I have paddled this boat for an hour on a local lake and she handles very well.
I am going to clean her up, remove the damaged rotten outwales and see about replacing them with new wood. The half ribs are a different problem and I need to understand if cleaning up the interior and the gluing these back in place will work.
Its an interesting project and I would like a serviceable boat at the end of it, not necessarily an historically correct one.
I hope that makes some sense?
Kind regards
Andy
 

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Or canots Roby?

Frankly, gluing half ribs in place is vexing. But looking at this new image you shared, I don't see any evidence of clinched tacks. That is a first. Roby was apparently marching to his own drum beat.
If your plan is to keep the glass and try to sort out what you have, I could envision removing the ones that are lifting, cleaning them as well as possible before bonding them back in place. You could use a board positioned under the inside rails as a brace to position strips applying pressure to the ribs while they bond. I would use a West Sytems G-Flex for that.
 
MGC said:
Or canots Roby?

Frankly, gluing half ribs in place is vexing. But looking at this new image you shared, I don't see any evidence of clinched tacks. That is a first. Roby was apparently marching to his own drum beat.
If your plan is to keep the glass and try to sort out what you have, I could envision removing the ones that are lifting, cleaning them as well as possible before bonding them back in place. You could use a board positioned under the inside rails as a brace to position strips applying pressure to the ribs while they bond. I would use a West Sytems G-Flex for that.
Click to expand...
Thank you Mike! I need to find some suitable wood for outwale replacements as well as cleaning off all the old varnish before trying to reglue the half ribs. Like the suggestions for applying pressure after glue.
Kind regards
Andy
 
So having cut and scarfed the ash I found for outwales, these have now been soaked and one side steamed into place. Just the other outwale to steam the ends of.
Lifting, cleaning and reglueing the half ribs makes the most sense, even it will be a time consuming task. I think I have the basics of a solution to holding the glued/epoxied half ribs in place, as per the photo, but maybe with some foam in place of the towelling?
IMG_2081.jpeg
IMG_2098.jpeg

Any thoughts gratefully received!
Cheers from France
Andy
 
Being a somewhat lazy sort, I would simply jam that crossbar under the inside rails and jam a piece (or two) of wood under it to apply the pressure to the faux ribs....
I recognize that the clamps allow you to use the same bits of wood throughout the entire length and width of the boat, but can you exert enough pressure? You could use two pieces clamped together and adjusted for length to save wood.
 
Andy, I think your clamps will work, but you don't want to apply very much pressure if you are using epoxy - just enough to hold the half-ribs down flat. Epoxy is a "gap-filling" adhesive unlike wood glue. If for some reason you need to apply a lot of pressure, there are ways to prevent "squeeze-out" such as mixing glass fibers into the epoxy.
 
Oh, sorry I wasn't clear!
I bought several additives from System Three, including milled glass fiber, fumed silica, and phenolic micro-balloons. The latter two I have used extensively but I haven't actually tried the milled glass fiber.
The fumed silica thickens the epoxy as little or as much as you like, even to the point of putty.
The micro-balloons have very little thickening effect, so you wind up adding a lot. This makes a fairing compound that is mostly micro-balloons, and they are fragile so the result is easy to sand.
The milled glass fiber looks like cotton candy but I think it is just very fine pieces of glass fibers. System Three recommends it for joints that will be compressed before the epoxy cures, to prevent squeeze-out.
All three can be used in various combinations, if you are seeking a particular result, but that is another thing I haven't tried.
 
Again, being a bit on the lazy side, I would simply use thickened G-flex and avoid the science project. For this application an adhesive that cures without becoming brittle is essential. Those faux ribs will be subjected to flexure.
 
MGC said:
Being a somewhat lazy sort, I would simply jam that crossbar under the inside rails and jam a piece (or two) of wood under it to apply the pressure to the faux ribs....
I recognize that the clamps allow you to use the same bits of wood throughout the entire length and width of the boat, but can you exert enough pressure? You could use two pieces clamped together and adjusted for length to save wood.
Click to expand...
Many thanks for taking the time to respond, I absolutely understand where you are coming from on this!
My understanding is that I need to ‘hold‘ the half ribs down in place whilst the epoxy sets, rather than exerting any great pressure. The pad at the end was first thoughts about distributing the pressure as best as possible to reduce the number of verticals.

There are at least 16 of the half ribs that need to be lifted, cleaned and relaid so I’m looking for a relatively simple repeatable process that reuses what I have laying around (as you can see from the pics, there are all kinds of bits and pieces laying around!).

I’m not ready to start the ribs yet, but will feed back as I go along.
 
Worth Gretter said:
Andy, I think your clamps will work, but you don't want to apply very much pressure if you are using epoxy - just enough to hold the half-ribs down flat. Epoxy is a "gap-filling" adhesive unlike wood glue. If for some reason you need to apply a lot of pressure, there are ways to prevent "squeeze-out" such as mixing glass fibers into the epoxy.
Click to expand...
Many thanks for taking the time to respond.
Yes, agree that I don’t need too much squeeze pressure, just holding pressure. Whilst those clamps work well, they are not an easy single handed solution so not needing to exert lots of pressure whilst installing them is a bonus!
 
Worth Gretter said:
Oh, sorry I wasn't clear!
I bought several additives from System Three, including milled glass fiber, fumed silica, and phenolic micro-balloons. The latter two I have used extensively but I haven't actually tried the milled glass fiber.
The fumed silica thickens the epoxy as little or as much as you like, even to the point of putty.
The micro-balloons have very little thickening effect, so you wind up adding a lot. This makes a fairing compound that is mostly micro-balloons, and they are fragile so the result is easy to sand.
The milled glass fiber looks like cotton candy but I think it is just very fine pieces of glass fibers. System Three recommends it for joints that will be compressed before the epoxy cures, to prevent squeeze-out.
All three can be used in various combinations, if you are seeking a particular result, but that is another thing I haven't tried.
Click to expand...
Useful info simply presented, thank you.
 
MGC said:
Again, being a bit on the lazy side, I would simply use thickened G-flex and avoid the science project. For this application an adhesive that cures without becoming brittle is essential. Those faux ribs will be subjected to flexure.
Click to expand...
Absolutely, and I don’t see it as being lazy, just getting on with the work so I can get back out on the water
 
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