Identification 17' canoe

[Mary Ann]

Hi ,

I could use some help identifing our canoe that has been handed down in our family. We thought it was a 1925 Old Town 17' Serial number 48034 17. I called the Old Town company but they said it was not one of their numbers.

We live on a lake in Ohio and we have had many hours of enjoyment from this canoe labeled as the SS GRAMMY in honor of our late Grandmother who handed it down to us.

Recently I thought it would be a good idea to look into getting it insured and also to look into the possibility of replacement parts in case we should need them.

Any information you could come up with on this would be greatly appreciated.

Mary Ann

 

[Al Sienkiewicz]

Mary Ann: I'm not sure why Old Town said this wasn't one of their canoes. I decided to run 48034 and it comes back to a 17 foot long, CS grade, OTCA model with ash decks, thwarts and seats. This canoe has half ribs, a keel and outside stems. It should be fairly easy to identify. It was built between January and April 1917. The original exterior paint color was dark green and there is a bang plate on the keel. Coincidentally, it shipped on May 14, 1917 to Dayton, Ohio. A scan of this build record can be found by following the link at the attached thumbnail image below.

This scan and several hundred thousand others were created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others. A description of the project to preserve these records is available at http://www.wcha.org/ot_records/ if you want more details. I hope that you will join or renew your membership to the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See http://www.wcha.org/wcha/ to learn more about the WCHA and http://www.wcha.org/join.php to join.

It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description doesn't match your canoe. Feel free to reply here if you have any other questions.

Al

 

[Mary Ann]

Al,

Thank you so much I have lots to research now. There are lots of terms I am not farmiliar with so it shoud be fun to learn what they mean.

Sincerely,

Mary Ann

 

[Al Sienkiewicz]

Mary Ann: This group is very helpful in explaining terms or processes that you may not be familiar with. Do not hesitate to ask. We want to spread the addiction of wood/canvas canoes. - Al

 

[Michael Grace]

Hi Mary Ann,

Check out this page from an Old Town catalog:

http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/specific.gif

It will give you lots of detail, but maybe not everything you'd like to know. Great start, though. You should also know that the WCHA Online Store

http://www.wcha.org/catalog/

has for sale a 1910 Old Town catalog reprint as well as a CD containing complete Old Town catalogs from 1901 to 1993. You can also search online auctions for actual Old Town catalogs, and you'll eventually find one for your canoe's year.

Michael

 

[Kathryn Klos]

The SS Grammy

Posting pictures here helps too-- there are those who could tell you whether your canoe fits the build record above, and if not, what the Grammy might be.

Kathy

 

[Mary Ann]

I have a feeling our canoe has been used hard. Still seaworthy but I see some issues. It came into our family somewhere in the 1940's. It was re-canvased and the cain replaced with rope somewhere in the late 50's early 60's by my father and grandfather.

In 1973 a storm caught it and blew it into a tongue of a trailer which put a hole in the wood. It hung in a garage until my father patched it and repainted it about three years ago so I could use it on the lake where I live.

Thank you for the diagram because I didn't know what a bang plate was but that is a piece that is missing.

Can anyone tell me if at the top of the keel and stern if it is seperate pieces of wood at the points. That is where our most damage is currently because the wood has become brittle and is falling apart.

Hopefully the pictures have been attached.

Thanks again for everyones input.

Mary Ann

 

[Kathryn Klos]

Hi Mary Ann-- You have a beautiful Old Town Otca... very nice lines, as we say. If you use the "search" function above and put in "otca", you may find some interesting information... but I think you'd enjoy reading Sue Audette's book, "Old Town, Our First Hundred Years" (available in bookstores, libraries, Amazon, eBay, and our WCHA store)... it'll give you a better understanding of an appreciation for your family's canoe.

If you can post a close-up of the damaged area you're concerned about, you might get better advice-- well, any advice on repairs is better if it isn't mine-- although I can tell you that re-caning the seats isn't a difficult thing to do and you'd be proud of the results. There are a number of cane sources, but I get ours from H.H. Perkins, which you can Google. They have a little book by Ruth Comstock that has been around since the Dawn of Time, which I used to teach myself to do chair seats, loooooong ago. There are also caning instructions on line.

