Inwales and Rib Tips. Looking for opinions.

[yeolwoodsman]

I spent this beautiful sunny day doing some sanding on my next project. It's my 1922 OT HW. What I spent the day thinking about was how to best deal with the Inwales and Rib tips. The Inwales are in poor shape. All the ends need to be repaired, and there are extra seat bolt holes because the seats were moved. Two new decks are in the works as well. There are about 30 rib ends that are in rough shape. Here are my options... I think.

1. Completely replace the inwales and restore the rib ends.
2. Fix the inwales by adding new ends, and repair the rib ends.
3. Replace the inwales below the existing one and shorten all the rib ends.

I'm looking forward to the usual great insights!

 

[Dave Wermuth]

All good

I think they are all good options. If the shape of the inwales is fair and the inwales are not broken, I would keep them and splice tips. Splicing rib tops is easy and a good example can be ween on Dave Osborn's site on the war canoe restoration.

Cutting down the height is, to my way of thinking the least favorable option because once it's done, it's rather permanent. I did it on a rather deep 13' OT and it looked good with wtill almost 12" of depth.

Let us know what you decide.

 

[yeolwoodsman]

Thanks for the reply Dave,

As far as the inwales go they are still fair and not broken...yet. I'm questioning their strength because of the extra holes and some cracking next to them. The decks and seats will be new so I was leaning toward new inwales. The old outwales are long gone. That's probably what leads me to the question on the ribs and lowering.

I'm not apposed to replacing rib tips. I did a few on the OT Otca that I already restored. Quite easy actually. The question for me is what's going to work and look the best. The rib tips that I did on the Otca were all up next to the decks so you couldn't see much of them except for the very ends. Check pics. After a recount of the tips with varying degrees of issues I count 50 that need attention. Some will need to replaced and some to be repaired. I guess I'm just trying to do the best for the boat, and need some additional wisdom before I forge ahead.

Still undecided

 

[Dave Wermuth]

xtra holes

as far as the extra holes is concerned, you could epoxy a dowel in each that you want to fill.