A couple of the special things about your canoe (and the build record appears to be the correct one): The half-ribs are nice. That was an "extra"... and they give the canoe more of a floor. They look nice too... add a little weight, but when I don't have to lift a canoe, I go for "pretty".

The outside stems are the extra pieces of hardwood on the curved ends of the canoe-- which add an extra inch or so to the length and a whole lot of protection to the ends of the canoe if it's being paddled too vigorously, straight into the dock. Outside stems are very pretty, because they define the edge of the canoe... just as you see on your canoe, with the contrast between the color of the canvas and the wood.

The older Otca canoes, such as yours, had this longer deck rather than the typical Old Town deck. This was discontinued in 1957.

Grammy is a pretty lady!

Kathy

 

[Michael Grace]

Looks like the build record that Al posted corresponds to your canoe. It is an Old Town Otca with half ribs and outside stems. If by "at the top of the keel and stern" you're referring to the tips of the canoe where all the parts come together, then yes, there are multiple pieces of wood there. The gunwales include one inwale and one outwale on each side. These longitudinal members sandwich the ribs ends between inwale and outwale, and are important structural members. The inside stem at each end is also an important structural member. It is where the planking is attached at the ends, and it is visible inside the canoe running from the floor up and inside the curve at each end. Many canoes were made with inside stems only, but as an option, Old Town would dress a canoe up with outside stems, screwed to the inside stem through the canvas.

So at the tips, you have 7 pieces of wood coming together at each end- 2 pairs of gunwales, the deck, the inside stem and the outside stem. It is very common to have rot in the ends (see attached photos). It can be minor or it can be severe, but in any case, it should be repaired and it is repairable. Search these forums and you'll find a variety of posts about repairing rotted ends; some of these posts have nice photos. If you want to try your hand at the repairs, you should consider Stelmok and Thurlow's book "The Wood And Canvas Canoe" (available in the WCHA online store, and you might search for a member who restores canoes in your area for advice or to do some work for hire.

Your canoe has a few probable modifications. It looks like the bow thwart has been replaced (it looks different from the others, and the others look original). It also looks like the old brass diamond-head bolts have been replaced. The stern seat was usually mounted right under the gunwales, so yours appears to have been lowered- new long bolts and long spacers. It is probably more stable to have it lower as it is, but might be a tight fit for the paddler between the gunwales.

The attached photos show a before and after. Your canoe may not have suce severe rot, but you'll only know after removing the canvas and really getting a good look at the wood.

Hope this helps,
M

 

[Fitz]

Bolts

I agree with Mike that the stern seat was lowered and new bolts added, but this canoe is dated 1917, so this canoe pre-dates Old Town's use of diamond head bolts, so the remaining carriage bolts could be original - tough to see from the pictures. They were typically iron, counter sunk and plugged on AA grades. I'm not sure what Old Town did with the bolts on CS Grade. Maybe they didn't bother to plug them or someone did remove the plugs and bolts?

Grammy had good taste.

Cheers.

 

[Michael Grace]

OOPS! Good catch, Fitz! I was confused by the discussion of different years, and forgot that Al's record showed 1917. That better explains the canoe, and there's another correction I must make- it is in fact the MIDDLE thwart that is a replacement. It looks like Old Town's style, but from later canoes. The forward and rear thwarts look like the thinner design that was used in the early days. I noticed them right away, and was thinking it was odd that someone would have somehow added an older thwart to a newer canoe. In fact it's just the opposite. I really like the look of those older thwarts. If this were mine, I would craft a matching thwart to put in the center position.

Like Fitz, I cannot remember how Old Town attached thwarts and seats in these early CS-grade canoes, but it looks like the thwart bolts are countersunk on this canoe. Were the bolts countersunk and bunged in early CS Old Towns like they were on AA-grade canoes?

Michael

 

[Michael Grace]

Brian Rickman's post here

http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?t=4584

shows what appears to be an early O.T. Otca that looks in photos like it is CS grade. It appears to have original thwarts, and the bolts through the gunwales are countersunk and (would be) bunged.